How to Choose an Alarm Clock

Whether you like it or not, there are times that you must be an early bird. I have to wake up between 5 to 6 in the morning everyday to go to work, so for me it’s a must. There are things you need to know about waking up especially early. You need to have proper tools, mental and physical preparation. One of the most important tool is alarm clock. A good alarm clock is essential for you. You don’t want to be late every once in a while because your clock didn't go off. You better save your vacation days/sick leaves for better causes!
• You need to buy a reliable alarm clock that -as a matter of fact- should be digital. Forget about your grand Pa’s antique mechanical clock. Yes, it reminds you of him but when it doesn’t go off on time you will hate it and/or probably him for the rest of your life!
• A good alarm clock needs to have minimum buttons. Be careful: there are clocks with two or three buttons. if you mistakenly push the wrong one, the settings may change. Imagine you wake up earlier than you suppose to and want to check the time but push the set instead of the light button. Setting the clock back in the middle of the night is the biggest disaster for must-be-early-birds!
• There are nights when you simply cannot sleep well. At these times you develop series of obsessive-compulsive episodes! One of them is being extremely sensitive to the light of clock’s LCD. To avoid this, try to find a clock with adjustable LCD light and take off wall clock's batteries before going to bed (you know why)!
• Being dual powered is highly recommended especially if you do not have enough plug holes in the bedroom. One day you plug the clock off during the day to charge your dead-battery cell and forget to put it back again. In such cases, most people become aware of their mistake after 9 o’clock in the next morning!
• If you are a heavy sleeper or someone who always desires to sleep a little more, you need a snooze bottom too. Snooze helps you shut off the alarm for a short time so that you sleep a little more. However, snoozing only makes you more disappointed about waking up while doesn’t reduce your sleepiness at all.

There are fancy clocks in the market that while going off, spread scents, run or even fly. These are usually expensive for their unusual features but sometimes these features don’t work as you imagine or there are technical problems with their designs. So, be smart and spend your money on a quality product rather than a fancy one!

How to be famous in the Persian artists community out of Iran

Per your request!, here is my instruction in how to become famous in the Persian artists community. With the help of this instruction you can beat anyone regardless of how dumb you are.

1. Find anyone around you who has connections to famous or semi-famous artists. Remember, this is the first and the most important step toward your goal. Be as picky as you can and find people who you want to be alike. Being cool is very important and the group you hang out with defines your level of coolness.
2. Go to all arts events. Try to take as many pictures as you can with famous artists even if someone else is taking the picture. Put your pics up in your facebook page and the other pics will pop up from someone else's blog or profile.
3. Make comments on your pictures as soon as you publish them on facebook so that even friends of your friends can see them.
4. Add as many artists you know to your facebook profile. Don’t worry, they will confirm your friend request. They want to be famous as much as you do.
5. When you see the same artist that you took that picture with a while back, go to him/her and try to make a conversation. Don’t bother if they can’t remember you in the first place. In fact, lots of them recall you but it’s so uncool to recognize you right away.
6. Try to hang out with them in the second time as much as you can. Be creative. Buy them drinks, invite them to an after-party, ask them to attend that other art show, etc.
7. Always have some ideas about the show or event you are attending. It doesn’t matter how dumb your view is because almost nothing makes sense in arts. Just throw the words out using vague descriptions and ask them about their opinion too.
8. Try to make friends with reporters from Radiozamaaneh, RadioFarda, VOA and BBC Persian. Avoid talking to Guardian or New York Times people. They are fair.
9. Start being an artist yourself. Do you know how to play the piano? Good! It doesn’t matter if you barely finished Beyer ten years ago. Go find a piece of music that no one has ever heard of and read everything about it from the composition structure to the composer’s biography. Memorize the piece and have it always handy to play especially in private parties. If you are so dumb, you can always write. So, start a blog and with the help of your friends in Radiozamaaneh, Radio Farda or BBC you can establish your fame in no time.
10. Try to make a circle of friends. Always adore their works of art religiously. Think of it as a trade-in business. You adore their work, they adore your work and everyone is happy. On the other hand, when there is an opportunity, even if you are not qualified to take it, don't recommend your friends for it. Do you want your friends to be more famous than you? No!, never! they better be dead!
11. The last step is to keep up with the community. You don’t need to show up in every event anymore. Actually it’s not cool at all. But when you show up, try to be late and hang out in the waiting room or at the bar more than where the main even is going on. You need to provide other people an opportunity to meet you and continue their own dumb path of becoming famous.
    
    See how smart this plan is. So, give up trying to be a true artist to fit in this community my friend. It doesn’t work that way.

I love fast food

Image taken from: http://calorielab.com/news/2007/04/26/your-kids-dont-let-them-eat-fake-food/

I really like fast food although I don’t have it a lot. The good thing about it is that you don’t need to prepare anything ahead of time. You just have to decide and you’ll have it in less than 10 minutes, thanks to its growing business all around the world. And if you get it while you are going back home using the drive-through, it’s even better. Why? ‘Cause you don’t even have to stop your car and go to the restaurant. You just sit in your car; order what you want through the microphone without looking at the nice smiley tired face of the cashier. Then you slowly drive towards the pick-up window, pay and wait for a minute or two to get your meal in a “paper bag”. Your order is usually prepared more quickly than in-house guests. They don’t want too many cars waiting in the drive-through so that lazy people like me pass by their restaurant in search for a less-crowded fast food place. They don’t even bother you with asking to sign your credit card bill! And every card is accepted. Even your mean American Express which no business likes to deal with!
Have you got your food just now and you are starving? It’s O.K too. You can start having some of the handy parts of it, like the fries, while you’re reaching your destination.
Remember when you cook for an hour or more and after you prepare everything there’s a big mess in the kitchen? Three dishes, some cookware and spices residue all over the place? Well, there’s no such a thing when you have fast food. Just have your food wrapped in a paper or in a paper box and use the napkins and single-served sauces with it. No need to reach that cold sauce in the fridge or look for the salt shaker that only God knows where you left it last time. Are you enjoying it? good, keep on. You know what? Turn on that TV and watch some 80's comedy shows and laugh as laud as you can with the recorded laughing sounds! :)

After having your food with no strings attached, you drop all the trash in your food bag again. See how smart it is? You use the same bag as your garbage bag. You don’t have to use a dish or pick up the dirty napkins, the paper wrap and… separately and throw them into the garbage bin. Just put everything in the same food bag and throw it out. Now, look at your watch, it just took you thirty minutes at most from the decision making part till finishing the task!
So, next time, before you decide to cook yourself, think about it. Does it worth the try? How many dirty dishes and cookware you’re going to have? How long is it gonna take? Can you throw out the whole garbage at once?! And if you are a kind of person who becomes stuffed while cooking only by smelling the food, you really really need to quit cooking and start fastfooding.
Consider fast food seriously my friend. Oh, .. Are you worried about your weight and blood cholesterol? It’s not the fast food's fault, it’s because you don’t want to exercise. But if you have fast food, you save time for exercise too. O,.. wait, don’t forget that you’re being green by using paper bags and not turning on your inefficient oven. So, you’re making the world a better place for the children!