My motivation has always been erratic. I’ve seen almost entire years go by without producing much of consequence. But it’s important to understand that this is my own fault - as much as I might complain about being unmotivated, motivation is only a conflict between short term and long term goals. As much as it might be easier and more immediately rewarding tonight for me to buy a bottle of Scotch and sit down to a Die Hard marathon than to produce a new video or article, the latter is much more rewarding in the long run. And although it’s important to buy a bottle of Scotch and sit down to a Die Hard marathon now and then, doing it too often just becomes an excuse to avoid going to the effort to make the most of your life.

My motivation is better now that I have deadlines. Some people work better without deadlines. I am not one of those people. If you give me a project and tell me to finish it whenever, it will likely never get done. A solid deadline, for me, inspires results. It’s not just the fact that my editor will yell at me if I miss a deadline (and he will, and rightfully) but somehow the reality of an end date forces me to perform. And I find, I don’t just perform on the project that actually has a deadline - I’ve been working on a book lately, and I’ve been more productive in writing my book since Cracked started giving me regular deadlines than before, even though the book itself has no deadline. I don’t know why. It seems constant work - any work - has a kind of motivational effect on ALL my work at the same time.

For example, the least productive time in my entire life was when I was unemployed, living at home, and had effectively no responsibility toward anyone. Many would consider this a writer’s dream - with no other obligations, I should be able to focus 100% of my life on my work. But that isn’t the case. Instead, I stagnate. I only find motivation under pressure - paradoxically, when I have less time to work on my own projects.

Now that I have more responsibility every day, I occasionally wish for the time when I had no deadlines, no job, no rent, and no responsibility. But I know that it’s a foolish thing to wish for, because I know that I would spend that time waking up at 1pm every day, surfing the web for a few hours in my underwear, and then go back to bed having accomplished nothing for weeks on end. These days, I have so little time to dedicate to my personal projects, but I can rejoice in the fact that this means that they will get done.

OPEN YOUR MIND, QUAID

cracked:

Life is precious, you fucks.

The Creme Egg one is fake

Stop logging in to Tumblr for a few days and apparently you get hacked or something. Sorry folks

hereinidaho:

Please tell me how to cure ‘girl.’ Also, what is she doing with that tv?

This does not look like a comfortable position. How is she even doing that?

Due to several inconveniently colliding circumstances, I’ve found myself flat broke for the first time in a while. The Christmas/New Years break is always crappy for finances, but when you add that to the fact that I’m paying rent again, all my bills have aligned in a syzygy of misfortune, and my last paycheck got lost in the black hole of bureaucracy, I’ve found myself thrust back into my early student days when condiments and garlic bread constituted meals on their own. This time it’s temporary instead of a long haul, so it serves as an uncomfortable nostalgia more than anything.

Anyway, tonight I’m making pov slop.

This is a simple thing I invented the last time I was drowning in the mires of poverty. In basic terms it’s a kind of thick potato and broccoli soup, but it serves as a delivery system for all your leftovers or whatever you have in the fridge or pantry that don’t quite make a meal on their own. When I was younger I knew a guy who used to call this sort of thing an “all-in.”

Broccoli and potato are ridiculously cheap, so all-up everything I bought for this cost under $15, and I still have a lot of potato left. What you need to do first is get a bunch of broccoli and chop the leafy bits off the stalks. When I’m not poor, I just throw the stalks away, but this time I’m going to chop them into chunks and boil them along with the potatoes. I also put some garlic cloves and chopped up carrots in here. Fill the pot with water and stock, only about half the height of the food pile, cover and boil the living crap out of it. We want it soft enough it’s mashable. Because we’re going to mash it.

Now it looks, well, pretty horrible. But here’s where you add pretty much whatever the hell you want to it. Mash it up, dump the leafy broccoli bits into it, and return it to a simmer, stirring occasionally. I’ll usually put other vegetables in, sometimes some tinned corn, mushrooms, that sort of thing.

Now it’ll thicken into a solid mash and it could burn on the bottom if you try to cook it like that, so I add a little cream or milk to smooth it out. I’m also adding some chilli flakes to give it a kick, and it’s going to need a fair amount of salt, but otherwise here’s where you put in whatever flavours you want. Potato and broccoli is a bit of a blank slate.

This is looking dangerously like a vegetarian meal. And it can be if you’re into that sort of thing. But I’m going to add some meat. This is casserole beef, the cheapest beef that I could find, but still the most expensive ingredient at about six bucks for a kilo. While the slop is simmering, I brown these up real nice.

Then it goes in the slop!

I guarantee this is a lot tastier than it looks. It’s basically just a thick stew, and the thing is, I got about five litres of it, or a couple of bucks per serving, which is more than enough to make it a few days before my parents can lend me some money.

archiemcphee:

How to be a Retronaut has posted a wonderful series of photographs taken by Michael Rougier for LIFE magazine sometimes in the 1970s. They depict the everyday life of a family and what appears to be their awesome pet lion. Our efforts to find the original LIFE article have failed thus far, but we would love to know what brought lion and family together in the first place and, you know, whether he ever decided to make a snack of one of them.

Be sure to check out How to be a Retronaut to see the entire series.