Wikimedia Commons
PROVO, Ut. — Want to get ahead in this world? Work lots of extra hours — even nights and weekends — experts say, and it will all be worth your while.
“It’s easy to forget what’s most important in life,” says Bill Loney, a certified life coach who hasn’t quite made it in life yet. “Family, friends, and social activities that can often inspire and enrich the life of an individual… these are all distractions in getting more work done,” he adds.
Emma Royds, who hasn’t stopped looking at her smartphone every five minutes for three straight years, councils that most people actually die wishing they had spent more time — not less — working. “People never regret working too much,” she says. “My neighbor opted to do adventurous, social, and fitness-related activities with family and friends in his spare time.
“Now 80, he told me recently he really wishes he would have spent more time on TPS cover sheets, obsessively trying to turn his company into the next big thing, and reading email during every waking hour of his life. It’s kind of sad, really.” Continue reading…
Credit: National Geographic
What luck we have. Not only were we born on the most marvelous planet in the observable universe—not to mention the only habitable one out of gazillions—but the one we did inherit has seven distinct, magnificent continents.
Picking just one experience from each that best personifies the greater landmass is an impossible job, not to mention totally unfair. But life isn’t fair. Nor is this column. If you need someplace to start when attempting to bag all seven continents, make it one of these iconic and universally well-rated encounters. Continue reading…
Courtesy Lindsey Snow
Last month, Paste Magazine unexpectedly and suddenly shuttered their travel section and (along with it) my weekly column. After 126 consecutive and wonderful stories, the news was devastating.
More than just money (which admittedly wasn’t much), the perk-filled gig served as a weekly source of education, inspiration, and a renewed understanding of writing for mainstream audiences again. Furthermore, it took me and sometimes even my friends and family to five different continents, dozens of countries, countless destinations, and introduced me to hundreds of interesting people.
Although I’ve yet to find a replacement, I have some promising leads for the unpublished and upcoming articles in the pipe. And I’m determined and confident that I’ll be able to find a new suitor for my column, which was read by over 900,000 monthly individuals, according to a November 2016 estimate by the nation’s fourth largest tourism board (i.e. Visit Orlando).
Until then, here are the stories I am most proud of—the best of my travel column so far: Continue reading…
Courtesy Chevrolet/Barry Staver
Excluding non-bylined commercial work, here’s what I published last month:
credit Lindsey Snow
For those who care, here’s where my travel column went last month:
Courtesy 20th Century Fox
Here’s where my travel column went last month:
MGM
Here’s where my travel column went last month:
Paramount Pictures
Here’s where my travel column went last month:
credit: blake snow
Perhaps one of the below might inspire your next offline adventure:
Courtesy Fox Searchlight
Last month I started a travel column for Paste Magazine. Here’s what I wrote about this month:
Thanks for reading.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
I just started a new travel column for Paste Magazine. It’s called “Off the Grid.” You should read it.
First one up: 5 overlooked National Parks. To help you along the way, I’ll follow it up every week with all things awesome.
Thanks for reading (and for sharing if you like what you read).
Unplayable cut scenes, cinemas, or in-game movies have been a part of video games for more than 20 years. They help advance the plot, serve as a rest area for players and produce shock and awe like any good movie.
While the technique is evolving (some developers like Valve shun them altogether in favor of total interaction), cut scenes often make games feel bigger than they really are. And nobody does it better than the following games when it comes to memorable cinematics.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
Ghosts may be the first thing you think of when you hear the word “spooky,” but they make for lousy Halloween costumes. They have a rich history with video games, and for that, I respect them. So in the spirit of disembodied souls and our favorite pagan holiday, I give to you the best video game ghosts of all time.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
It’s almost impossible to hear the word “Atari” and not reminisce on joysticks, paddle controllers, stick-men animation, beeps and blips and countless gaming classics. If it weren’t for Atari, there probably wouldn’t be Nintendo, PlayStation, or Xbox – at least as we know them.
While arcade hits make up the lion’s share of popular games found on Atari systems, original favorites also call the platform home. Wooden-panel consoles, we salute you with the best Atari games.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
Developers have made more than 2,400 games for PlayStation 2, Sony says. That’s easily the most of any console, which makes sense, considering that a whopping 140 million of the units have been sold since its debut eight years ago.
With a library and audience that big, there truly is something for everyone on the system, and new games are still being released. The following five are the creme de la creme – and found only on the PS2 system.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
Reducing the most memorable video game quotes to just five is a tough task. From classic “Duke Nukem” one-liners to the inadvertent hilarity of poor Japanese-to-English translations, the options are virtually endless.
And while a mention of “All your base are belong to us” is perhaps more than deserving (the phrase spawned a major Internet meme at the turn of the decade, after all), the following extracts are the ones that truly define the medium – the most choice video game quotes of all time.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
Later this month, 20th Century Fox will release “Max Payne,” the most recent video game to get a Hollywood makeover. But if history is any indication, the movie will be a critical stinker, as have been the majority of cringe-inducing, game-related feature films.
That’s not to say there haven’t been any good ones (or at least a handful of bearable ones). And from time to time, there have even been some great ones, particularly those that use video games as a backdrop, as opposed to driving the central story. And these are the best – the ones that will leave you minimally embarrassed or even impressed.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, it’s the best buccaneers.
“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me. We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot. We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot…” when playing games, that is.
Tired of incessant World War II-themed shooters? Then drink up me hearties, these are our top five video game pirates – with choice gameplay to boot. After you check out the list, tell us your favorite gaming buccaneers.
Continue reading at MSNBC…
Blake Snow examines gaming benevolence and creative development twice monthly. The color of next-gen is bright.
Mr. Bright Side, here, back with more. This time, I focus on the increasing role of videogames as rehabilitation products, surgical guiding lights, brain developers, an aid to cancer researchers and tools for paramedics training — no, I’m not making this stuff up.
It’s easy to understand how conventional gamers and industry pundits may have grown tired of the positive media coverage enjoyed by Nintendo Wii since first launching more than a year and a half ago. Indeed, Nintendo took press clippings to a whole new level at E3 2007, when it incessantly showed a stream of favorable “we told you so” videos, but if you don’t get warm and fuzzy watching the “Wii Being Used as Therapy” story that was televised on “The Today Show” in March, you have a heart of coal.
Continue reading at Crispy Gamer…
Blake Snow examines gaming benevolence and creative development twice monthly. The color of next-gen is bright.
In 2007, a fictional food critic by the name of Antone Ego aptly described mass media and its audience when he wrote: “We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.”
Ego’s definition couldn’t have been wiser. Indeed, positive news has long since taken a backseat to negative reporting, with the former often compressed to a 20-second closing spot in a 30-minute telecast.
The same is true of videogames, if not by more, which have long been vilified and blamed for idleness, poor grades, insensitivity and random acts of violence by the mainstream media. Interestingly, even the gaming press has become more grumpy in recent years, adding drama where there is none to be found, discouraging industry growth and change, and forgetting the playful nature of videogames altogether.
Continue reading at Crispy Gamer…
