To zap food cravings, tap 10 times on various body parts and hum "Happy Birthday" until the urge disappears.

- Paul McKenna

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

- Anatole France

There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.

- Edmund Wilson

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

- Judith Martin

There is the person that you are, and then there is the person that you want to be.

In most cases, you're actually better off and are happier being the person that you are.

If you are a sniper, there are 4 things that give you away, and they all begin with S: shape, shine, silhouette, and shadow.

Being an icon is overblown. Remember, an icon is moved by a mouse.

- William Shatner

"He threw a kettle over a pub. What have you done?"

- Gareth Keenan, from The Office

John Lennon was #1 in the US and the UK when I was born
The songs were "Imagine" and "(Just Like) Starting Over"

Gandhi's Talisman

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything
by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi, in 1948.

A perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

- George Bernard Shaw on dance and dancing

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

- Horace Mann

"New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. It's climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough."

- John Steinbeck

She shivers in the wind like the last leaf on a dying tree
I let her hear my footsteps
She only goes stiff for a moment
Care for a smoke?
Sure. I'll take one
Are you as bored by that crowd as I am?
I didn't come here for the party
I came here for you
I've watched you for days
You're everything a man could ever want
It's just not your face
Your... figure
Or your voice
It's your eyes
All the things I see in your eyes
What is it you see in my eyes?
I see a crazy calm
You're sick of running
You're ready to face what you have to face
But you don't want to face it alone
No
I don't want to face it alone
The wind rises electric
She's soft and warm and almost weightless
Her perfume is sweet promise that brings tears to my eyes
I tell her that everything will be alright
That I'll save her from whatever she's scared of and take her far far away
I tell her... I love her

- Sin City

I saw a ninja's utility belt for sale online. The thing has VELCRO fasteners for the pouches. Most of the customer reviews underneath complained that it was hard to be stealthy with the loud velcro. Who ARE these people? Then again, what was I doing looking for a utility belt...

An electric sports car.
http://www.teslamotors.com/

The company is based in California. The bulk of production is done by Lotus in the UK. The car goes 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. Price tag is US$109,000.

If you really want everything, then give up everything.

- Lao Tzu

The RAC Foundation, a British nonprofit organization that focuses on driving issues, asked 17 drivers, age 17 to 24, to use a driving simulator to see how texting affected driving.

The reaction time was around 35 percent slower when writing a text message — slower than driving drunk or stoned.

- NY Times

Recent compliments I received -

"Sh*t, look at this guy"

(to me and someone else)
"You are kings amongst men"

- More than 90% of passengers at the largest US airports use cars or taxis to travel to and from the airport. Only 10% use public transport.
- In Oslo, 64% use public transport to get to the airport. In Hong Kong, 63%, in Tokyo, 59%. For JFK, it's 19%.
- "In the USA most people think of a bus as a dirty, smelly thing for poor people to get around the inner city."
NY Times

Car and oil companies are probably happy that these transportation dynamics exist in the US. They may have even blocked attempts to build better public transportation links to airports. It's good for their business, and good for the economy. It's the environment that suffers.

Remember what Warren Buffet once said about charitable giving, "Give as much as you can and then give 10% more."

It seems the world is divided into good and bad people. The good ones sleep better... while the bad ones seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.

- Woody Allen

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.

- The Leadership Hub

"What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet."

- Woody Allen

"He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed."

- David Frost

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life sends ninjas after you, make ninjade.

Favorite lines from Kung Fu Panda:

[first line]
Po: Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend.


Mr. Ping: You are almost ready to be entrusted with the secret ingredient of my secret ingredient soup. And then you will fulfill your destiny and take over the restaurant just as I took it over from my father who took it over from his father who won it from a friend in a game of mahjong.


Shifu: [after having dragged Po up the mountain and Po is trying to cool down] Panda, we do not wash our pits in the Pool of Sacred Tears.

"My favourite put-down in Klingon? 'Hab SoSlI' Quch.' Your mother has a smooth forehead."

I've seen too many, but also not enough, bare legs this summer.

Luck sometimes visits a fool, but it never sits down with him.

- German Proverb

What's an example of creativity that has inspired you?

It's all around us, even if we don't feel it's relevant.

The warmth of the day

Fades

Sunset behind the mountains

All of the philanthropy you see — the buildings named after people for giving $50 million to this museum or to Columbia — is a result of one man after another trying to conquer his mortality.

- Dr T. Byram Karasu, Manhattan psychiatrist

He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

- Saki

According to a Gallup poll, only 6% of men wore ties regularly to work in 2007. In 2002 this was 10%. I'm guessing these figures are only for the US.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

- Oscar Wilde

Is this still the case?

We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight our people were asked to cast their vote whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of cities, the overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to them the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us." The people with one voice would say: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst - and we will do our best." Perhaps it may be our turn soon; perhaps it may be our turn now.

- Winston Churchill

Expose problems and identify systemic improvements so that the problems don't happen again. Don't play the game "Whack-a-Mole" with problems. That requires you to be too reactive.

Standing in front of each piece of art in the Vatican for 40 seconds will take you 10 years.

Uncertainty and mystery are the energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

- R.I. Fitzhenry

The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears.

- Arabian proverb

You own your silence, but you are a slave to your words.

- a colleague

Today's hybrid cars aren't worth the price differential to a regular car. To offset the incremental cost of buying a hybrid, you have to drive something like 15,000 miles a year for 10 years. Today's hybrid cars are a manufacturer's gimmick.

That said, don't stick with your large gas guzzlers...

The gift of risk lies not in what you achieve, but in who you become by taking risks.

That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another....

- Charles M Schultz

There was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he must be going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died.

If he had stood still, there would have been no footprints. If he had rested in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared.

- Chuang-tse

I don't consider myself bald, I'm just taller than my hair.

- Seneca

If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.
- George F. Burns


Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
- Ovid

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

- Bruce Lee

Back up your data! Or you may suffer a loss like I did. This song played on the radio shortly after. How appropriate.

Precious by Depeche Mode

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

- Krishnamurti

Beautiful people do not just happen.

Happy Birthday to this blog - 6 years old today. Wow.

Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.

-Walter Chrysler

Accomplishing the impossible means only that your boss will add it to your regular duties.

- Doug Larson

Beards are an odd luxury. You need to be free from certain societal/corporate restrictions to grow one. That's one reason why I like to grow mine. Periodically I like to tell the world that I can.

All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in the rain.

- from Bladerunner

"When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

This doesn't mean don't bother trying anything. Just start something before you know exactly where to start. Ask someone with expertise. Make mistakes and learn from them.

Dogs think they are human, cats think they are Gods.

Dogs look after you, cats do nothing.

"I hate the way cats look at you like they are better than you"

Dogs have masters, cats have staff.

- from a BBC Radio 1 show

I'm fortunate to have had 27 years with my grandmother.

"Infants have their infancy; adults, adultery"

- David P. Barash, professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, author of "The Myth of Monogamy"

"I want you to attend my funeral."

- strangest compliment

Q: Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?

A: No guts.

"You're definitely the most social/outgoing introvert I've ever met. And you have way more friends than any other introvert I know."

- KM

Only
make
new
mistakes

The Tao of making mistakes

"You can't mix Xanax with blow, plus alcohol!!"

Overheard in New York

KR: "I bring class to the building I live in."

BK: "Yea... lower class."

"Economic models have shown that policies to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have a minimal impact on economic growth. Instead, they will speed the development of new technologies."

- William Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

"Is there hope? Yes, there is hope - as long as we stop leaving the solutions to other people."
- Primatologist Jane Goodall, on rapidly diminishing natural habitats for endangered species

"If they lose a lawsuit, that is going to open the flood-gates. Once the military contractors appear vulnerable to litigation, the suits are going to come from all over the place."

- Scott L. Silliman, law professor, on a lawsuit filed against government contractor Presidential Airways by the families of a flight crew killed in a crash in Afghanistan in 2004

RB: "I'm on the wrong side of 25."

NK: "No, you're on the right side of 30."