ECKLEBURG
2005-01-01 - 9:08 p.m.
Things We Learned in 2004, in no particular order:
1. You can get by with only a little bit of chocolate each day, but you can’t just give it up cold turkey.
2. We can live far away from friends and family and survive – no, we can more than survive.
3. We can live far away from friends and family and still have friends and family.
4. TV isn’t worth watching without TIVO.
5. Sometimes the best TV is the stupidest because, really, there are extremely few truly smart programs on.
6. The muffin method of baking (1 of 6 baking techniques according to Alton Brown)
7. In business, it is best to figure out where you are going while you are running, rather than standing still until you are sure where to go.
8. Many businesses are bad at philosophy and science. More decisions are made by instinct and experience than probably should be.
9. That once you’re done cooking meat, you shouldn’t just clean the pan – you should make a pan sauce.
10. Julia Child is so much more than just a funny looking chef with a high-pitched voice.
11. Once you use a trackball mouse, you never go back.
12. Grumblecake can be very persuasive, both at home and at work.
13. You can hide vast quantities of furniture under other furniture if you try hard enough.
14. 53% of the nation is dumb, but that 47% is isn’t.
15. Magellan GPS systems are the coolest new car technology in a long time.
16. That the way to survive living in a place that is freezing cold is to cover up as much exposed skin as possible.
17. Big Cities are really just a whole bunch of small cities squished up next to each other. Often in big cities your job is in one of the small cities and your home is in a different one, causing traffic.
18. There is no such thing as “safe” and “unsafe.” Past a certain point, being in a “safer” area doesn’t mean that people stop worrying as much about their safety, just that everybody starts to worry about less and less risky stuff.
19. Plastic is tacky, except in electronics and certain cooking supplies.
You cannot bitch-slap someone to death (proven by Artemis and Hestia, our cats).
