Watching Lord of The Rings With Tara

Tara and I have been watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy at home. We watch about 1 hour of each movie each night, but tonight we probably will watch the two hour finale of Return of the King. Tara is pretty funny because she actually gets frightened by these movies. She can’t handle any horror movies and even Harry Potter scared her!

Offensive Jokes You Can Never Repeat To Anyone

I found a fun thread on Reddit with jokes that you should never repeat to anyone. Here are a few that are less offensive (and yes, I realize these are all still highly offensive!):

• Why did Princess Di cross the road?” She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt
• How do you know Princess Di had dandruff? When she crashed, they found her Head & Shoulders on the dashboard…
• What do you call a train full of toffee? A chew chew train…
• A man walks into the doctors office and asks ‘Can I have some morning after pills for my 10 year old daughter?’ The doctor replies ‘My god, your daughter’s 10 years old and sexually active?!’ The man replies ‘Sexually active?! Nah she usually just lies there and cries…
• You know why they kept the library at Penn State named after Joe Paterno? To remind everyone to stay quiet while they’re in there.
• Why didn’t the world end on 12/21/2012? Because we sacrificed 20 virgins on 12/14
• Why is six afraid of seven? Cause 7 8 9
• You know Princess Diana and I are friends on xBox Live. I thought we could play some games or something, but she just spends all her time on the dashboard.
• What happens when you mix human DNA with goat DNA? Kicked out of the petting zoo.

Buenos Aires Street Tango

Buenos Aires Protestors

Protesting something … I don’t really know what…

El Centro Buenos Aires

Polo Match in Buenos Aires

Maurice Taylor of Titan International: My SuperHero

Maurice Taylor, the CEO of a major tire manufacturer- Titan International- finally came out with what everyone thinks about the French labor unions.  He published an awesome letter in a French daily saying the following:

• French workers work only 3 hours a day
• He would be stupid to take over a Goodyear Tire factory going out of business because the “French workforce gets paid high wages but only works three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three. I told the French union workers to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!”
• “Sir, your letter states that you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government. Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour wage and ship all the tires France needs,” Taylor said. “You can keep the so-called workers.”

I love honest plain-speaking businesspeople.

My Top 10 Favorite Activities in Los Angeles

Below are my top 10 favorite activities to do in Los Angeles:

1. Outdoor rock climbing in Malibu Creek or at Tick Rock
2. Comedy shows at the Comedy Store
3. Outdoor basketball or flag football at Venice beach
4. Visiting the Getty museum with its beautiful views and art
5. Going to new restaurants – and old ones I love like A-Frame, Lemonade, Earl’s, and the Corner Door
6. Pitch & Putt golf (several courses on the West side)
7. Go see plays at the community theaters with their excellent talent
8. Hot air ballooning in Temecula
9. Walking around the Santa Monica Promenade
10. Hike up to the Griffith Observatory

Raise Boys Rich, Girls Poor

I heard a really great philosophy for raising children yesterday: “Raise boys rich, girls poor”.

Basically the idea is that you want boys to be strivers and to have to work and be very competitive so that they learn to have a sharp edge when they are older.  You want girls to be raised in a cushioned life so they become almost snobby and will not settle for a guy who isn’t superb.

Maybe that’s a little sexist, but I thought it was fitting.  The girls I know who are the most successful and have moved up the most at work (Harvard MBA, Google Account Manager, company founder, etc.) are those who received tons of support and cushion and love as they grew up.  They never settle for less now.  The boys who received such cushiony treatment general become wastes of life.  Boys who never get handed anything they didn’t work for those generally become incredibly successful.

Interesting dichotomy, what are your opinions?

Nick Loper – Great Blog Posts

I regularly write blog posts, many of which aren’t as well thought out or researched as they should be.  It’s hard enough just trying to remind myself to write them, much less have something original & genuinely interesting to talk about.  I have followed another blogger, Nick Loper, for a couple of years now and have found many of his contributions to be really good.  Some of my recent favorites are:

• Best Door To Door Salesman Ever - How can I hire this guy??
• Occupy Wall Street: Income inequality – and the other OWS posts
• Treadmill Desk - I have wanted one of these for years and it is awesome Nick finally built one.  Nick – does it work well?
• The Postal Service & the True Cost of Delivering Mail – I think USPS should be privatized & sold to help pay down the national debt.
• Would you work for 100% Commission? Yes, I do.
• The Intrepid Hikers – this reminds me of Frida and I.
• Amazon Mechanical Turk – I tried this out for influencing CTR and got blocked… but still an interesting service.

Nick is an entrepreneur who runs Shoe Sniper, a price comparison website for shoes.  Keep up the posts Nick!