This post originally appeared on my previous blog, TheStarrList, on 1/12/13 and earned me an IGN Community Spotlight profile. Reblog comes courtesy of Ben Kuchera’s Four ways to become a happier gamer, and person, in 2015

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1. Boost Your Brain Power

Generally, we are all fans of music. Whether it’s dance, metal, hardcore, or pop, we can usually identify something upbeat or driving in our iTunes Library. While upbeat music is great for getting pumped up, short of studying chord progressions and lyrical meaning, there is little payoff to listening to the same set of repetitive tracks on every jog. For some, music may actually be the reason they dread running. Next time you’re out, try a podcast!

Similar to talk radio, there are tons of free and unique podcasts in the iTunes store. From cooking tips to comedy, tech talks and TED Talks, there is something for everyone. Subscribe to a few podcasts and load up your iPod. Have a smartphone? Download a podcast app for your iOS or Android device!

If podcasts aren’t your thing, try an audiobook. I once heard a story of a runner who would listen to suspense novels while training. Only while training would he allow himself to listen to the books and, assuming they were any good, this tactic kept him from wanting to stop running. It also conditioned him to crave running. During races, he allowed himself to indulge in a playlist of upbeat music. This helped change the pace and created a fresh experience.

Understandably, podcasts and audiobooks are certainly not as upbeat as music. However, unless your are sprinting for a time, a good jog requires endurance over speed, and an informative podcast or suspenseful audiobook will certainly keep you at your paces.

2. Fresh Air

While treadmills are great during extreme weather or the night, nothing comes close to an outdoor jog. As simple as it sounds, a bit of fresh air can do wonders for the soul. After a long workday or at the tail end of being bedridden, busy city streets or a refreshing view of distant mountains can provide for a cleansing of the mind and clear thoughts. Stepping away from your belongings for 20-60 minutes can be enough to remind you of what is really important in life, provide a little inspiration for that project you’re working on, or help sift out those feelings of anguish toward a troublesome co-worker.

As you run, breathe in and take a look around. Get out into the world to remind yourself that the world is much larger than your immediate surroundings. If you are lucky enough to cross paths with another jogger, remember to pass along the motivation with a friendly wave, thumbs-up, or high-five. Tell yourself that those drivers on their commute home are looking at you in envy, wishing they had your drive. Your efforts will certainly inspire others.

3. Game On

When I began running, I was fairly overweight. Unbeknownst to me, my body did not behave the way it did in high-school. I was still expecting to be able to eat the same junk food and plop down in front of video games with no severe consequence to my body. I was sorely mistaken. I knew that I needed to do something to get back into shape. I had heard about Nike+ and decided to take a leap of faith. I invested $300+ (a lot to a college student) into running equipment, an iPod, and the Nike+ sensor. I began to play a new kind of video game.

We can all appreciate a good game. Most of us grew up playing board or video games because they provided competitive and, in most cases, friendly fun. For those that need a little extra push to head out on a jog, making a game of it can do the trick! Several companies are gamifying the workout experience and the Nike+ service is leading the way! Nike+ not only keeps records of run/walk history including miles run, calories burned, and average pace, it also includes cross-community challenges. See where you rank amongst your friends on the weekly leader-board, be the first to reach 100 miles in the office, or challenge your best friend to a calorie burn competition! As you run and compete, you will earn achievements and kind words from world-renowned athletes, pushing yourself to run a little farther next time or maybe try one extra jog per week. Gamifying the jogging experience is a great way to stay motivated and provide a new kind of gaming experience!

Nike+ is offered through GPS iOS and Android apps as well as a shoe sensor (and iPod dongle in needed) for specially designed Nike+ enabled shoes.

4. Solitude

Everyone needs a little “me” time. Similar to tip 2, solitude can help provide clarity and peace-of-mind. Leaving you to your own thoughts can allow you to sort out those items that have been filling you with anxiety or allow you to solve that problem that’s been gnawing at you for the past several days. For some, solitude can assist in inspiration or a moment of clarity. The ability to completely escape the needs of others and detach oneself from the rest of society undoubtedly allows us to sort out what is really important and a stimulating jog only enhances the experience.

5. Multitask

For those of you that have trouble carving out a chunk of your day to exercise because there is just simply “too much to do,” you likely crave productivity. The best part about jogging is that the four tips listed above can all be achieved on a single run.

Over the course of several years, I have realized that multitasking is my biggest motivation to run. As often as possible, I will set aside 1-2 hours to jog and blog. After turning on my Nike+ app, I quickly throw on a podcast. Be it John Gruber’s Apple-centric The Talk Show, obscure stories across America on This American Life, or staying up-to-date with the latest video game industry news with The Indoor Kids or IGN’s Game Scoop, these podcasts not only fill my interests but they provide me with ideas.

Throughout the course of a single outdoor jog, I am afforded the luxury of audible inspiration through podcasts and sightly inspiration through my environment. I am disconnected from social media, e-mail, and text messages and am able to focus on myself. If I am able to push myself a little farther and a little harder, I may beat the stats from my last run. By the end, I am usually able to churn out an idea or two for my blogs. Within 1-2 hours, I have satisfied my desire to be productive by gaming, thinking, mentally cleansing, and blogging… and exercise!

Here’s a great bit about the anxieties of being a new, lone blogger from Jason Snell on The Talk Show with John Gruber, time stamp 1:18:50 - 1:32:45:

Being a one person operation, if you’re busy writing a deep-think-piece about something that’s going to go on for a thousand words, you’re not writing things to post to the site today. I feel like, with a less established site like mine, I definitely feel pressure to keep the lights on every day and try to balance those things. You have a different pace. You can post some links and then you put out a bigger piece every so often.

I like your pace but I don’t feel like I can do that right now. I feel like I need to keep the heartbeat a little stronger because I’m trying to establish myself and pick up an audience I may not have captured yet.

The review of the Retina iMac was an example. It took me two or three days to write that. One of my challenges was always should I keep writing this now, or should I stop and find something short to write and post to the site just to let people know I’m still alive while I’m also writing this longer piece. Trying to find that balance is tricky.

Again, not being on a team anymore, and being just myself, I’ve learned the powerful lesson of how little one person is capable of producing versus a staff.

Snell, formerly of Macworld, launched the fantastic Six Colors blog in 2014.

In April 2014, I realized my blog TheStarrList had taken a hard turn into gaming. It was time to start something new. I gathered up those gaming-centric posts from TheStarrList along with several lengthy comments I had made on Polygon and IGN articles and stuffed them into a blog formatted after John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. In May 2014, I launched The State of Gaming with the intention to focus on business, controversy, culture, education, history, health, and other topics in the gaming industry. After a link on Daring Fireball, I decided to cool-down the blog’s pretentious title into something more personal. I recalled a childhood debate: When considering “lives” in video games, does “x1” mean you are on your last, or does zero count?

Writing about games has long been a dream of mine, but there has always been insecurity in indulging in entertainment critique and commentary. For lack of better terms, Zero Counts has tapped into a rich well of inspiration, passion, and creativity. By surrendering my inhibitions about games writing, I have written more frequently and published more on varied topics than ever before.

Without further adéu, here are the most popular posts from launch year, 2014:

1. Hail Mario (linked by Daring Fireball)
2. Humanity in Hearthstone
3. Club Nintendo stuck in Mario Kart traffic
4. Old School Hip Hop is the new Golden Oldies (retweeted by Ben Thompson)
5. Save developers and you will save your soul

Looking forward to even more writing in 2015.

Rolling Stone:

While radio stations have seen their audience decrease as tech-savvy consumers flock to satellite radio and streaming audio, broadcasters might have finally found a format that can lure listeners back to FM: Classic hip-hop. Playlists that shine the spotlight back on artists like the Notorious B.I.G., Naughty By Nature and Missy Elliott are currently sweeping the nation, with major broadcasters like Radio One, iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media frantically changing the format of underperforming stations to the sounds of classic hip-hop, the New York Times reports.

This makes perfect sense. Hip hop debuted around 1979 — 35-ish years ago — now dubbed “Old School”. “New School” hip hop began around 1983 and carried through to the early ‘90s — 22-ish years ago. The broader era of “Golden Age” hip hop spans mid-80s to early-90s — call it 25-35+ years go. In 2015, this is a 25-35+ years old genre.

So, what are “oldies”?

Oldies, Wikipedia:

In the 1980s and 1990s, “oldies” meant the 15 years from the birth of rock n roll to the beginning of the singer-songwriter era of the early 1970s, or about 1955 to 1972, although this varied and some stations chose 1950-1969.

Doing the math, in the 1980s and 1990s, “oldies” encompassed a format including music from 25-35+ years ago. I may be mistaken but Golden Oldies have always seemed like a tried and true radio station format.

Charles Yu, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

It’s at this point, while having my second dialogue with St. George, that I come to a formulation of a new worldview. If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then writing about alcohol is like dancing about alcohol, especially if you write about it while drinking it. Or something like that; I don’t know. I think my analogy went fuzzy halfway through. That’s the thing about rum criticism. It is the most honest art form, in that it allows you to demonstrate the effects of the product directly on the comprehensibility of your prose. Case in point: the previous sentence. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some rum to eat.

Fun read. Sounds great.