Nostalgic tunes

The past few days, I've been listening to some mix tapes I made back in freshman year ('96) of music from the first half of the 1990s, and it's been quite amusing to take a trip back through time to revisit some of the top tunes and artists of the day. It's also amusing to note that I didn't have much of a concept of "mixing", as the tapes are all slow songs or all medium/fast songs, and the songs themselves aren't mixed very well (sometimes you'll have multiple songs by the same artist show up every other song in the order). But, here's a couple of the ones I've been listening to the last few days:

Blues Traveler ("Hook", "Run Around")
Gin Blossoms ("Follow You Down")
Oasis ("Wonderwall", "Champagne Supernova")
Hootie and the Blowfish ("Only Wanna Be With You", "Let Her Cry", "Time")
Eric Clapton ("Change the World" with Babyface)
Boyz II Men ("On Bended Knee, "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday", "Yesterday")
Mariah Carey ("Fantasy", "Always Be My Baby", "One Sweet Day" with Boyz II Men)
Seal ("Kiss from a Rose")
Coolio ("Gangsta's Paradise") - I actually have most of this one memorized... haha
Weird Al ("Amish Paradise") - see here for the lyrics... it's still funny. "Jebediah feeds the chickens and Jacob plows... fool!"
Ace of Base ("The Sign") - for the longest time I thought this was "I saw the sun"
Bone Thugz N' Harmony ("Crossroads")

Hm, I used to be a lot more poppy/Top-40 than I am now. Good times...

A day in Sactown, hoops, and reality/non-reality television: Weekend recap

Headed up with Byron, Maria, Karen, Andrea, Mike, Amy, and Cat to Tomio and Alice's place in Sacramento this past Saturday to hang out. They were great hosts, as always, cooking up tasty meats (steak, kalbi, hot links) and snacks (fresh kettle corn!) to give us energy throughout the day. Byron and I got hooked on the "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" video game for GameCube for a good portion of the afternoon, where I got to play as Aragorn and he as Legolas, and we had a jolly good time running around slashing up orcs and triggering catapults and oliphaunts. I'm now tempted to purchase it for PS2, as the cooperatve-play mode makes things much more fun.

We drove over to downtown Sacramento and walked around, making comments on various stores, swapping stories, and buying bags of candy from the various candy stores. I think we went into four - yikes! Fortunately Maria was able to take the bag of taffy away from Byron before he could get himself sick again, a la the "cookie incident" from last year's camping trip (or was it ski trip?). Also visited the capitol building and ran into the longest set of dumb traffic lights ever.

Sunday, worship at church, worship ministry meeting (lots of good ideas - thanks guys), then played some hoops. I noticed that I am out of shape - I was running out of breath fairly quickly. This annoys me greatly. On the bright side, I thought I did a decent job containing the guy I was guarding, who plays for the local high school basketball team as a shooting guard - very quick and explosive; I basically just tried to stay in front of him and force him to shoot over me. I was a bit more aggressive on the offensive end as well. On an unhappy note, Byron hurt his ankle (most likely a severe high ankle sprain) and he'll probably be out for a while. We have got to remember no more "injury" conversations at lunchtime before we go to play in the afternoon.

In the evening, had dinner with the family, and then some television:

Dream Job

I don't typically watch reality television. I think I may have seen one episode of "Survivor", and don't watch "The Mole" or "The Bachelorette" or any of those other shows placing people into improbable situations where they compete with others for money. However, I do think it's a legit trend for television to have televised "talent shows", which basically involves the TV audience as participants - "American Idol" and the like make sense as TV shows, in my opinion. Still, I hadn't really watched much, and wasn't intending to watch much of this one (where the contestants try out for an ESPN Sportscenter anchor position) but then I happened to flip to a rerun one evening on ESPN2 and got sucked in.

I still didn't watch enough to get a really good feel for all the contestants, but of the ones I saw, I felt that the strongest were Zach, Aaron, and Mike H (the eventual winner crowned last night). Zach seemed to be the most comfortable in front of the camera, and had a very "out-there" brash personality that would fit in with the ESPN crew. Aaron was clearly one of the strongest in terms of sports knowledge, and Mike seemed to be having the most fun. After Zach was voted off by the judges, I had a feeling that America would kick off Aaron because, despite his know-how, he was a little too "smooth" to really connect with the viewer.

What was most fun about the show, however, was seeing all of the behind-the-scenes parts of being an anchor - prepping and writing stories, controlling details like eye contact and other facial gestures, adapting to unexpected situations like breaking news or the teleprompter going down, etc. I've sometimes wondered if I could hack it as a sportscaster - bringing the facts while making it interesting for the viewer. I've decided that I probably wouldn't do a very good job; I'd have a better shot at being a sportswriter... for the NBA, of course.

Alias (spoilers for last night's ep ahead!)

I still find it amusing that, since Lauren Reed has been revealed to be an evil double agent to the viewing audience, that most of the female viewers of this show who used to be openly hostile to Vaughn's character at the beginning of the season (when they all blasted him for getting over Sydney so quickly) have now shifted their anger to Lauren, basically letting Vaughn off the hook. Maybe he'll even be able to work his way back to the iconic status he enjoyed in previous seasons.

Jack Bristow is still the man... you could tell that he wasn't really buying Lauren's mom's story of how her husband died.

Sydney looked a little odd with the bangs, in my opinion.

Now for the news

Couple of interesting links floating around today.

My coworkers and I were cracking up about this all evening:





The caption, from AP news: "Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju betweent the legs during a demonstration performed by Buddhist monks at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, March 22, 2004. In their first visit to the United States, a group of Shaolin martial artists from SongShan, China demonstrated acrobatic flips and shows of strength among other things. With the monks urging him on, Wesson made several kicks to the monk who showed no emotion. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)".

Can't get over how much fun that guy seems to be having. This needs to be made into an animated gif of some sort, or a flash game where you click the mouse to make Mr. Wesson's leg swing through and kick.

In the food department... there's now a way to have an instant heart attack with the deep-fried chocolate sandwich!

All of a sudden, I have a craving for In'N'Out Burger. I don't think I've been there in several months. What do you usually order? I typically get the cheeseburger animal style with fries, but the last couple of times I've gotten the burger protein style, which makes me feel better about ordering fries. Speaking of which, check out the pic in the article with our good Guv'nor chowing down on a protein style burger. I think next time I'll try the Neopolitan shake and light fries.

On a more serious and interesting note, the debate about "Under God" in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance has reached the Supreme Court. Couple of comments...
- Mr. Newdow is an ER doctor with a law degree, acting as his own attorney. Smart man.
- His daughter's mother (the article doesn't say whether they are still married) is a born-again Christian.
- His main objection is that the pledge is akin to a religious prayer that is forced upon his daughter. I happen to agree with the judge's statements that she has the right not to participate, and that the pledge is a patriotic exercise as opposed to a religious one.

It will be interesting to see how this one plays out...

Mid-week meanderings

Ironic, isn't it, that it's when things are more hectic, stressful, and conducive to low morale that there is more of an inclination to personal and spiritual growth. Even though the past month has been a bit less busy at work and outside, I have noticed myself falling into something of a rut - as a friend put it, when things aren't difficult, you're less inclined to look in a heavenly direction. I've been watching too much TV, staying up late reading novels that I've already read before, playing too much Playstation 2 basketball, adopting a more cavalier attitude towards my personal times in prayer and in the Bible... overall just been somewhat blah. Then, I see the calendar about to tick over into April... a quarter of the year 2004 has already gone by. What happened to my initial desire and fervor for seeing change and growth in my life, seeking hard after God and His will and work?

Instead of lamenting wasted time and opportunities, I need to get off my butt and into the right mindset. I need to pray. I need to seek God in Scripture, through the church, and in my circumstances, and so to be actively looking to see where and how He is working. Only then can I see where and how I might fit into that plan. God, forgive me for not making the most of my time. I want to redeem the coming days and months, that Your name might be glorified in my life as long as I'm here.

If grad school is in my future, then I need to take the appropriate tests this summer in order to apply in the fall. Short-term missions, travelling, volunteering, more concentrated involvement in worship and youth ministries at church... we'll see what comes.

This past weekend, didn't have the chance to catch a ride on Enoch's motorcycle like Karen and a whole host of other people did, primarily because I was trying to get some songs typed up for Sunday, but also I figured that after giving 8 rides the poor guy would want a break. I'll give it a shot next time. Sunday afternoon, played a game of 3-on-4 up to 50 by ones. That was loads of fun. Being on the team with 4, Dr. James and I had to double-team Vincent, but he still scored around 30 baskets... and we're not bad defensive players either. Maybe that's what it was like to guard Wilt back in the day. I didn't do too badly, probably had twenty-something of my team's baskets. What was fun was that the marathon game made it seem more like a pro game - you could rip off 7-0 or 12-4 runs to go ahead or get yourself back in the game at any time. We ended up taking it 50-46.

Current CD: Going somewhat old-school with Steven Curtis Chapman's Speechless album from 1999. Love the acoustic guitar work.

Current Books: simultaneously going through Operation World, the Experiencing God workbook, and Don't Waste Your Life by Piper (which I never finished).

Found this off of Richard's blog:

Why Men Are Happier Than Women

1. We keep our last name.
2. The garage is all ours.
3. Wedding plans take care of themselves.
4. Chocolate is just another snack.
5. We can be president.
6. We can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
7. Car mechanics tell us the truth.
8. The world is our urinal.
9. We never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.
10. Same work, more pay.
11. Wrinkles add character.
12. Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.
13. People never stare at our chest when we're talking to them.
14. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
15. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle our feet.
16. One mood, ALL the time.
17. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
18. We know stuff about tanks.
19. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
20. We can open all our own jars.
21. We get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
22. If someone forgets to invite us, he or she can still be our friend.
23. Our underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
24. Everything on our face stays its original color.
25. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
26. We don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
27. We almost never have strap problems in public
28. We are unable to see wrinkles in our clothes.
29. The same hair style lasts for years, maybe decades.
30. We don't have to shave below our neck.
31. Our belly usually hides our big hips.
32. One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.
33. We can "do" our nails with a pocket-knife.
34. We have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
35. We can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

And here are a couple I pulled off of Kristin's site:

Real IRC chats

[TXTerron] wanna know whats geeky?
[Jennifer] hmm?
[TXTerron] I'm driving down the road
[Jennifer] I drove down the road today too...
[Jennifer] Wait, You mean you're on irc in your truck?
[TXTerron] yeah, using my wireless card
[Jennifer] ^___^
[Jennifer] Jason, is that safe?
[TXTerron] na, i just type with one hand while I'm driving and halfway watch the road, its cool, dont worry
[Jennifer] You're good with typing with one hand?
[TXTerron] shaddup :D
[TXTerron] [edited]
[TXTerron] i just rear ended a lady
[TXTerron] brb :(

[danamania] yay I fixed my laptops battery!
[danamania] it was so dead, nothing would charge it
[danamania] so I gave it the electronic equivalent of a kick in the head, by shorting the +/- terminals for 5 minutes
[gelfie] don't they have stickers on them that say they could explode or catch fire by doing that?
[danamania] yeah but it's ok, I took them off first.

[m[e]ntor] Does anyone know where I can buy 100 m of wireless lan cable?
[insight] Well, you could try NASA's "things not yet and never will be invented"-department or something.

[Cross] Oh, wow. Old school papers.
[Cross] This one was on 'alternative energy sources'. This is from near the end, when I was really too tired to be writing:
[Cross] "Wind energy is a method of collecting power from the blowing of the wind. Not only is this a clean and renewable energy source, but it can actually displace excess Carbon Dioxide in an area. Problems behind wind energy also exist. It is not available in many areas, and requires a lot of money to build. The wind turbines can also interfere with television and radio signals and cause noise pollution. Also, birds can fly into the rotors."
[Cross] "Then they have to send the janitor Steve out to clean the thing, and it just ruins his day. Then he goes home and beats his kids. So if you support wind energy, you support domestic violence."
[Cross] That's when you know you're tired.
[Herring] That is awesome.

[billyblacktop] yo yo yo, sup my niggas?
[jimmy2toes] your not black
[billyblacktop] how do you know that?
[jimmy2toes] I hacked your webcam, and now I can see you
[billyblacktop] yeah right you cant do that
[jimmy2toes] I can and I did.
[billyblacktop] ok then what color hair do I have
[jimmy2toes] Hmmm, let me zoom in a bit. Blonde, and you are white, about 6' 2", your room has an emenim poster and your bedspread is yellow and blue.
[billyblacktop] holy [edited] man im telling the cops
Quits: {billyblacktop} (billyb@235.253.473.232) (Quit:)
[jimmy2toes] LMAO, that was a friend of mine, I just set up his comp today, and showed him mirc, he doesnt know my nick, what a fat tool!!!

[FyNXeR] Pardon my spelling... but I'm from Sweden
[sumbody] pardon my accent, i am from southeast asia
[DrMonkey] pardon my shotgun, i'm from west virginia

[Unleaded] I did something really geeky just now
[Ex0duz] watched star trek ?
[Unleaded] I was reading a magazine, and I glanced at the bottom right hand corner of the page expecting to see the time... :/

[Infe] what happens if you try to recharge an alkaline battery
[HomerJ] blows up
[Andrigaar] Don't they explode?
[Andrigaar] I wonder if it's violent or just some leaking battery acid.
[Infe] i think it's all a scam to get you to pay more for 'rechargeables' and ---
[Infe] AHHHHHHHHHHH MY FACE
[Infe] AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Weekend recap

Got together with a few old-school AACF folks for dim sum at Friday lunchtime - Drew W, Frank L, Dave W, and George S. Conversation topics ranged from married life (3 out of 4 of the above are hitched) to how to kill a wild boar with a knife. Don't worry, no similarities were drawn between the two :-). 'Twas a good time to catch up with these older brothers and hear the ways that God had been challenging them spiritually, professionally, and relationally. Oh, we also revisited the somewhat eerie theme of Taiwanese guys from our fellowship dating and marrying Cantonese girls, with them insisting that I'll be the next one in line to follow this trend. It is quite amusing to consider that there are around a dozen couples from our fellowship that fit the model. Drew and his wife Vicky jokingly insist that I must leave my (predominantly Taiwanese) church in order to fulfill this "11th Commandment of Berkeley AACF".

Saturday, had worship practice in the morning where we discussed the challenge of planning out the congregational worship time. I find that one of the most interesting challenges I have as a lead worshipper is being sensitive enough to the leading of the Holy Spirit to know where the congregation is in responding to God - in short, knowing when to choose songs of worship about God and His character, and when to choose songs of our response to that supreme presence. It's a fine line to walk, and I need to be listening carefully to God's prompting to set a more confessional tone or one where we have the opportunity to praise in spite of our own state. It's a great spiritual growing experience.

In the afternoon, went with Byron to Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, where we gawked at the high-priced guitars, envied the skills of the other people browsing who were casually ripping off riffs, and checked out the different options for installing pickups. The nicest sound came from a Highlander saddle pickup/soundhole microphone setup, which reproduced the acoustic sound most authentically; unfortunately, it's quite pricey. But it was fun to play with. I also examined a few of the mandolins, which (along with the hammered dulcimer) is an instrument I greatly enjoy the sound of and would like to learn someday.

After dinner, Byron, JKuo, Eric, and Andrew W came over where we used some early 90's baseball and basketball cards to reminisce about athletes from yesteryear (including immortals like Terry Teagle and Manute Bol), played some pool, and broke out the mahjong set. Hm, those last five words make us sound really old...

Sunday was gorgeous. Had a wonderful time worshipping God, played ball in the afternoon (including a game against two dudes who appeared to be 6'6" and 6'4" - kinda like playing against Yao), and spent a low-key evening with the family watching Alias and reading. First low-key weekend in a while.

Eating idiosyncracies

I have never had coffee nor beer. Am I missing out on anything?

I water down my juice - 2/3 juice, 1/3 water.

I need to have equal amounts of "bread" and other ingredients in a single mouthful. For example, I will distribute sandwich elements in an equitable manner so that each bite will be balanced. I will also do this with pizza - eating from the cheese-covered end and then from the crust end so that the non-cheesed crust is in the mouth with a sufficient amount of cheese and toppings.

I eat pizza with a knife and fork.

I don't like the type of peas that come frozen in bags. I like snap peas, snow peas, etc., but not these.

I don't like cooked carrots. Raw only, please.

I'm learning to like the taste and texture of whole grains like oats, brown rice, etc. As an aside... folks, don't fall for the Atkins hype. The only smart thing that's come out of it is that refined carbs (white bread, white rice, anything made from white flour) have almost no nutritional value except calories - it's good to cut down on these. It's still not smart to eat only meats and fats, unless you want to lose weight but have heart problems, gout, and a host of other issues.

I eat cereal by pouring the milk into the bowl, then pouring the cereal into the milk. This keeps the cereal crisp.

I'll often have an average of over 30 chews per mouthful, depending on what I'm eating. I ought to have strong jaw muscles by now.

I avoid biting into fruit (apples) with my front teeth, due to a baseball accident in 6th grade that has led me to have 3 fake front teeth.

I used to drink flavored drinks (non-water) by "straining" it between my tongue and upper roof of my mouth, which intensified the flavor. Anthony L used to say I looked like a camel drinking. I don't do this much anymore.

I used to hate mushrooms and spicy food. Now I enjoy them.

I chew ice cream, but not much.

I chew smoothies, but also not much.

The only meal that I appear to eat at a relatively "normal" speed is pho, most likely because the noodles are softer which makes for less chewing.

That'll do for now.

Ramblings

- Saw The Passion of the Christ last Wednesday with a couple of coworkers. While I do think that some people in the church may have lost a little bit of perspective gushing over the movie and Mel Gibson, it has at the very least made the person and story of Jesus Christ a relevant one in today's culture. The movie doesn't tell the whole story of the Son of God, but has appeared to make a visceral impact on both Christian and non-Christian viewers. Last night, our men's group had the opportunity to go to Mercado and pass out free books by John Piper about the Passion to moviegoers. Praise God, the response was generally pretty favorable - whether they have a genuine interest in Christ, or whether they just heard the word "free", people were generally willing to take a book and even chat for a bit with us about the movie. Here's hoping they actually read the books.

Personally, I wasn't particularly surprised or shocked by the movie, even though it was definitely powerful. My experience was akin to having an extended time of Communion. Each time that I read through the Passion account in the Bible, or we take the bread and the cup during a church service, I try to remember Christ and his experience in as much detail as possible - feeling the pain of the whip, nails, thorns and fists, enduring the insults and hatred from people, and being abandoned by his Father... it's so easy to gloss over those few verses.

- This past week, NASA released a few new photos taken from the Hubble Space Telescope that are absolutely breathtaking. Seeing these, I can't help but praise the One who put them in place.
10,000 galaxies can be seen in this picture, the "deepest"-ever look into the universe:


An expanding cloud around a star:


- Past weekend... Jeremy/Mandy's wedding, Karen's dessert birthday hangout (I want a free Taylor 510!!), church, WCC followup meeting, hoops. Weather was gorgeous.

- Current CD: Love and Thunder, Andrew Peterson. Memorable lyric so far: The work of our hands is the salt of the earth / The music we make is the light of the world... / Let there be light, let there be love, let there be music - "Let There Be Light"

Murphy's Law for Software Releases

As a release manager, I'm working on a theory about Murphy's law as it applies to engineering process in tech companies. It never fails... whatever can go wrong, does go wrong. Here's my theory (drawn off of stressful personal experiences) so far:

On the deadline...

- hardware fails
- files in the build become mysteriously empty
- QA engineers get sick
- long-running bugs appear
- you make procedural mistakes in the middle of 3-hour long procedures
- developers randomly check in new code
- developers forget to check in critical code
- post-work plans die

Of snow, statuettes, and sports

Time for some ramblings...

Tahoe
Went up to Tahoe this past weekend w/ a bunch of Canaan folks, and invited a coworker along. Memorable moments:
- On the car ride up, busted out some old mix tapes I made back freshman year of college (since the wagon didn't have a CD player). Blast from the past... we were grooving to the likes of Boyz II Men, Coolio, with dance songs like "Everybody Dance Now" and "Good Vibrations" mixed in. I think I'll have to spend a week to re-listen to my old tapes to see what I used to listen to.
- Cabin was huge. Too bad the jacuzzi was broken.
- For the first time, the snowshoers outnumbered the skiers/snowboarders. Turns out that at least a few people regretted not hitting the slopes as the conditions were absolutely perfect - clear day, fresh powder (like, 4 feet). Not me though - I've found that I don't get my thrills from going downhill at high speed, I just feel relieved when I get to the bottom.
- Made a Nutella-Peanut Butter-Jelly sandwich for lunch on Saturday while snowshoeing. That's some good eatin'.
- Snowshoe adventures... periodic sneak attacks, tackles, tromping through waist-deep snow, and a good old-fashioned snowball fight with forts. My coworker likened it to the Battle of Minas Tirith since we ended up tossing pieces of our broken walls at each other.
- After dinner (10-hr jambalya) and a few games, a couple of us broke out the cards for Texas Hold'em. Brian played well and eventually cleaned me out. Note to self... don't go all in on the blind.
- Spoons is a lot more fun when you're very tired, slightly delirious, and you add variations by allowing people to grab their own spoon and knock the other ones away from people.
- I was able to get 28 mpg in the Volvo on the way back home! There isn't much more fun than coasting downhill around curves without expending any gas at all.

Oscars
- Sean Penn. Classy acceptance speech acknowledging the other contestants, as well as some who weren't recognized as nominees.
- LOTR sweeps, and geeks around the world rejoice.
- Greatly enjoyed the "You're boring" song from Will Ferrell and Jack Black, particularly how they went from over-the-top song delivery to deadpan teleprompter reading in a 3 second span.
- The whole "retro/50's glam" look was a welcome change from the trashy outfits from, say, the Grammies or the Super Bowl halftime show.
- Charlize Theron needs to use less makeup around the eyes.
- There are a lot of movies I want to see, but everyone else has already seen. For example: Pirates of the Caribbean, Seabiscuit, Master and Commander.

Sports
- Here's an NBA team composed of players that I like, both on and off the court. In general, I'm partial to solid citizens who play the game the right way and play both ends of the court.
PG: J Kidd, S Nash
SG: T McGrady, R Allen
SF: A Kirilenko, D Nowitzki, P Stojakovic
PF: K Garnett, J O'Neal, E Brand
C: T Duncan, Yao, B Wallace
Could be added soon: L James, M Ginobili
Like the game but off the court...: K Bryant

And here's a team of guys that I don't like much, either because of their demeanor or their game:
PG: S Francis, G Payton, B Davis
SG: V Carter, A Iverson
SF: R Wallace, A Walker, S Marion
PF: C Webber, K Martin, K Malone
C: S O'Neal

Other
- There is quite possibly nothing more annoying than to go away for a weekend and come back to 435 pieces of spam in your Yahoo Bulk Mail folder. Fortunately it's sorted out, but Yahoo counts the Bulk Mail folder against your 6 MB limit. I think it's about time to switch to a non-infected email addy...
- I'm now at 6 weeks and 2 days since my last haircut. I think I'm gonna try to push it to 8 weeks...

"Dating advice"

Writing up a post on a couple of diff topics, but for the time being, here's an amusing snippet from an Insidehoops column where the columnist gives a graduating-from-college reader dating advice in the "real world". Anyone think this is accurate?

I am a soon-to-be recent college grad. I am nervous about entering the real-world work-force along with the real-world dating scene. Any advice?

EG

Dear EG:

You should be nervous. Unlike college, where you can go to a college bar, hang out with drunken underclass co-eds, ask their major and watch them swoon, the real world dating-scene is much more competitive. Here’s some thoughts:

- Learn the Word “Merlot” (pronounced Mer-Lowe). When you take real-world women out to dinner you have to ask them “Do you want to get wine?” They always say “Yes”. Whatever they order, you can feel secure in saying Merlot. They think you have taste and are impressed that you pronounced it correctly.

- Read a book. They’ll always ask, what’s your favorite book. You better have an answer. It cannot be “Catcher in the Rye”. Go to Barnes & Noble, pick up something you’ve heard of, but hasn’t been a movie – tough one. Read it and prepare to discuss. A good recent example is “The DaVinci Code”.

- Buy a Lamp. No one ever tells you this. Overhead lighting makes people look bad. White people look like ghosts. Lighting from below makes you look mysterious and tan. Women know this and will appreciate your ability to light them appropriately.

- Get a Job. “What do you do?” “Well, I’m still looking” “Best of luck with that. Bye.” Get it? Get a job.

- Three Good Stories. Everyone needs three good stories. Interesting, funny, easy to tell, and highlights your good points. Tell them to friends and family until your delivery is perfect. Keep them short and NOT about work. This is actually easier than buying the lamp.