I’m  warning you in advance, this is not your mother’s book review (takes me a tiny bit to get warmed up)! It has a lot of really personal stuff from my life as I reflect on the book, and is discussed in my fun (and language filled) manner.

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse is a book that does not fit in my normal reading list. As with all things in my life, this too has a fascinating story and reflection.

It all started with Jaime. Read the rest of this entry »

I generally try to keep things upbeat.  Even when I’m angry at someone.  But it’s rare that I am sad, and today I have been.  Right now, I’m more along the lines of indifferent, but there were tears coming out and that kind of stuff.  I keep things honest for you, so… here’s my underbelly. Read the rest of this entry »

The human body gets rid of toxins by excreting them one way or another… but since we live in such polluted environments, option B gets used more and more often, which is hiding the waste in fat and other cells in the body. Do I believe all that? Well, yeah…. Do I care? hmmm…. probably. Though, not too much. I mean, we all sit around in front of our radiation emitting devices, holding them up to our heads, while eating the shittiest food we can. Trust me, I”m no angel, and I’m no healthy hippy! I know many of them.

Since I do know a bunch of them, I am at least aware of what I am ingesting, and my environment… So, when I got back from a 3 week road trip, where my diet consisted mostly of Taco Bell, coffee, and other things you can get near the freeway Read the rest of this entry »

Trying a video blogging format. What do you think (other than “OMG! WTF happened to your ear?”

Basically, my ear has been giagantic for 16 hours or so now… maybe I got angry, and am slowly changing into a mix of elephant man and the hulk? Thought I’d exercise, so… watch the video.

Fireworks - seems like a good pic for the new year

As of 2pm on January 1^st, I will have been couchsurfing a full 3 years. I have to admit, it’s gone by quickly. Everyone says “Where did the year go?” But because I blogged more this year, I actually know where it went.  I didn’t blog everything- but here’s my summary.. Read the rest of this entry »

Many people have asked me for more “Day in the life” kind of stuff. I was at Kevin & Will’s to hang, and eat fried Deer and southern food. I’ll start with a video (shot on my webcam): Read the rest of this entry »

Merry Christmas everyone.  Whether you believe in Jesus, or (like me) not, it doesn’t matter. I still wish you an amazing day today.

In our world of instant gratification, rushing everywhere, and a trend towards isolation – though, on the internet talking more briefly to many more -  it is great to have a day where your job is probably closed down.  I hope you spend this time with people that inspire you. Family if you got ‘em…. Life is short, and some strange crap can happen. If you’re not talking, you should try to. If you are talking, go for a hug.

Instead of a short e-mail, or an e-card, why not send them a video? Get a hug today– family if they’re close enough, random strangers if they are near, friends, or of course, the person who’s couch you’re surfing on.

I hope you share dreams, and smiles.  I hope you take some time to reflect upon your life, your year, and what you want to get out of this experience we call life.

I hope of course that you get some great food… doesn’t even have to be home made… in fact, there’s many chinese food places that I know are open!

Whatever you do… remember, you’re alive, eating, and are at least healthy enough to read this blog-post… that means that you’re luckier than 97% of the world’s population.  Spend this day wisely…. invest it in yourself, and your friends and family if you have them.

May you reach your dreams, may you be inspired

Ori “Couch Surfing Ori” Bengal

Happy Hanukkah

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to wish you a Happy Hanukkah.  Even if you’re not Jewish…. enjoy it. I suppose this shouuld be my favorite Jewish holiday, as I was born during Hanukkah.  The 1st thing I despise about it is that in America, no one knows how to spell it.  Is it Channukah? Hanukah?  Hanukkah?  And many more variations.  It’s always on a different time of year, since we Jews have an older calendar than y’all.  None of the calendars I use (Palm Treo, computer, etc) use that calendar system… but I know it exists, ’cause Hanukkah is always on a different time.  Anyways… it’s known as the Festival of Lights, and that’s why my name is Ori, which means “My Light” in Hebrew (unless you misspell it– then it’s “My Skin” or “My Leather” which is great if you’re going to a Fetish Club.).  Of course, I bring much light and joy to my parents’ lives, as well as many others… I bring other things too… but that’s life.

Wikipedia says (and my personal insights afterwards): Read the rest of this entry »

A photo I took of Tellman at Underground

I’d like to start by apologizing that my site was down today… er… yesterday (now that it’s 2:40am).  My host (Bluehost) had moved me to another server, and it took them longer than expected.  They’re usually awesome, so being down for a day sucked (My analytics were starting to look pretty too!). The site’s back up now though!

My friend Kate Buck Jr. is here. She got to crash on my couch today, which is cool, ’cause she’s one of my couches from Austin.  I love returning the Karma.  She’s in town like many others, to attend Matt Bacak and Mark Joyner’s “Survival Tactics for Tough Times” event… This is an awesome event.  I am really impressed with the selection of talent here.  These are internet marketers, but also non-internet legends (like Jeff Paul, and Ted Nicholas).  There’s a good energy, and lots of hugs were exchanged, as I’ve met many of these people in other states, for other events.

Anyways- 3 days of partying and learning the latest and greatest tools and tactics to grow YOUR business, and make the competition poop their pants   (that’s kind of my new slogan).

I am here to learn, and I always enjoy meeting new people, brainstorm, mastermind, and help others…and of course, it’s an excuse to wear my furry hat

I ran into Tellman Knudson, who has already run over 540 miles barefoot this year on his new project “Run Tellman Run” – he’s running across the country barefoot.  He’s breaking a world record. He runs about a marathon distance a day (and he often uses the photo I took of him),  crossing the whole USA.  Despite that I’ll get back to the hotel at 3:40am, I’m going to go running with Tellman at 7am!  Wish me luck!

Someday I'll dance like this

I’ve written about OkCupid.com numerous times now. I guess I’ve been on it for slightly over a year, though, many times I forget. Last year, while couchsurfing in Florida (I was day trading for my parents, while watching their house.  It was stressful, but I kicked ass, so they took me on a cruise to the Bahamas with my cousins from Israel), I was in talks with 2 girls from Atlanta. One of them I list in my list of crazy-as-Ori-women (It’s up to 3… maybe 4 women so far. She was the 2nd), while the other one seemed more normal.  Normal isn’t bad. We emailed, traded photos, and finally made it to the phone.

After a little while, I just felt the vibe wasn’t there…. Some religious differences, some business belief differences, and then… just the simple vibe.  You know, when you start a conversation, and it falters?  So… I didn’t call back after that call, and neither did she, and that was that… until Read the rest of this entry »

The CouchSurfingOri mobile survives another crash.

There’s my car…. another ding.  It’s not so bad, like I said.  I wasn’t dinged up, I don’t think the other lady was too messed up.  Luck… huray!  But… if you believe in luck, do you believe in being able to give other people luck?  Like blessing or cursing?  The reason I ask is because just the night before this happened (less than 12 hours ) I was at my friend Cymmone’s, when her friend Nina said Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quickie– then I gotta get back to it.  I’m digitizing over 70 hours of video!  Back in 2007 / 2008 I was actually shooting stuff on tapes.  Mini-DV tapes, in HDV format.  It’s kind of like High-Def, but slightly compressed.  Anyways– the bitch about shooting on tape is that you have to then rewind the tape, connect the playback device to the computer, and then play it back in real time to capture it.  Take 70 hours of footage, and it’ll take 70 hours + rewind time to capture them.  That doesn’t include any type of editing, nor does it include the output time… a 30 minute clip may take a few hours to encode, and 30 minutes to upload.  This is definitely a process!  The bonus is that it jogs my memory.  I have the best video!  I am so excited! I just watched an hour of me taking a tour of Marshall Brodien’s house… Marhsall was Wizzo The Wizard on the Bozo The Clown Show.  His magic kits have started many of today’s magicians in the business– such as Lance Burton.  I even tell him some of my dumbest jokes, and he makes my business card disappear!  Good times!  There’s Couch 22 juggling Fire.  There’s Couch 59  & the fellows from Couch 60 freestyling about CouchSurfing, while making a ton of mother jokes.  Good times!  Now.. I said there was a lesson in procrastination…. Read the rest of this entry »

What do these2 photos have to do with each other?  Combined, they make this next video: a wearable Hummingbird feeder!

Would you wear this?  I would!

The NOOK e-book reader

Mashable, and the rest of the world started tweeting/blogging/posting about The Nook- Barnes and Nobles’  Kindle Killer, a faster, sleeker, fancier e-book reader.  They matched the new price drop of the Kindle (at $260).  Just in case you haven’t heard of E-book readers, let me tell you about them:

They are portable devices (much of this functionality is finding its way into phones too) – many with screens at 6″.  The screens use something called E-Ink.  This lets you view the black and white (Some day in color– Nook claims color, but that’s not actually for the book reading area– just the menus) book/photos like you would see a regular (paper) book.  There is no glare, and you can read it without a problem in the sun, in bed, etc… You flip the pages by pressing a button.  Amazon started the trend of using the 3G network, so you can always purchase books right into your E-Book reader without needing  a  computer.  Now that you know what they are, let me tell you why I need one (my theory anyways) Read the rest of this entry »

Seriously!  This song is super catchy, traverses across many genres of music.  I love the snappy rhodes piano sound.  Smooth vocals… and it gets stuck in your head.  But, while that’s what originally caught my attention, I then saw the video!

Try to tell me this is not the best stop motion video ever!  Sorry Wallace and Grommit!

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

I don’t really believe in God, or at least in organized religions’ version… but I do know that I (and usually science) can’t explain everything. One of the things that I saw in “The Secret” was to have a vision.  Now, I talk shit about “The Secret” ’cause I’m a workaholic, and they leave off the entire chapter about taking any action, or actually doing anything (I guarantee you that if you jump out of a plane without a parachute, the law of gravity will trump the law of attraction), but… crazy things keep happening!  I really have the life of my dreams– I’ve met the most amazing people, which I’m now proud to call my friends.  I’ve had enough adventure to where I wouldn’t really care if I died tomorrow.  I’m happy.

One of the ways I achieve happiness is also by accomplishing stuff.  One way to accomplish more, is to get a coach (they’re not just for athletes).  I recently hired a coach, and I’ll be blogging about my progress… but in 2006 I had one.  I fired her, because she couldn’t keep up with me, and that was frustrating.  My new coach is a badass… she knows how to deal with people like me!

Now that I started up with a new coach, I contacted my older bro, Barak, and asked if he had my old vision.  This is freaky/neat!  Check this out: The one good thing that came out of my previous coach was that I had made a vision statement.  Here’s what it said: Read the rest of this entry »

For years I’ve been accused of being a Mac user… ’cause my business cards are creative… ’cause I’m a designer… ’cause I don’t wear a suit… and frankly, it pissed me off!  I don’t like Macs. In fact, I still don’t like them.  It’s the equivalent of a hot chick being accused of being dumb, just ’cause she’s good looking.  The 2 can exist separately.  I’ve been building PC’s since 6th grade… I was typing in English (in Israel) before I know how to speak English… but I could type computer commands (Run, Load, Play, list, for, if, goto, then, else, etc..) – so.. here’s a video of me getting my 1st mac (which I’m still not crazy about, but I am getting used to it..)-

I still stand behind PC’s as having a vastl sperior workflow.  Anyways- this is fairly entertaining, considering it’s a video about opening a 17″ Powerbook Pro. This happened in Januaray by the way. Read the rest of this entry »

I keep telling everyone that they can do whatever they’d like. As humans we can fly (some by planes, some by imagination, some by flight-suits), communicate across the word instantly from pocket-sized devices… and yet as individuals, we’re often afraid of trying. Many have a few or public speaking… a fear that is bigger than the fear of death.  It’s not so much the speaking, but the fear of failure or embarassment.  What a terrible quirk to have as humans.  So, in this post, I share 2 videos.

1 video I share because it is the epitome of following your dream. If you have not seen this clip yet, you’re going to want to share it-

Another video shows a literal dream come true:

An elephant on a trampoline… someone smoked the good stuff, and then had wonderful execution. So, this one was more literal than the other… but, artists create– they take from their vision, and create.  That is a god-like quality.  I create art, and on occasion (rare these days) 3d. Slightly little known fact:  I used to be a 3d animator.  I wanted to make movies– stuff like Pixar, or just the special effects that you see in your standard Hollywood flicks.

I’m not really sure what my dreams are these days… it’s tough to remember some times.  I do however pursue anything that I feel I’d like to do, that may be a dream. An easy way to tell is if you say “I wish I could do that…” – If someone else has done it, you can do it!  So, the other week I was glass blowing in Austin.  I’ve always wanted to try that…. probably since I was 5 or so.  Doing it was fun, but afterwards I was sort of floored with the “Wow.. I just did something I’ve wanted to do since I was 5 years old… now what?”  And of course, now I want to hot-air baloon.  I am working on writing a book about my adventures.  I am helping others achiever their goals – personal/business.

Do you even know what your dreams or goals are?  You should probably take a day off, turn your phone off,  leave your computer at home, and go out to nature with a notebook… and just ponder what you’ve always wanted to do, but were afraid to try.  The reward is often much bigger than the consequences (Which are often only in your head).

One of my new friends, whom I met while I lectured at Matt Bacak’s Marketing Madness, told me that he can write about anything.  Since I am flattered, amused, and a big supporter of all things creative, I’d like to share with you this poem that Matthew had sent me (and remember– Matthew can write creativity about any topic– so leave a comment, if you’d like Matthew to write something for you):

Furry-headed zebra
Watch out he’ll fool ya: Read the rest of this entry »

I was getting low on groceries… like… Chicken Pot Pie for breakfast, Ramen Noodle for lunch, and if I wanted to eat my Hummus, I had to use a spoon, as I had no bread.  So… I figured since I was going to go grocery shopping, why not see if Tracy would like to come over for dinner.  When she said yes,  I had to get cookin (yeah… not just a figure of speech).  Check out the menu: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not mentioning her name yet, because I don’t know how she feels about being publicly exhibited (though, I certainly am not ashamed to show her off ), and I know she can read my blog when she feels like it… but she’s got skills!  I already wrote about that “Most interesting show on earth” that she took me to the other day… then there was going to the park on Sunday (I can’t remember the last time I just went to the park)… but tonight Read the rest of this entry »

With over 36 streets named “PeachTree” and a waffle house on every 3 blocks of those, it’s easy to get lost in Atlanta. I’m glad I have my GPS, of course, but sometimes it’s nice to just “Get lost.” I found this Waffle House out of convenience… it’s across the street from Skizzy’s place, and he’s asleep. We went to the studio last night and shot Skizzy (Couch 24) & his pregnant girlfriend, Alyx (couch 57). I guess this is more fun though than hanging there. Not that it’s not fun hanging out over there. The cat and I get along great, and there’s a cute doggie to play with! However, I am sitting here at Waffle House, stealing internet from the Pig-n-Chik BBQ, and writing to the world. It’s fun! I got this awesome food — waffles, buttered toast, eggs, bacon, and these tomato-cheese-and-mushroom covered hash browns. The ambient noise is the rhythmical slamming of plates into the sink, ice scoops into the ice-bin, soda pouring, water running, and the constant sizzle of eggs, bacon, and sausage being cooked on that grill.
Read the rest of this entry »

I woke up today, after my 1st “full night’s sleep” in a long long time.   I guess I really needed it.  My running time had improved by 6.5 minutes, which is huge.  Jeffery leaves movies looping for Charlie, his dog.  When I got back from running, I noticed that one of my all time favorite movies was on, Gattaca — the ultimate triumph of the human soul movie… as far as I’m concerned.  I watched parts of it, as it looped and we chatted about life.  When we went to Six Flags’ Magic Mountain, I got a wonderful deal…. $60 (the price of a 1 day admission) gave me a 1 year pass… that I can use at all Six Flags park across the country!  That means I’m going to have many more rollercoaster days this year! That deal is on until April, I think… I’d recommend it for any rollercoaster fans.  We had a blast… going on all the different coasters… being flung forward, backwards, upside-down, and from all different heights.  My favorite part was towards the end… the park closes at 6pm, and at 5:50 we got off the tallest drop rollercoaster I’ve ever been on, Goliath.  We headed towards Colossus, which was supposed to really whip us around, and beat us up… like an old wooden rollercoaster.  As we approached it, a security guard told us that the ride is closed, and the park is closed.  I decided to be stubborn, and go anyways… sure enough, they had a group of people in line.  Enough to fill up all the cars once, and then once more.  We got to go after all!  If we had listened to that man, and delayed even one minute, we would not have gotten to hit our final ride.  I think I enjoyed it doubly…. once for the brutal shaking that I received, and once for the smug satisfaction that I got for being rewarded the ride because I chose to disregard authority.  Because of some of the conversation we had today, I requested to see Chaplin from Jeffery’s collection.  Chaplin is the movie made from Charlie Chaplin(whom Jeffery’s adorable dog is named after)’s autobiography.  What a beautiful film!  Charlie Chaplin was brilliant, and Robert Downey Junior was amazing as Charlie.  The movie, left me a little sad… despite the happy ending, and humorous majority.  I think I was sad because of how he was kicked out of the USA. I didn’t like that people used the whole communist thing against him, even though he wasn’t a communist.  I guess it was a different era, eh? 

Maybe I was saddened by the Charlie thing, because I was a bit confused about my own situation.  I’m trying to raise funds to continue my trip.  Things are going well, but I’m too scattered.  I’m not sure if I have ADD, or if I am just trying to achieve too many things at once!  I’m couch surfing, blogging, editing photos, trying to assemble my portfolio, make Photoshop training DVD’s, set up a few websites– some for myself and my projects, some for clients, do some Photoshop work, learn, jog, promote.  Even keeping up with emails seems difficult at times.  Maybe I need some Adderall?  Before I try to get things done by popping some pill to stay focused, I’d like to just try to practice a few new skills without it… skills like time management.  I bought a watch the other day.  I like how it looks, and I like being able to tell the time without pulling out my cell phone.  I’ve tried making lists, and things like that before… it’s often against my personality.  I like to be spontaneous. 

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Assistance?

So.. a short while ago, Couch 44 (Angela) had come and visited… she was very shy about a portion of her face, where apparently a few weeks prior — just as she was starting to get all excited about coming to see me – she had this zit that got infected, and started getting big… and painful… and then she terminated it with extreme prejudice…. Read the rest of this entry »