During my recent vacation in the US it struck me how cool it would be, if Jon Stewart (host of The Today Show) ran for president. Of course I’m not the first one to think of it, so here’s an article explaining why that would be a great thing.
Category: Silly
Wallow in silliness here
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Extreme carving
When you snowboard, and take a turn at fairly high speed, put all your weight on one edge, and follow that turn through – that’s carving!
Taken to extremes it can look like this, just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen on snow. This site will tell you how to do it.
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My favourite movies
I just reached a major milestone: I have now rated over 900 movies on imdb (the internet movie database). Just for kicks, here’s a list of all the movies that I’ve given a “10”, the top rating:
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) 7.2
Aliens (1986) 8.3
Being John Malkovich (1999) 7.9
Blade Runner (1982) 8.2
The Deer Hunter (1978) 8.1
Dogville (2003) 8.1
Down by Law (1986) 7.6
Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le (2001) 8.7
Fantasia/2000 (1999) 7.4
The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933) 7.6
Festen (1998) 8.1
The Fisher King (1991) 7.4
The Killing Fields (1984) 7.9
Life of Brian (1979) 8.0
Love Actually (2003) 7.8
The Matrix (1999) 8.5
Pulp Fiction (1994) 8.7
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 6.8
Russian Pizza Blues (1995) 6.5
Schindler’s List (1993) 8.8
Se7en (1995) 8.4
Shichinin no samurai (1954) 8.9
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 8.5
Strictly Ballroom (1992) 7.2
Unbreakable (2000) 7.1
The Untouchables (1987) 7.8
The Usual Suspects (1995) 8.7
Wo hu cang long (2000) 8.3
Ying xiong (2002) 8.2The number printed after the year is the movie’s average rating on imdb.
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A happy cab driver
Few people would put cab driver at the top of the list of “jobs most likely to make me happy”, but there’s one New York cabbie who’s making his own happiness by playing matchmaker to his single customers:
The 50-year-old Egyptian immigrant sets up blind dates for his single passengers through a free, impromptu matchmaking service he runs out of his yellow cab. He said he finds mates, or at least dates, for about eight people a week.
“New York is a very tough city for dating,” Ibrahim mused while driving through the West Village recently. “I have heard a lot of crying in this cab, a lot of fighting and a lot of broken hearts.”
“Sometimes great people were just missing each other by minutes; one would get in my cab just as another had gotten out,” he said.
It all started by accident:
“I was joking around with this girl … who said she couldn’t find a boyfriend,” he recalled. Ibrahim took her number.
Three days later, a man got in his cab and bemoaned his bad luck finding a woman. Ibrahim called the woman and gave her the man’s number. Three weeks later, she called back and said they had gone on a date and were getting along great.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is my new project,”‘ he said.
How’s that for creating your own (and others’) happiness at work.
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Spot the fake
Can you tell a real smile from a fake one? I got 13 out of 20, which is barely better than just guessing.
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Speaking of toys
I’ve gotta have a Mac mini. I mean, just look at it.
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Office toys
Yep, office toys. I want’em. I want’em all.
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Book review: I moved your cheese
I’m sure there’s not a single person left in the modern business world who hasn’t read “Who moved my cheese” by Spencer Johnson. So here’s a book that offers the answer to that timeless question of missing cheese: I moved your cheese by Darrel Bristow-Bovey.
This book is a hilarious spoof of every self-help book out there. It accurately mimics and satirizes the solemn tone, the basic advice and the whole way that the self-help genre takes itself so seriously. I was alternately chuckling and laughing out loud throughout while reading it.
And if nothing else, it left me with a deep conviction that the book we’re currently writing on happiness at work must not become a self-help book :o)
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Conference bike
I really, really, really, really want to try the conference bike.