The Swagger #22 — Sunday Come to Jesus

Greetings from poolside, Pattaya on what's for me, a Sunday afternoon. I've always liked spending time at the pool and, truth be told, more so than the beach. Generally. Lots of reasons. Some exceptions.

The heat has been stifling, so there's been that reason to spend more time at the pool. The other has been real-life socializing. Since I don't really frequent bars anymore, I'm in face-to-face contact with fewer people. Plus, it doesn't take much effort to raise the bar over what you'll find at the bar in terms of quality interaction.

Most recently, I've been chatting a lot with three American expat entrepreneurs who've landed here in Thailand and, as coincidence would have it, also live on the same floor. Tony, James, and Joshua, three ex-Army dudes from Georgia in their late 30s, I'd estimate. Being ex-Army and having done their tours here and there, they figured out the Thai-chick scene on their own soon enough. Let's just say they're having a good time. Duh. They all want to start businesses here. All are quite sharp and thoughtful. Yea, they're also black Americans. Why that's something to even point out, I don't know. Irrelevant factoid.

It's not New York, London, or Paris, I know. But that pool (with adjoining gym) and my spacious studio on the 10th floor with a wide angle, open view of the surroundings, is the best I can do on $270 per month. Not a typo. If only they had "free" healthcare, pestering and hassling "crime prevention" services to make chick and beta-male voters feel safe and secure, and other "essential services" like worker's compensation and unemployment "insurance," it'd surely be worth the $2,700 I might pay per month in...New York, London, or Paris. Not a typo.

If the topic of International Living and Geoarbitrage interests you further, I blog on that topic at FreeTheAnimal.com.

For Thursday's 21st Edition of The Swagger, I got so deep into the issue of the new crazy, near magical fat loss peptides, that I went way long and was way late getting it out, and that was with canning the 3rd section.

Make All Your Online Useful To You Again. It has been about 30 years since us early adopters got an IBM clone PC, a modem, internet connection, and got online. It was amazing. Then the rest of the world started showing up and now, 3 decades later, simple measures to stem the tide are called for and can help a lot. Don't withdraw. Engage with useful purpose.

So here we go with that. Actionable. Useful. Also: neither nice nor careful, but those things are for losers. You're not a loser, are you?

1. Introduction

2. The Value of Effort Online: Engage with Purpose and Precision

3. Evaluating Online Interactions

4. Email as a Tool for Meaningful Exchange

5. On The Personal Side: Making Text Messaging Work For You

6. Handling Low-Effort Individuals Online

... One little additional tidbit first, because some folks have been asking "how's it going?" Snapped yesterday.

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