Good Starters For Quotes

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?

All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.

I gave him my Order smile: sweet grin, hard eyes, reached over to my passenger seat, and pulled out my submachine gun. About twenty-seven inches long, the HK was my favorite toy for close-quarters combat. The rider’s eyes went wide. “This is an HK UMP submachine gun. Renowned for its stopping power and reliability. Cyclic rate of fire: eight hundred rounds per minute. That means I can empty this thirty-round clip into you in less than three seconds. At this range, I’ll cut you in half.” It wasn’t strictly true but it sounded good. “You see what it says on the barrel?” On the barrel, pretty white letters spelled out PARTY STARTER.

Congratulate yourself as a good beginner. Feel proud of God for choosing you to begin the work at hand. Accept the work freely and get started. Be grateful.

Did you train that cat to attack people?” Jacobs asked. “No,” I said. “She’s just a good judge of character.

Graham Chapman, co-author of the "Parrot Sketch", is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. (He paused, then claimed that Chapman had whipered in his ear while he was writing the speech): All right, Cleese. You say you're very proud of being the very first person ever to say 'shit' on British television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to become the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

Well, for starters, you only wear black.” “Because it doesn’t get dirty.” “You don’t ever leave your house.” “People don’t look at me there.” “For the Create-a-Tale Competition, your story ended with Snow White eaten by vultures and Cinderella drowning herself in a tub.” “I thought it was a better ending.

Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory,

HUMANS DO A GOOD JOB OF MAKING OUTCASTS,

How dead do you think Gratas wants me?” I asked her. “You mean on a scale of one to ten, where one is ‘live and let live’ and ten is ‘murder you slow, bury your corpse in the woods, then dig you up to shit on your skull’? Maybe an eight.” “Okay, good.

Hey, dickhead!" one of the other drivers yelled. "Get off the road!" "This here is a Falcon Seven," the rider told him. "I can put a bolt through your windshield and pin you to your seat like a bug." A direct threat, huh? Okay. I pulled down my sunglasses a bit so the rider would see my eyes. "That's a nice crossbow." He glanced in my direction. He saw a friendly blond girl with a big smile and a light Texas accent and didn't get alarmed. "You've got what, a seventy-five-pound draw on it? Takes you about four seconds to reload?" "Three," he said. I gave him my Order smile: sweet grin, hard eyes, reached over to my passenger seat, and pulled out my submachine gun. About twenty-seven inches long, the HK was my favorite toy for close-quarters combat. The rider's eyes went wide. "This is an HK UMP submachine gun. Renowned for its stopping power and reliability. Cyclic rate of fire: eight hundred rounds per minute. That means I can empty this thirty-round clip into you in less than three seconds. At this range, I'll cut you in half." It wasn't strictly true but it sounded good. "You see what it says on the barrel?" On the barrel, pretty white letters spelled out PARTY STARTER. "You open your mouth again, and I'll get the party started." The rider clamped his jaws shut.

Why has the car stopped?" "Ah!" I said with manly frankness that became me well. "There you have me." You see, I'm one of those birds who drive a lot but don't know the first thing about the works. The policy I pursue is to get aboard, prod the self-starter, and leave the rest to Nature. If anything goes wrong, I scream for an A.A. scout. It's a system that answers admirably as a rule, but on the present occasion it blew a fuse owing to the fact that there wasn't an A.A. scout within miles.

You and Nick are good together," Jake said. "Probably in more ways than you know." "Let's not go there." "You keep saying that to yourself, but maybe it's time for a rethink." "Since when are you interested in my love life?" "You don't have one. You're all about the job. With Bob, you can have both." "You don't know anything about Bob." "I know it's got to be Nick, because there isn't anybody else," Jake said. "Who could possibly compete?" "Someone who isn't a criminal on the FBI's Most Wanted list for starters." "How boring would that guy be? He couldn't match the excitement Nick brings to your life.

I honestly think someone invented the time machine just so they could go grab a burger when the urge took them. Anyway, turns out saving the planet by eating soy was a bit of a non-starter given how we destroyed the entirety of history, but it was a good idea at the time.

You really want to know?” He drags out the suspense. “Yes.” I grow restless. “Spill.” “Well, for starters… most guys our age aren’t looking to date.” He elaborates. “They just want to fuck around. And those who do want to date are only looking for a girl to make them feel good about themselves.” “Meaning?” “Meaning they want her to laugh at their jokes, stroke their egos, give good head and… that’s pretty much it.” He draws a small smile out of me. “So, when guys like that see a girl like you, a girl who doesn’t look easy or desperate, they get intimidated. Label her high-maintenance and run like hell. You’re beauty and brains, Vee. You’re an immature high school boy’s worst nightmare.

I’m just really glad to hear that things are going well.” “Wait, you’re not getting ready to hang up on me, are you?” he asks. “We’ve only been talking for a couple minutes.” “Well, I don’t really have much else to say.” “Are you kidding? The possibilities are endless. For starters, you could tell me that you’ll call me again. Or, better yet, you could ask me out for coffee or a slice of pizza. Of course, letting me know that I can call you whenever I want is always a good possibility. Or, if you’re feeling really generous, you could tell me that you miss me, too. I mean, I wouldn’t even care if it was a lie.

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since yesterday and I’ve come up with a few ideas.” “Like what?” “Like, for starters, we have got to do something about your wardrobe.” I glanced down at myself. I was wearing a pair of flare jeans and a gray t-shirt that said, “BOOK NERD”, where every straight vertical line of each letter was the spine of a book. I thought it was clever. “What’s wrong with my wardrobe?” “Honestly, nothing…if you weren’t trying to attract the attention of Matt Fisher. Which, by the way, is confusing to me. What about him makes you so hot and bothered? It can’t just be his good looks because I’m good-looking too and you hate me.

All right, then, I'll go to hell' -and tore it up. It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and I said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Of course George Orwell was not a saint—he could be unfaithful to his wife and suspicious of democracy, for starters—and it’s a good thing, too, because saints are always hard to take seriously.

Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory, in the dense network of your neurons. Most slow hunches never last long enough to turn into something useful, because they pass in and out of our memory too quickly, precisely because they possess a certain murkiness. You get a feeling that there’s an interesting avenue to explore, a problem that might someday lead you to a solution, but then you get distracted by more pressing matters and the hunch disappears. So part of the secret of hunch cultivation is simple: write everything down.

Father Angelo makes me uncomfortable. For starters, he's way too good-looking for a priest, his dark bedroom eyes and athletic build arousing exactly the kind of impure thoughts you're supposed to go to church to get rid of.

The mere act of dreaming is a vitalizing, life-affirming endeavor. As it turns out, using your imagination is very, very good for your wellbeing. Einstein believed that imagination was even more important than knowledge itself.

Perhaps nothing is more important to exploration and discovery than the art of asking good questions. Questions are fire-starters: they ignite people’s passions and energy; they create heat; and they illuminate things that were previously obscure.

Find someone with discipline. Look for characteristics of discipline in your friends. They wake up early, can maintain a workout routine or regimen, they’re a self-starter, etc. No one’s perfect but if you see a few of these signs you’ve probably found a disciplined person.

When you start searching for ‘pure elements’ in literature you will find that literature has been created by the following classes of persons: Inventors. Men who found a new process, or whose extant work gives us the first known example of a process. The masters. Men who combined a number of such processes, and who used them as well as or better than the inventors. The diluters. Men who came after the first two kinds of writer, and couldn’t do the job quite as well. Good writers without salient qualities. Men who are fortunate enough to be born when the literature of a given country is in good working order, or when some particular branch of writing is ‘healthy’. For example, men who wrote sonnets in Dante’s time, men who wrote short lyrics in Shakespeare’s time or for several decades thereafter, or who wrote French novels and stories after Flaubert had shown them how. Writers of belles-lettres. That is, men who didn’t really invent anything, but who specialized in some particular part of writing, who couldn’t be considered as ‘great men’ or as authors who were trying to give a complete presentation of life, or of their epoch. The starters of crazes. Until the reader knows the first two categories he will never be able ‘to see the wood for the trees’. He may know what he ‘likes’. He may be a ‘compleat book-lover’, with a large library of beautifully printed books, bound in the most luxurious bindings, but he will never be able to sort out what he knows to estimate the value of one book in relation to others, and he will be more confused and even less able to make up his mind about a book where a new author is ‘breaking with convention’ than to form an opinion about a book eighty or a hundred years old. He will never understand why a specialist is annoyed with him for trotting out a second- or third-hand opinion about the merits of his favourite bad writer.

So ecological duress can increase or decrease aggression. This raises the key issue of what global warming will do to our best and worst behaviors. There will definitely be some upsides. Some regions will have longer growing seasons, increasing the food supply and reducing tensions. Some people will eschew conflict, being preoccupied with saving their homes from the encroaching ocean or growing pineapples in the Arctic. But amid squabbling about the details in predictive models, the consensus is that global warming won’t do good things to global conflict. For starters, warmer temperatures rile people up—in cities during the summers, for every three degree increase in temperature, there was a 4 percent increase in interpersonal violence and 14 percent in group violence. But global warming’s bad news is more global—desertification, loss of arable land due to rising seas, more droughts. One influential meta-analysis projected 16 percent and 50 percent increases in interpersonal and group violence, respectively, in some regions by 2050.

In a quick moment, Cole was in front of her. Simply there. He leaned in, their breath mingling. His warm lips touched hers lightly, and he kissed her. 
 His scent was that of the pine forest, the air and the land around them, and it dazzled her. His strength, his determination to treat her exactly the way she wanted to be treated, ever-changing as it was—dazzled her more.

For a positively masculine Man there is no better opportunity to set yourself apart and start to plant the seeds of critical thought into AFCs than when you’re presented with these social situation. I think most men lack the balls to be a fire-starter at the risk of being perceived as some caveman, but it’s a good opportunity to truly set yourself apart from ‘other guys’ when you do.

Similarly, some people have a four-lane highway for constant achievement, a striving talent we call achiever. They may not have to win, but they do feel a burning need to achieve something tangible every single day. And these people mean every single day. For them, every day — workday, weekend, vacation — starts at zero. They have to rack up some numbers by the end of the day to feel good about themselves. This burning flame may dwindle as evening comes, but the next morning, it rekindles itself, spurring its host to look for new items to cross off his list. These people are the fabled “self-starters.

The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.

Sourdough isn't only for bread. Any grain-based baked good- from crackers to waffles, from muffins to pasta, can be made with a wild yeast starter. Why would the home baker want to incorporate sourdough into their regular baking? First, it's an excellent way to use the starter you remove during feedings. Instead of throwing the excess in the trash, add it to your pancake batter or chocolate chip cookies. Second, a sourdough starter is an ecosystem of wild yeasts and beneficial bacteria that work together to add B-vitamins to grains, to break down gluten for better digestion, and to neutralize phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. In other words, it's good for you. And finally, because sourdough eventually becomes a way of life. Experimenting with different ways of using it is one of the most satisfying aspects of using wild yeast in your kitchen.

For starters, of the four so-called weapons of mass destruction, three are far less massively destructive than good old-fashioned explosives.272 Radiological or “dirty” bombs, which are conventional explosives wrapped in radioactive material (obtained, for example, from medical waste), would yield only minor and short-lived elevations of radiation, comparable to moving to a city at a higher altitude. Chemical weapons, unless they are released in an enclosed space like a subway (where they would still not do as much damage as conventional explosives), dissipate quickly, drift in the wind, and are broken down by sunlight. (Recall that poison gas was responsible for a tiny fraction of the casualties in World War I.) Biological weapons capable of causing epidemics would be prohibitively expensive to develop and deploy, as well as dangerous to the typically bungling amateur labs that would develop them.

help.’ ‘Can you get me out of here?’ ‘Not exactly.’ ‘So how can you help?’ ‘I... we can provide consular assistance. A translator for any interviews, a lawyer if you need one. And we’ll work closely with the authorities here to get you repatriated to Britain as soon as possible.’ ‘So what are you waiting for?’ Willoughby looked flustered. ‘It’s not quite that easy. We need to wait for the prosecutor to come back with their plan. At the moment we’re still waiting for the official charge.’ ‘I’ve not even been charged? And how long will that take?’ Willoughby rubbed the side of her neck. ‘That’s a good question. The system here is a bit different to back home, to say the least.’ ‘I’d never have imagined.’ ‘But, for starters, there’s something more pressing.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘We believe you’re British. That’s according to the information we’ve been given about your arrest, the communication we’ve had with the Mexican police and prosecution service, and… your accent speaking with me today.’ ‘I’m sensing a but.’ ‘We don’t know who you are. We don’t know your name

Sunday brunch is an easy, pleasant way to entertain a largish group, especially in the country. Americans who overslept invented the word brunch, but the ingredients and the casual atmosphere bear a strong resemblance to breakfast in an English country house or to a French midnight supper. The choice of menu can be as wide as the imagination. Practically anything goes — from hearty breakfast dishes such as filled omelettes, kidneys, chicken livers and bacon, sausages, and eggs Benedict. Something pretty in aspic, or a salmon mousse in a fish-shaped mold, makes a lovely centerpiece. Best of all, most of the meal can be prepared way ahead of time and it can be managed without outside help — if, that is, the hostess puts in a lot of work the day before and early that morning. People can wander in when they feel like it, so there’s no need to tint this one. Drinks are no problem. A big punch bowl with chunks of fresh fruit makes a nice starter, and mixings for bloody Marys, screwdrivers, or bullshots can be left on a table for guests to serve themselves. Of course there should be a big pot of very good coffee.

All of this could fall flat, feel too much like a caricature of a Sicilian trattoria, if the food itself weren't so damn good: arancini, saffron-scented rice fried into crunchy, greaseless golf balls; polpette di pesce spada, swordfish meatballs with a taste so deep and savory they might as well be made of dry-aged beef; and a superlative version of caponata di melanzane, that ubiquitous Sicilian starter of eggplant, capers, and various other vegetation, stewed into a sweet and savory jam that you will want to smear on everything. Everything around you screams Italy, but those flavors on the end of the fork? The sweet-and-sour tandem, the stain of saffron, the grains of rice: pure Africa. The pasta: even better. Chewy noodles tinted jet black with squid ink and tossed with sautéed rings and crispy legs of calamari- a sort of nose-to-tail homage to the island's cherished cephalopod. And Palermo's most famous dish, pasta con le sarde, a bulge of thick spaghetti strewn with wild fennel, capers, raisins, and, most critically, a half dozen plump sardines slow cooked until they melt into a briny ocean ragù. Sweet, salty, fatty, funky- Palermo in a single bite.

James and Colleen Simmons, authors of Daniel's Challenge and Original Fast Foods, and owners of LDShealth.ning.com, have this to say on the subject: “The commercial bread-making industry figured out how to isolate strains of yeast that made bread raise very quickly compared to the old-fashion bread-making method; soon sourdough starts became a thing of the past for most of us. What we didn't know when we traded Old-World leavening techniques for quick-rise yeasts, is that not everything in wheat is good for you. In fact, there are several elements in wheat that are down-right problematic and that have led to grain intolerances in about 20 percent of today's population. When you compare what happens to the bread when it is leavened with commercial yeasts versus a good sourdough starter, another story unfolds…. The sourdough starter contains several natural strains of friendly bacteria and yeasts that also cause bread to rise; however, these friendly bacteria also neutralize the harmful effects of the grain. They neutralize phytic acids that otherwise prevent minerals found in the grain from being absorbed properly; they predigest the gluten, and they also neutralize lignans and tanins found in wheat.”1

What It’s Like to Be a Nine I’ll do almost anything to avoid conflict. I’m not a self-starter. Sometimes I get lost in doing trivial tasks, while things that really need to get done get put off. I’m happy to go along with what others want to do. I tend to procrastinate. People seem to want me to be more decisive. When I get distracted and go off task I give my attention to whatever is happening right in front of me. I often choose the path of least resistance. I find routines at work and home comforting, and I feel unsettled when something throws them off. Others see me as more peaceful than I really am. I have a hard time getting started, but once I do I really get things done. I’m a “what you see is what you get” person. I don’t think of myself as being very important. People think I’m a good listener even though I find it hard to pay attention in a long conversation. I don’t like to take work home with me. Sometimes I tune out and think about the past. I don’t enjoy big social gatherings as much as a quiet evening at home with the ones I love. Being outdoors is very soothing for me. I am often quietly stubborn when people put demands on me. It would feel selfish to spend a whole day doing whatever I want to do.

On May 31, 1921, the Ford Motor Company turned out Car No. 5,000,000. It is out in my museum along with the gasoline buggy that I began work on thirty years before and which first ran satisfactorily along in the spring of 1893. I was running it when the bobolinks came to Dearborn and they always come on April 2nd. There is all the difference in the world in the appearance of the two vehicles and almost as much difference in construction and materials, but in fundamentals the two are curiously alike—except that the old buggy has on it a few wrinkles that we have not yet quite adopted in our modern car. For that first car or buggy, even though it had but two cylinders, would make twenty miles an hour and run sixty miles on the three gallons of gas the little tank held and is as good to-day as the day it was built. The development in methods of manufacture and in materials has been greater than the development in basic design. The whole design has been refined; the present Ford car, which is the "Model T," has four cylinders and a self starter—it is in every way a more convenient and an easier riding car. It is simpler than the first car. But almost every point in it may be found also in the first car. The changes have been brought about through experience in the making and not through any change in the basic principle—which I take to be an important fact demonstrating that, given a good idea to start with, it is better to concentrate on perfecting it than to hunt around for a new idea.

As the conductor played her A, I strained to listen to my cello’s A. I could hear that it was off—my ear was that good—but I wasn’t sure if I was too high or too low. I suddenly remembered a trick that

2. Users of bells and whistles such as grapes and milk in their starter vs. flour-and-water minimalists. (Lest you reflexively award moral victory to the purists, note that the grapes side includes such heavy hitters as Nancy Silverton and the man Anthony Bourdain describes as “[God’s] personal bread baker.”) 3. Protective vs. permissive starter parents. (“The California gold rush prospectors made sourdough from whatever they had at hand. River water and whole grain flour. Maybe some old coffee. Hell, throw in some grapes. They fed it whatever they had, however often they could. None of this coddling the sourdough, giving it regular feedings, just the right amount of pablum. You ruin a good sour that way. Turns out to be weak and citified. Doesn’t have the gumption to properly raise a little pancake much less a loaf of bread. Nope.”) .

to bring you south and bring you

FOR AS LONG AS THERE is wind in the mountains; for as long as there’s salt in the sea; for as long as rain falls on these green hills; I will stand with thee.

Honor is lost a day at a time—a year at a time—not all at once.

need to download and install Python, get the recent most stable version from python.org and install it on your computer. If you already have Python installed on your Linux computer, do not uninstall the older 2.x as this may break your operating system. Instead, install the latest version alongside it. You may be required to use the command python3 and not python to initialize the interpreter though. All the information you need is provided on the documentation page of the Python.org website. We recommend you take the time to read the ‘Beginners Guide’ if you are still new to Python. Practical hacking: Free online hacking practice servers There is a saying in the world of information security that the best defense is a good offense. This is what has inspired many cyber security companies to make available deliberately vulnerable websites and servers to encourage developers, auditors, pentesters, system admins, and security professionals to practice their hacking skills online.

He who searches for enlightenment, Shall find confusion. He who seeks to slay another, Shall slay himself. He who travels to the deepest reaches of the Underworld, Shall find heaven. He who has lost his soul and cannot save himself, Shall save us all.

7. UNFAVORABLE ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES DURING CHILDHOOD. "As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow." Most people who have criminal tendencies acquire them as the result of bad environment, and improper associates during childhood. 8. PROCRASTINATION. This is one of the most common causes of failure. "Old Man Procrastination" stands within the shadow of every human being, waiting his opportunity to spoil one's chances of success. Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. 9. LACK OF PERSISTENCE. Most of us are good "starters" but poor "finishers" of everything we begin. Moreover, people are prone to give up at the first signs of defeat. There is no substitute for PERSISTENCE. The person who makes PERSISTENCE his watch-word, discovers that "Old Man Failure" finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with PERSISTENCE. 10. NEGATIVE PERSONALITY. There is no hope of success for the person who repels people through a negative personality. Success comes through the application of POWER, and power is attained through the cooperative efforts of other people. A negative personality will not induce cooperation. 11. LACK OF CONTROLLED SEXUAL URGE. Sex energy is the most powerful of all the stimuli which move people into ACTION. Because it is the most powerful of the emotions, it must be controlled, through transmutation, and converted into other channels. 12. UNCONTROLLED DESIRE FOR "SOMETHING FOR NOTHING." The gambling instinct drives millions of people to failure. Evidence of this may be found in a study of the Wall Street crash of " 29, during which millions of people tried to make money by gambling on stock margins. 13. LACK OF A WELL DEFINED POWER OF DECISION. Men who succeed reach decisions promptly, and change them, if at all, very slowly. Men who fail, reach decisions, if at all, very slowly, and change them frequently, and quickly. Indecision and procrastination are twin brothers. Where one is found, the other may usually be found also. Kill off this pair before they completely "hog-tie" you to the treadmill of FAILURE.

haloumi Made in Cypress, Haloumi is a firm, pickled (brined) cheese. It is a good hot-weather cheese: The salt inhibits the growth of mold and unwanted bacteria, which usually thrive in temperate conditions. 2 gallons whole milk 1 packet direct-set mesophilic starter or 4 ounces prepared mesophilic starter ½ teaspoon liquid rennet (or ½ rennet tablet) diluted in ¼ cup cool, unchlorinated water ¼ cup plus 2 pounds cheese salt, for brine 1 gallon cold water, for brine 1. Heat the milk to 86°F. Add the starter and mix well. 2. Add the diluted rennet and stir gently with an up-and-down motion for 1 minute. Cover and allow to set at 86°F for 30–45, minutes or until the curd gives a clean break. 3. Cut the curd into ½-inch cubes. 4. Increase the temperature two degrees every 5 minutes, until the curds reach 104°F (this will take about 45 minutes), stirring gently to keep the curds from matting. Maintain the curds at 104°F for 20 minutes, stirring gently every few minutes. 5. Ladle the curds into a cheesecloth-lined colander. Drain the whey into a pot and reserve. 6. Pack the curds into a cheesecloth-lined mold and press at 30 pounds of pressure for 1 hour. 7. Remove the cheese from the mold and gently peel away the cheesecloth. Turn over the cheese, re-dress it, and press at 50 pounds of pressure for 30 minutes. 8. Remove the cheese from the mold and cut into 3-inch-square blocks. 9. Bring the reserved whey to 176 to 194°F. Place the curd blocks in the whey and soak for 1 hour, at which time the cheese will have a texture similar to that of cooked chicken breast and will rise to the surface. 10. Strain the curds into a colander and let cool for 20 minutes. 11. Sprinkle the curds with ¼ cup of the salt and let cool for 2–4 hours 12. Combine the remaining 2 pounds of salt and the cold water to make a saturated brine solution. Soak the cheese in the brine for up to 60 days. The flavor increases with age, but the cheese may be eaten fresh at any time during the 60-day period. YIELD: 2 pounds

…anti-Semitism may be a good starter, but it is a bad sticker.

Moreover, staying physically fit has numerous other benefits, including improving cardiovascular health, moderating your blood pressure, boosting your HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and lowering your triglycerides. Both aerobic exercise and weight-bearing exercise also improve your balance (so you are less likely to injure yourself in a fall), lift your mood and alleviate stress, up your energy level, and enhance the quality of your sleep. And that’s just for starters.

At noon one day Will Hamilton came roaring and bumping up the road in a new Ford. The engine raced in its low gear, and the high top swayed like a storm-driven ship. The brass radiator and the Prestolite tank on the running board were blinding with brass polish. Will pulled up the brake lever, turned the switch straight down, and sat back in the leather seat. The car backfired several times without ignition because it was overheated. “Here she is!” Will called with a false enthusiasm. He hated Fords with a deadly hatred, but they were daily building his fortune. Adam and Lee hung over the exposed insides of the car while Will Hamilton, puffing under the burden of his new fat, explained the workings of a mechanism he did not understand himself. It is hard now to imagine the difficulty of learning to start, drive, and maintain an automobile. Not only was the whole process complicated, but one had to start from scratch. Today’s children breathe in the theory, habits, and idiosyncracies of the internal combustion engine in their cradles, but then you started with the blank belief that it would not run at all, and sometimes you were right. Also, to start the engine of a modern car you do just two things, turn a key and touch the starter. Everything else is automatic. The process used to be more complicated. It required not only a good memory, a strong arm, an angelic temper, and a blind hope, but also a certain amount of practice of magic, so that a man about to turn the crank of a Model T might be seen to spit on the ground and whisper a spell. Will Hamilton explained the car and went back and explained it again. His customers were wide-eyed, interested as terriers, cooperative, and did not interrupt, but as he began for the third time Will saw that he was getting no place. “Tell you what!” he said brightly. “You see, this isn’t my line. I wanted you to see her and listen to her before I made delivery. Now, I’ll go back to town and tomorrow I’ll send out this car with an expert, and he’ll tell you more in a few minutes than I could in a week. But I just wanted you to see her.” Will had forgotten some of his own instructions. He cranked for a while and then borrowed a buggy and a horse from Adam and drove to town, but he promised to have a mechanic out the next day.

I shut my eyes and let myself drift back to Australia, the warm sun, the tropical nights, and the huge fruit bats flying across star-studded skies. Once again, the jangle of the phone jolted me upright. Not again! Now what did she want? Reluctantly I picked up the receiver. “G’day, mate,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “It’s Stevo calling from Australia. How you going?” Well, for starters, I was going without breathing for a few moments. “Good,” I stammered. Luckily, I didn’t have to talk, because Steve started right in on what was going on with the zoo. “The weather is heating up and the crocs will be laying soon,” he said, and I could barely hear him over the pounding of my heart. “I’ve got a chance to take a little time before summer hits,” he added. I waited for what seemed like a long beat, still breathless. “I’m coming to Oregon in ten days,” he said. “I’d really love to see you.” Yes! I was floored. Ten days. That would be…Thanksgiving. “Steve,” I said, “do you know about the American holiday of Thanksgiving?” “Too right,” he said cheerfully, but it was obvious that he didn’t. “We all get together as a family,” I explained. “We eat our brains out and take walks and watch a lot of football--American football, you know, gridiron, not your rugby league football.” I was babbling. “Do you want to come and share Thanksgiving with my family?” Steve didn’t seem to notice my fumbling tongue. “I’d be happy to,” he answered. “That’d be brilliant.” “Great,” I said. “Great,” he said. “Send me all the details, your flight and everything,” I said. “I will,” he promised. Then he hung up. As suddenly as he was there, he was gone. I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time that night, trying to convince myself that it hadn’t been a dream. Steve had called, and now he was coming to see me. This was going to be fabulous.

The Interview The largest determining factor in whether you get a job is usually the interview itself. You’ve made impressions all along—with your telephone call and your cover letter and resume. Now it is imperative that you create a favorable impression when at last you get a chance to talk in person. This can be the ultimate test for a socially anxious person: After all, you are being evaluated on your performance in the interview situation. Activate your PMA, then build up your energy level. If you have followed this program, you now possess the self-help techniques you need to help you through the situation. You can prepare yourself for success. As with any interaction, good chemistry is important. The prospective employer will think hard about whether you will fit in—both from a production perspective and an interactive one. The employer may think: Will this employee help to increase the bottom line? Will he interact well as part of the team within the social system that already exists here? In fact, your chemistry with the interviewer may be more important than your background and experience. One twenty-three-year-old woman who held a fairly junior position in an advertising firm nonetheless found a good media position with one of the networks, not only because of her skills and potential, but because of her ability to gauge a situation and react quickly on her feet. What happened? The interviewer began listing the qualifications necessary for the position that was available: “Self-starter, motivated, creative . . .” “Oh,” she said, after the executive paused, “you’re just read my resume!” That kind of confidence and an ability to take risks not only amused the interviewer; it displayed some of the very skills the position required! The fact that interactive chemistry plays such a large role in getting a job has both positive and negative aspects. The positive side is that a lack of experience doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t get a particular job. Often, with the right basic education and life skills, you can make a strong enough impression based on who you are and how capable you seem that the employer may feel you are trainable for the job at hand. In my office, for example, we interviewed a number of experienced applicants for a secretarial position, only to choose a woman whose office skills were not as good as several others’, but who had the right chemistry, and who we felt would fit best into the existing system in the office. It’s often easier to teach or perfect the required skills than it is to try to force an interactive chemistry that just isn’t there. The downside of interactive chemistry is that even if you do have the required skills, you may be turned down if you don’t “click” with the interviewer.

Picture the athlete at the starting line of a race—adrenaline pumping, energy flowing, muscles tightening, skin aglow with anticipatory perspiration, heart beating faster and faster, the mind focused on only one thing: the starter’s gun and the race. Now, picture the person about to enter a social gathering. He or she approaches the door, behind which a number of people are talking, laughing, having fun—adrenaline pumping, energy flowing, pulse beginning to quicken, the mind focused on anticipation: “What will happen when I enter the room?” “Will I see anyone I know?” “What will they think of me?” What do these situations have in common? The answer is anxiety. For the athlete, anxiety is channeled into energy that just may win the race. By allowing the anxiety to play a role in gearing him or her up for the race, the athlete is making good use of the natural fight-or-flight response. For the partygoer, it is not so clear. If that person is willing to let being “keyed up” or “excited” be a positive kind of energy flow, then any initial nervousness or uncertainty will remain manageable and nonthreatening. But if the physical sensations of anxiety become distracting and the thoughts obsessive, the party guest is in for a difficult time. Similarly, a person who prepares for an important meeting may feel a kind of nervous energy in gearing up for negotiations. But if that same person, although well prepared, allows interactive inhibition to keep him from suggesting a solution, questioning a point, or voicing an opinion, he will feel a real letdown. When holding back becomes a habit, the pervasive feeling of “Oh no, I did it again” may lead to a lack of enthusiasm that interferes with productivity and job satisfaction. The truth is, we all want to be heard without—if we can reasonably avoid it—being rejected or embarrassed. How to resolve this dilemma? First, by understanding anxiety in its simplest terms. The more you understand about anxiety, the more you will be able to control it. Remember, social anxiety is not some abstract phenomenon or indelible personality trait. It is an explainable dynamic that you can choose to control. Let’s look more closely at the athlete. For that person, in that situation, anxiety is normal and appropriate. In fact, it is crucial to effective performance. Without it, the physiological workings of the body would fall short of what is required. In the second example, anxiety is also appropriate. But it can become negative if the person begins to worry about what is going on inside the room: “What are they laughing about?” “Will anyone talk to me?” “Am I dressed right?” “Will I seem nervous?” At that point it’s the degree of incapacity—the extent to which the anxious feelings and thoughts prevent interacting—that becomes the most important issue. (In the workplace, these thoughts may run to “Have I done enough research?” “What if I can’t answer my boss’s questions?” “Can they tell I’m anxious?”)

Turning Rejection Around What if your friendly, hopeful conversation starter is not met with signals of approval or interest? If the person you approach is fidgety, avoids eye contact, appears uneasy, and exhibits none of the signals of welcome, chances are he or she is not interested in interaction—at least not at that moment. The first thing to do is slow down. Be patient, and give the person time to relax with you. If you present yourself as relaxed and open to whatever develops (whether a good conversation, a valuable working relationship, even friendship or romance), your companion may in time relax too. Use your verbal skills to create an interesting conversation and a sense of ease to break the tension. Don’t pressure yourself to be able to define a relationship from the first meeting. Keep your expectations general, and remember the playfulness factor. Enjoy someone’s company with no strings attached. Don’t fabricate obligations where none exist. It may take several conversations for a relationship to develop. If you had hoped for romance but the feelings appear not to be reciprocated, switch your interest to friendship, which has its own rich rewards. What if you are outright rejected? Rejection at any point—at first meeting, during a date, or well into a relationship—can be painful and difficult for most of us. But there are ways to prevent it from being an all-out failure. One thing I like to tell my clients is that the Chinese word for failure can be interpreted to mean “opportunity.” And opportunities, after all, are there for the taking. It all depends on how you perceive things. There is a technique you can borrow from salespeople to counter your feelings of rejection. High-earning salespeople know that you can’t succeed without being turned down at least occasionally. Some even look forward to rejection, because they know that being turned down this time brings them that much closer to succeeding next time around. They may even learn something in the process. So keep this in mind as you experiment with your new, social self: Hearing a no now may actually bring you closer to the bigger and better yes that is soon to happen! Apply this idea as you practice interacting: Being turned down at any point in the process helps you to learn a little more—about how to approach a stranger, have a conversation, make plans, go on a date, or move toward intimacy. If you learn something positive from the experience, you can bring that with you into your next social situation. Just as in sales, the payoff in either romance or friendship is worth far more than the possible downfall or minor setback of being turned down. A note on self-esteem: Rejection can hurt, but it certainly does not have to be devastating. It’s okay to feel disappointed when we do not get the reaction we want. But all too often, people overemphasize the importance or meaning of rejection—especially where fairly superficial interactions such as a first meeting or casual date are concerned. Here are some tips to keep rejection in perspective: -Don’t overthink it. Overanalysis will only increase your anxiety. -Keep the feelings of disappointment specific to the rejection situation at hand. Don’t say, “No one ever wants to talk to me.” Say, “Too bad the chemistry wasn’t right for both of us.” -Learn from the experience. Ask yourself what you might have done differently, if anything, but then move on. Don’t beat yourself up about it. If those thoughts start, use your thought-stopping techniques (p. 138) to control them. -Use your “Adult” to look objectively at what happened. Remember, rejecting your offer of conversation or an evening out does not mean rejecting your whole “being.” You must continue to believe that you have something to offer, and that there are open, available people who would like to get to know you.

Taylor and Fitz sat at a patio table in the back of Las Palmas. The front room was filled with giggling Vanderbilt co-eds and migrant workers on their lunch break, a testament to the quality of the restaurant as well as its reasonable prices. Taylor was nibbling a steak fajita quesadilla, Fitz was plowing through a taco salad. A pitcher of sweet tea separated them. “So what did Price say?” Fitz asked. “He understood, for starters. He’ll fight any disciplinary action taken against Lincoln. So Linc will feel a lot better about that. Poor guy, he was completely rattled. I don’t know if it was the dope or the sheer terror of having to report that he’d been smoking it. Can you imagine Lincoln with a few toots in him?” Fitz laughed. “No. Mr. Fancypants has always struck me as the one scotch before dinner because it looks good, rather than enjoying it type. He isn’t much for losing control.” “Well, that’s to be expected, if you think about his background. Damn, it would be nice to have him back to work this Wolff case. I’ll bet there’s a ton of financial discovery, right up his little computer-literate heart’s alley. Marcus is back tomorrow, right?” Marcus Wade, her youngest detective, had been out for four days doing his in-service training rotation. Without the two detectives, the squad had been too quiet. “He’ll be in bright and early tomorrow. We can get him up to speed with the Wolff case, let him go to town. Media’s having a field day with the 911 tape.

Ask Questions "Ask questions, show interest in the response you receive, and then attempt to link those responses to your own knowledge and experience" - Conversationally Speaking, page 58 Ask questions. Lots of them! Actually, don’t ask too many questions. Questions are simply a means to enter conversation. You should ask questions that promote conversation. Don’t ask just any type of question if your goal is to encourage conversation. Yes/No questions are typically starter questions that should quickly dissolve. Open-ended questions are normally the way to go! Instead of starting sentences with “Who” or “When”, try “How” or “Why”. If conversation stops, either leave or ask an open-ended question. Try to stay away from cliché questions because they generally elicit cliché answers. There is such a thing as an open-ended question that is too open and cliché. For example, Americans like to respond “Pretty good” or “Not bad” to the question “How’d it go today?” Also, stay away from initially asking difficult questions. In an effort to make your conversation partner comfortable, ask a simple question that they should obviously know. Questions are a crucial instrument to equip a person for a good conversation. The right question will help you maneuver through any conversational cross-point and is a genuine way to connect with others. Once you ask a question, listen actively! When it’s your turn to respond, try to express their reality using your own words. Asking questions ought to benefit your conversation partner as you intend to give them an opportunity to speak. Use questions liberally and wisely. Take the dual perspective, be specific and direct, and ask good questions. Seek every opportunity to benefit your conversation partner as you express genuine interest in them. Conversational speaking is a skill. You must practice every day. Try focusing on one element of communication at a time. Perhaps this week, do all possible to handle criticism constructively by asking for details and agreeing with the truth. Next week, intentionally practice another aspect of communication. Opportunity awaits us every day. We just need to engage and enjoy every occasion.

You don’t. But biological evolution isn’t the only great “designer” at work on this planet. There is also cultural evolution: the selective transmission of “memes”—beliefs, habits, rituals, songs, technologies, theories, and so forth—from person to person. And one criterion that shapes cultural evolution is social utility; memes that are conducive to smooth functioning at the group level often have an advantage over memes that aren’t. Cultural evolution is what gave us modern corporations, modern government, and modern religion. To put the question another way: What kinds of beliefs was the human mind “designed” by natural selection to harbor? For starters, not true ones. At least, not true ones per se. To the extent that accurate perception and comprehension of the world helped humanity’s ancestors get genes into the next generation, then of course mental accuracy would be favored by natural selection. And usually mental accuracy is good for the survival and transmission of the genes. That’s why we have excellent equipment for depth perception, for picking up human voices against background noise, and so on. Still, in situations where accurate perception and judgment impede survival and reproduction, you would expect natural selection to militate against accuracy.

But, actually, the idea of a personal god or spirit who peevishly withholds food, or maliciously hurls lightning, gets a boost from the evolved human brain. People reared in modern scientific societies may consider it only natural to ponder some feature of the world—the weather, say—and try to come up with a mechanistic explanation couched in the abstract language of natural law. But evolutionary psychology suggests that a much more natural way to explain anything is to attribute it to a humanlike agent. This is the way we’re “designed” by natural selection to explain things. Our brain’s capacity to think about causality—to ask why something happened and come up with theories that help us predict what will happen in the future—evolved in a specific context: other brains. When our distant ancestors first asked “Why,” they weren’t asking about the behavior of water or weather or illness; they were asking about the behavior of their peers. That’s a somewhat speculative (and, yes, hard-to-test!) claim. We have no way of observing our prehuman ancestors one or two or three million years ago, when the capacity to think explicitly about causality was evolving by natural selection. But there are ways to shed light on the process. For starters, we can observe our nearest nonhuman relatives, chimpanzees. We didn’t evolve from chimps, but chimps and humans do share a common ancestor in the not-too-distant past (4 to 7 million years ago). And chimps are probably a lot more like that common ancestor than humans are. Chimps aren’t examples of our ancestors circa 5 million BCE but they’re close enough to be illuminating. As the primatologist Frans de Waal has shown, chimpanzee society shows some clear parallels with human society. One of them is in the title of his book Chimpanzee Politics. Groups of chimps form coalitions—alliances—and the most powerful alliance gets preferred access to resources (notably a resource that in Darwinian terms is important: sex partners). Natural selection has equipped chimps with emotional and cognitive tools for playing this political game. One such tool is anticipation of a given chimp’s future behavior based on past behavior. De Waal writes of a reigning alpha male, Yeroen, who faced growing hostility from a former ally named Luit: “He already sensed that Luit’s attitude was changing and he knew that his position was threatened.” 8 One could argue about whether Yeroen was actually pondering the situation in as clear and conscious a way as de Waal suggests. But even if chimps aren’t quite up to explicit inference, they do seem close. If you imagine their politics getting more complex (more like, say, human politics), and them getting smarter (more like humans), you’re imagining an organism evolving toward conscious thought about causality. And the causal agents about which these organisms will think are other such organisms, because the arena of causality is the social arena. In this realm, when a bad thing happens (like a challenge for Yeroen’s alpha spot) or a good thing happens (like an ally coming to Yeroen’s aid), it is another organism that is making the bad or good thing happen.

You may have come across the little story about the six blind men and the elephant. There are six blind men touching an elephant, trying to determine what it is they feel. One man touches the belly of the animal and thinks it's a wall. Another grabs his ear and thinks it's a fan. Another thinks his tail is a rope. On they go, each grabbing a part of the elephant without any one of them knowing what it is they really feel. The point of the story? We are all blind men when it comes to God. We know a part of him, but we don't really know who he is. No one is more right than anyone else. We are all just grasping in the dark, thinking we know more than we do. But of course there are two enormous problems with the analogy. For starters, the whole story is told from the vantage point of someone who clearly knows that the elephant is an elephant. For the story to make its point, the narrator has to have clear and accurate knowledge of the elephant. The second flaw is even more serious. The story is a perfectly good description of human inability in matters of the divine. We are blind and unable to know God by our own devices. But this story never considers this paradigm-shattering question: What if the elephant talks? What if he tells the blind men, 'That wall-like structure is my side. That fan is really my ear. And that's not a rope; it's a tail.' If the elephant were to say all this, would the six blind men be considered humble for ignoring his word?

While dating, couples are on their best behavior. They listen attentively, laugh at each other’s jokes, and choose to believe the best about each other. Married couples tend to be more honest, raw, and real. While this can be good—because raw emotions and serious conversations add much to the relationship—don’t forget to put your best foot forward, too. Marriage is not an excuse for relational laziness. Happy couples put their best foot forward day after day.

He turned to check the stands again. Maybe dad came after all. To cheer him on, shout how proud he was of his boy. But that was stupid. Dad wasn’t coming to soccer practice. ‘Not a real sport’, he’d shouted. ‘Shit, they have an old woman for a coach’. Dad wanted his football starter back. Living proof he’d fathered a boy in the missionary position to go forth and populate the living-room mantel with trophies. Good for mocking dads whose kids lacked spine, sport jersey and high-school chin hairs. Marlon understood exactly what his dad wanted.

Happy couples strive to be one another’s biggest fans. Hebrews 10:24 says, “Let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works.” While it is possible to overdo appreciation, this rarely happens. As a marriage and family therapist, I have never seen—nor heard of—a partner complaining, “My spouse appreciates me too much.” So, make your praise sincere and voice your appreciation often.

There is no Heaven. How can there be? Think about it. For starters, if all the good people there have ever been are already there, how big would it have to be? Second, what a social nightmare. It’d be like all the good characters in all the books in the ultimate library of the world left their books, stepped out of their stories and were told just mingle.

5.   Lack of self-discipline. Discipline comes through self-control. This means that one must control all negative qualities. Before you can control conditions, you must first control yourself. Self-mastery is the hardest job you will ever tackle. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. You may see at one and the same time both your best friend and your greatest enemy, by stepping in front of a mirror. 6.   Ill health. No person may enjoy outstanding success without good health. Many of the causes of ill health are subject to mastery and control. These in the main are: a. Overeating of foods not conducive to health. b. Wrong habits of thought; giving expression to negatives. c. Wrong use of, and over indulgence in sex. d. Lack of proper physical exercise. e. An inadequate supply of fresh air, due to improper breathing. 7.   Unfavorable environmental influences during childhood. “As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.” Most people who have criminal tendencies acquire them as the result of bad environment, and improper associates during childhood. 8.   Procrastination. This is one of the most common causes of failure. “Old Man Procrastination” stands within the shadow of every human being, waiting his opportunity to spoil one’s chances of success. Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the “time to be right” to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. 9.   Lack of persistence. Most of us are good “starters” but poor “finishers” of everything we begin. Moreover, people are prone to give up at the first signs of defeat. There is no substitute for persistence. The person who makes persistence his watch-word, discovers that “Old Man Failure” finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with persistence. 10. Negative personality. There is no hope of success for the person who repels people through a negative personality. Success comes through the application of power, and power is attained through the cooperative efforts of other people.

While it may seem implausible that the US could have orchestrated the OPEC crisis, there is much evidence to support such a conclusion. For starters, all the key Middle Eastern actors in the affair—Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran—were US allies. Given the disparity in power, it would be more precise to describe them as client states. Client states do not harm the interests of their patron state.

Take some time to wonder aloud with your kids about tears, encouraging them to think deeply and question the common narrative that tears are a sign of weakness. Here are some starter questions, all of which are meant to promote thoughtfulness, not answers: “What do you think tears tell us? Are tears good, or bad, or neither good nor bad—maybe they just are? Did you know that tears release stress from our bodies? Isn’t that interesting? There are some people who don’t like to cry. I wonder why? Can boys and girls cry? Can adults and kids cry? Can men and women cry? Is it more okay for girls or boys to cry or okay for both? Why? How did you learn that?

I’d like to think that I am somewhat self-aware. I’ve got some blind spots, that’s obvious, but all in all, I feel like I’ve got a pretty clear view of reality. More often than not, I know when, and why, I’m making a bad decision. Most of us do—and by us, I mean broke people. Take smoking, for example. If Mom didn’t smoke away ten bucks a day, we never would’ve had to rent out the guest cottage to Freddy in the first place, right? Mom knows that, she’s done the math a million times. But there’s more to consider. For starters, she’s perpetually tired. She’s been working fifty-hour weeks for as long as I can remember. And there’s a good chance she’s clinically depressed. Smoking gets her through that second shift. It relaxes her when the pressure is mounting. It gives her something to look forward to during her break and after work, and before work, and when she wakes up in the morning. It makes her heart beat faster. At ten bucks a day, that’s a bargain.

Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide... though he's amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes back through the loudspeaker, "Good morning folks, this is Heidelberg here we're coming into now, you know the old refrain, 'I lost my heart in Heidelberg,' well I have a friend who lost both his ears here! Don't get me wrong, it's really a nice town, the people are warm and wonderful—when they're not dueling. Seriously though, they treat you just fine, they don't just give you the key to the city, they give you the bung-starter!" u.s.w.

Break up with Emily for starters.” “It’s not that easy.” I shook my head.

So what are we doing with this ability? I asked. Are we blackmailing governments or companies? Give us money or we blast your satellites into smithereens. Trying to blackmail the US or China would be a really good way to have St Genevieve turned into a smoking crater. A stupid villain threatens, Charlie. A smarter villain offers a service. ..So we offer satellite blasting services? We have a select clientele who, for an annual retainer fee, have the option to use our ability to enact logistical challenges to their competitors. In space. So that's a yes.

9. Lack of persistence. Most of us are good “starters” but poor “finishers” of everything we begin. Moreover, people are prone to give up at the first signs of defeat. There is no substitute for persistence. The person who makes persistence his watch-word, discovers that “Old Man Failure” finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with persistence.

I’ve often felt like the illegitimate pastor who was good enough to be a starter on the junior varsity team, but never good enough to do anything but sit at the end of the bench in my warm-ups on the varsity squad.

Go ahead—ride them,” Tom encouraged, and Prophet rocked his hips in time with the rhythm, letting Tommy fill him, tease him, and generally drive him fucking nuts. Tom practically crooned, “So good when you obey and take what I give you. Going to bite you, fuck you. Make you scream my name, for starters. Gonna make you forget everything but me . . . so much I want to do to you.” “Yeah, do it,” Prophet panted before he could stop himself. “Please, Tommy . . . need this. You don’t understand . . .” But even if Tom couldn’t understand the why, he did understand. He bit Prophet’s shoulder, then pushed up and eased down his own jeans, kicking them off. He’d taken his boots off before he’d rolled Prophet, which meant Tom’d definitely planned this. If he’d come in earlier, when Prophet couldn’t get out of the flashback . . . Tom

14 Awesome Conversation Starters 1. What do you do for fun? Hobbies, recreation . . . 2. What are your super powers? Gifts, talents, strengths. 3. Good morning! It’s great to see you! 4. What is your story? Tell me about yourself. 5. What brought you to __________? 6. Do you have anything special happening in your life (or your business)? 7. What’s the best thing that’s happened this week? 8. Are you living your life purpose or still searching for it? 9. What gives you passion and makes you happy to be alive? 10. Do you have any pets? 11. How do you know the host? 12. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? 13. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? 14. What's next on your bucket list?

What’s the matter? Can’t hear what I’m saying about you?” He raised a dark eyebrow at her. “Well, for starters, I hope this gray horse of mine reaches over and takes a big bite out of your thigh. And I hope it’s painful as heck and you need my help, because I’ll never again help you.” He rested the hand holding the reins on his thigh, as though tempting fate. “You know, Aunt Ruth said she never met a man she didn’t like, but she never met you. I’ll bet you would try her good Quaker soul to its further limits.

I’m not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to bring Kanish to Mel Odious Sound yesterday. Bringing a Billionheir to a large recording complex full of Producers is like opening a bag of chips at a seagull convention. It wouldn’t be long before every Producer within earshot swooped in to aggressively pitch his latest and greatest pet project, most of which would likely prove unprofitable. Rev is obviously going to pitch a project, and it very well may be something amazing. But as I’ve pointed out, in order for Kanish to make a profit, he would have to pick up half the Publishing—a non-starter for the Rev. He’s not a Songwriting Producer, so he likely doesn’t have a sufficient portion of the Publishing to share. And even if he did, no seasoned Producer is going to give half of their equity in a song in order to basically secure a small loan from an outside investor. There’s no upside. For starters, Kanish has no channels of Distribution beyond Streaming, which is already available to anyone and everyone who wants it, and which is currently only profitable for the Major Labels and the stockholders of the Streaming services themselves. Everyone else is getting screwed. And please don’t quote me the Douchebag Big Tech Billionaires running big Streaming Corporations. They are literally lining their pockets with the would-be earnings of Artists and Songwriters alike. What they claim as fair is anything but. Frankly, I don’t think we should be comfortable with Spotify taking a 30 percent margin off the top, and then disbursing the Tiger’s Share of the remaining 70 percent to the Major Labels who have already negotiated top dollar for access to their catalog. This has resulted in nothing but some remaining scraps trickling down to the tens of thousands of Independent Artists out there who just want to make a living. You can’t make a living off scraps, or even a trickle, for that matter. Mark my words, we are currently witnessing the greatest heist in the annals of the Music Business, and that’s saying something given its history. Can you say Napster? Stunningly, the only place that Songwriters can make sufficient Performance Royalties is radio—a medium that is coming up on its hundred-year anniversary. To make matters worse, the Major Distributors still have radio all locked up, and without airplay, there’s no hit. So even now, more than twenty years into the Internet revolution, the odds of breaking through the artistic cacophony without Major-Label Distribution are impossibly low. So much for the Internet leveling the playing field. At this point, only Congress can solve the problem. And despite the fact that Streaming has been around since the mid-aughts, Congress has done nothing to deal with the issue. Why? Because it’s far cheaper for Big Tech to line the pockets of lobbyists and fund the campaigns of politicians who gladly ignore the issue than it is to pay Artists and Songwriters a fair rate for their work, my friends. Same is it ever was. Just so I’m clear, there is a debate to be had as to how much Songwriters and Artists should be paid for Streaming. A radio Spin can reach millions. A Stream rarely reaches more than a few listeners. Clearly, a new method of calculation is required. But that doesn’t mean that we should just sit by as the Big Tech Douchebags rob an entire generation of royalties all so they can sell their Streaming Corporation for billions down the line. I mean, that is the end game, after all. At which point, profit for the new majority stockholder will be all but impossible. How will anyone get paid then?

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, ‘First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.’ Good old Epictetus. I would be Confident Girl, and that means unplastering myself from the side of this building, for starters.

Lawrence’s suggestion for a starter wardrobe: a black dress, a fitted black jacket, black pants, a black skirt, a camel-colored skirt, a white blouse, a trendy-looking cardigan in a color (red could be good, for instance), several cool, inexpensive blouses (from places such as H&M or Zara) that pick up or work with the color of the cardigan and will go with your pants and skirts. For shoes, go for black heels and a pair of colored ones (they will make one of your all-black outfits look totally fab). Then build from there.

YOU ARE BLESSED I will make them and the area around My hill a blessing: I will send down showers in their season—showers of blessing. Ezekiel 34:26 HCSB If you sat down and began counting your blessings, how long would it take? A very, very long time! Your blessings include life, freedom, family, friends, talents, and possessions, for starters. But, your greatest blessing—a gift that is yours for the asking—is God’s gift of salvation through Christ Jesus. Today, begin making a list of your blessings. You most certainly will not be able to make a complete list, but take a few moments and jot down as many blessings as you can. Then give thanks to the giver of all good things: God. His love for you is eternal, as are His gifts. And it’s never too soon—or too late—to offer Him thanks. Oh! what a Savior, gracious to all, / Oh! how His blessings round us fall, / Gently to comfort, kindly to cheer, / Sleeping or waking, God is near. Fanny Crosby Count your blessings! Recounts are OK . . . Anonymous A TIMELY TIP If you need a little cheering up, start counting your blessings. In truth, you really have too many blessings to count, but it never hurts to try.

Lent also looks two ways. I look to my mixed past – joys and sorrows, successes and failures, good deeds and sins. But I also look to my future – the great feast of Easter and the assured victory of life over all forms of death. The ashes on my forehead are not a gloomy symbol. They express my belief that through death I find life. Dying to old ways of sin brings the peace I’ve always wanted. No Lenten penance dead ends in pain. Beneath true penance is always the experience of God’s loving presence. Plus the sense that I’m moving in a good direction. I can spend a lot of time on my past, maybe too much. Maybe I should talk to the Lord about my future. For starters, talk about these next 40 days. Don’t drift halfheartedly into Lent. Plunge into it.

Place your newly roasted beans (when cooled) in an open glass storage jar -eg the Mason screw-top canning jars or something similar. Leave your beans before grinding, for about 12 to 24 hours after roasting to rest and develop optimum body and flavor. Seal jar tightly after about 12 –24 hours. (Check that the rubber seal is in good condition)

What sort of things might constitute an agenda for further professional improvement? Beyond the sharing of the good, bad and the ugly in conversations in staff meetings and at professional development sessions, new vistas are opened up when we read about considered practice. Books such as Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence, Graham Nuthall’s The Hidden Lives of Learners, Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby’s Making Every Lesson Count, David Didau’s The Secret of Literacy, Gordon Stobart’s The Expert Learner, Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School, Shirley Clarke’s Outstanding Formative Assessment and Dylan Wiliam’s Embedded Formative Assessment. For starters. Then there are the educational blogs which provide quick insights into new thinking.

All right, I’ll play. What are some of the symptoms of OSS?” “Oh, there are plenty. Especially when a parental figure is missing from the equation.” “Enlighten me.” She swirled the bat back and forth between the palms of her hands. “Well, for starters, you are extremely reliable and find yourself responsible for your siblings. Almost as if they are your own kids, seeing how you helped raise them.” I narrowed my brows. “Go on.” “You are overly protective over your family and go out of your way to make sure everyone’s okay. You’re a workaholic. You put your own wants and needs on the back burner in order to make sure everyone else is good. You let your dreams sit on the sidelines if it makes sure others are happier.” My mouth twitched a little. She was hitting a little too close to home. I took the bat from her and grabbed a ball from the bag. I tossed it up and swung, hitting the ball into the distance. “Go on,” I said. She took the bat from me and stepped onto the plate. “You suffer from a hyper-independence, which seems like a good thing, but it’s not.” She tossed a ball up and knocked it out. “It’s actually a trauma response because you feel like you can’t rely on others, seeing how it was always your job to be the reliable source.” “Too loud, Coach.” She handed the bat back to me. We switched positions. “You also worry about messing up and letting people down. Which is why you are so achievement-oriented,” she explained. I hit the next ball. She whistled low. “Nice hit.” “Thanks.” I flicked my thumb against the bridge of my nose. “So with this OSS, what’s the treatment plan?” She shrugged. “Don’t know. Still trying to figure that out myself. Because as someone suffering with OSS, I know that we hate all eyes on us, and we hate the thought of people worrying about us because it shows that we aren’t as strong as we should be, and we should always be strong.” She took the bat from me and performed another hit. “But I think it helps to struggle in numbers. Makes it a little easier to breathe.” “Are you suggesting we start an OSS club?

Are you happy?” “Hell no! Who is? You can feel happy, but you can’t be that way forever. Let me tell you something: if somebody says yes to that question, they either don’t understand it, or they’re on drugs. I’m only asking you because it’s a good conversation starter.

Contrary to what we see and hear, reaching your potential isn't even something that usually happens in your twenties--it happens in your thirties or forties or fifties. And starting that process often means doing what doesn't look so good, such as carting granola around in vans or choosing a starter job.

Despite the fact that we’ve never met, I suspect I already know a lot about you. For starters, you probably seem remarkably able and accomplished to the outside world. But secretly you believe you are merely passing for competent. When you do manage to nail the presentation, ace the exam, or get the job—which you almost always do—you see yourself as lucky or industrious, never intrinsically good at what you do.

Today’s children breathe in the theory, habits, and idiosyncrasies of the internal combustion engine in their cradles, but then you started with the blank belief that it would not run at all, and sometimes you were right. Also, to start the engine of a modern car you do just two things, turn a key and touch the starter. Everything else is automatic. The process used to be more complicated. It required not only a good memory, a strong arm, an angelic temper, and a blind hope, but also a certain amount of practice of magic, so that a man about to turn the crank of a Model T might be seen to spit on the ground and whisper a spell.

What happens when you do these things? What happens when you engage in life design? Actually, something quite extraordinary happens. Things you want start to show up in your life. You start to hear of job openings you were dreaming about. People you were interested in meeting just happen to be in town. What is happening here? For starters, it’s that “getting good at being lucky” thing we mentioned earlier, a result of curiosity and awareness, and a by-product of using the five mind-sets.

Not a quote, but Brandon Sanderson, good sir, you just launched the world's largest kick starter EVER and kept it secret.

What Does It Mean to Be a Villain?” in yellow, on a blue gradient background. “Do they give this presentation to all the new hires?” I whispered to Morrison. “Executives and managers, yes,” Morrison said. “Shut up and listen.” I shut up and listened. And what I heard was that villains, at least for the purposes of this particular human resources presentation, were not bad people, and not evil people. What they were, were professional disrupters: the people who looked at systems and processes; found the weak spots, loopholes and unintended consequences of each of them; and then exploited them, either for their own advantage or the advantage of their client base. These activities, Yang explained, were neither inherently good nor bad in themselves—their “goodness” or “badness” was entirely dependent on the perspective of the observer.

We got a good deal on them,” Morrison said. “And you have to sell a work.” “A ‘work’?” Dobrev asked. “It’s a wrestling term,” Morrison clarified for him. “A made-up story.

For starters, most of us don’t look at the whole picture when it comes to our mental well-being. We tend to focus on only one aspect: our happiness. While having good mental health most definitely means feeling happy and fulfilled, it also means that we can manage stress; we have a positive outlook on life; we can focus and concentrate when needed, so we are productive; and we can remember things easily. Some might even argue that a happy, healthy mind is the most important aspect of our overall health.

I’m good at everything,” he points out. “Humble, too.” “And really good-looking.

Yo mama is so old… she knew Burger King while he was still a prince. Yo mama is so old… her first pet was a T-Rex! Yo mama is so old… she took her driving test on a dinosaur! Yo mama is so old… her birth certificate says expired on it. Yo mama is so old… she dated George Washington! Yo mama is so old… she has an autographed Bible! Yo mama is so old… that her bus pass is in hieroglyphics! Yo mama is so old… her birth certificate is in Roman numerals. Yo mama is so old… she used to babysit Adam and Eve! Yo mama is so old… her memory is in black and white! Yo mama is so old… she was wearing a Jesus starter jacket! Yo mama is so old… she farts dust! Yo mama is so old… she knew the Great Wall of China when it was only good! Yo mama is so old… she ran track with dinosaurs. Yo mama is so old… she has a picture of Moses in her yearbook. Yo mama is so old… that when she was in school there was no history class. Yo mama is so old… her social security number is 1! Yo mama is so old… she knew the Dead Sea when it started getting sick! Yo mama is so old… she helped serve the Last Supper! Yo mama is so old… I told her to act her own age, and she died. Yo mama is so old… she knew Mr. Clean when he had a head full of hair! Yo mama is so old… I took a picture of her and it came out black and white!

For starters, no more doing your own shopping anymore because you buy nothing but crap. Cereal bars and cookies and cream desserts and all that, finito. I don't know what time you get up in the morning but from Tuesday on you have to remember that I'm the one who's feeding you, okay? Every day at three when I come home, I'll bring you a meal. Don't worry, I know girls, I won't give you duck confit or tripe. I'll make a good yummy little dish just for you. Fish, grilled meat, tasty veggies- stuff you'll really like. I'll make small amounts but you've got to eat it all or else I'll stop. In the evening I won't be here to harass you, but no snacking or nibbling! I'll go on making a big pot of soup at the beginning of the week for Philou the way I always have, and that's it. The idea is to get you hooked on my food. So that every morning you'll get up wondering what's on the menu. I don't promise it'll be utterly amazing every single time, but it'll be good, you'll see. And when you start to fill out, I'll..." "You'll what?" "I'll eat you." "Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel?" "You bet! And no use giving me a bone when I go to feel your arm because I'm not blind!

Gnocchi à la Romaine (ROMAN GNOCCHI) YIELD: 4 SERVINGS ATHOUGH MOST PEOPLE associate gnocchi with the Italian kitchen, gnocchi à la parisienne (little dumplings made with choux paste) and gnocchi à la romaine, made from semoule des blé dur, called semolina in Italian, were standards on the menu of Le Plaza Athénée. I still love semolina gnocchi and make them a few times a year for family and friends. They make a great starter to a meal and are just as good as an accompaniment with poultry or veal. 2 cups whole milk ¾ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Dash of grated nutmeg ½ cup semolina (granulated hard durum wheat flour) 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon good olive oil ¾ cup grated Comté or Gruyère cheese (2 ounces) ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ½ cup heavy cream Bring 1¾ cups of the milk to a boil in a medium saucepan with the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. As soon as the milk boils, pour the semolina into it in a steady stream while mixing it in with a whisk. Reduce the heat to low, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally with the whisk. The mixture should be very thick and smooth. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a small bowl, add the remaining ¼ cup milk, and beat with a fork until smooth. Add to the semolina in the pan, and mix in well with a whisk. Cook and stir for about 30 seconds, until very thick. Set aside while you line a 9-×-6-inch baking dish with plastic wrap, so the ends overhang the sides of the dish. Pour the mixture into it, and using the plastic wrap liner, press on the dough so that it is about ¾ inch thick. Let cool. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut the cold gnocchi dough into 3-inch squares (you will have 6 squares), oil a gratin dish with the teaspoon of oil, and arrange the gnocchi in the dish, leaving a little space between them. Sprinkle the grated cheese, salt, and pepper on top, and bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned and hot. Remove from the oven, and move the oven shelf 6 to 8 inches from the heat source. Pour the cream over the gnocchi, and return the dish to the oven. Immediately switch the oven setting to broil, and broil the gnocchi for about 5 minutes, or until nicely browned on top. Serve.

I’m sure our newcomers appreciate hearing that being diagnosed with HIV is not all doom and gloom.” The leader’s gaze swept over all the others in the circle. “With an attitude like Duncan’s, great things will happen to you. Don’t let the disease define you. Make the disease work for you instead.” An hour later, the meeting was over. John had gotten the opportunity to introduce himself to the group, something he would have preferred to have skipped, but that wasn’t allowed. Everyone must participate in that part; only the question and answer session that followed was optional. He hadn’t mentioned that he used to be a cop, certainly not that he had been fired. He’d just said that he was a private eye and that he would be happy to be their spy if they needed one. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” Linda asked John when they were outside the room and in the hallway, where donuts and coffee and tea were served. Most of the participants milled around there, connecting with each other. John shrugged and grabbed a jelly donut. “I guess not.” The bespectacled leader named Robert came up to them then. He was on the short side and had an emaciated face with delicate features. He stuck out a bony hand toward John. John took it and gave it a firm shake. “John, it’s so nice to have you join us today,” Robert said with a broad smile that displayed big, graying teeth. Robert was HIV-positive as well, and in the chronic HIV stage. “Thank you for having me,” John said and returned the smile as best he could. “It’s been very…educational. I’m glad I came.” “Great,” Robert said, then his attention went to Linda. “Thanks for bringing your friend, Linda. And for coming again yourself.” “Oh, of course,” Linda said and smiled. Her hazel eyes glittered with warmth. “It’s a great group and you’re a great leader.” “Thank you. That’s so kind of you to say.” Robert tossed a glance over his shoulder, then leaned in toward John and Linda. “I just wanted to apologize for Doris.” “Apologize?” Linda repeated. “What did she do?” “Well, for starters, she’s not 33. She’s 64 and has been infected for thirty years. She’s also a former heroin addict and prostitute. She likes to pretend that she’s someone else entirely, and because we don’t want to upset her, we humor her. We pretend she’s being truthful when she talks about herself. I’d appreciate it if you help us keep her in the dark.” That last sentence had a tension to it that the rest of Robert’s words hadn’t had. It was almost like he’d warned them not to go against his will, or else. Not that it had been necessary to impress that on either John or Linda. John especially appreciated the revelation. Maybe having HIV was not as gruesome as Doris had made it seem then. Six Yvonne jerked awake when the phone rang. It rang and rang for several seconds before she realized where she was and what was going on. She pushed herself up on the bed and glanced around for the device. When she eventually spotted it on the floor beside the bed, it had stopped ringing. Even so, she rolled over on her side and fished it up to the bed. Crossing her legs Indian-style, she checked who had called her. It was Gabe, which was no surprise. He was the only one who had her latest burner number. He had left her a voicemail. She played it. “Mom, good news. I have the meds. Jane came through. Where do you want me to drop them off? Should I come to the motel? Call me.” Exhilaration streamed through her and she was suddenly wide awake. She made a fist in the air. Yes! Finally something was going their way. Now all they had to do was connect without Gabe leading the cops to her. She checked the time on the ancient clock radio on the nightstand. It was past six o’clock. So she must have slept

According to trainers, a reward for a dog’s good behavior must occur within seconds. Otherwise, a dog may not correlate its good behavior with positive reinforcement.

Then there are the psychic deliverables—the flattery, for starters. To members of the liberal class, the Democratic Party offers constant reminders that the technocratic order whose upper ranks they inhabit is rational and fair—that whether they work in software or derivative securities they are a deserving elite; creative, tolerant, enlightened. Though it is less tangible, the moral absolution in which Democrats deal is just as important. It seems to put their favorite constituents on the right side of every question, the right side of progress itself. It allows them to understand the war of our two parties as a kind of cosmic struggle between good and evil—a struggle in which they are on the side of light and justice, of course.