Pad Drive Quotes

There's a difference between driving and texting. When your driving your eyes have to be open and on the road watching the cars around you, road signs, and traffic lights. Along with your mind on the road and destination. Which means you are multitasking. When your texting your eyes are on your cell phone screen and key pad. Along with your mind on what your going to say next. So how can you do both? Please stop!

When we finally head outside to walk toward the big silver Astro van that will take us to the launch pad, it’s that moment everyone knows: flashbulbs pop in the pre-dawn darkness, the crowd cheers, we wave and smile. In the van, we can see the rocket in the distance, lit up and shining, an obelisk. In reality, of course, it’s a 4.5-megaton bomb loaded with explosive fuel, which is why everyone else is driving away from it.

Men are so clueless, self-centered, and undeserving, each a bland replica of the other. They’re motivated by sex, sports, hunting, cars, and food. If they can’t screw it, cheer for it, shoot it, drive it, or consume it, then it might as well be a diva cup or a maxi pad.

My friend, when you always say "God is in control", while you have your feet on the brake pad, you are not going anywhere! Wise up!

You shanks are driving me nuts. Can’t get out of the Maze, and this idea of hanging with the Grievers at their bachelor pad sounds as stupid as anything I’ve ever heard in my life. Might as well slit our wrists.

Why was it, she sometimes wondered, that in dreams we can't do the simplest things? Like a crying puppy is standing on some broken glass and you want to pick it up and brush the shards off its pads but you can't because you're balancing a ball on your head. Or you're driving and there's this old guy on crutches and you go, to Mr. Feder, your Driver's Ed teacher, Should I swerve? And he's like, Uh, probably. But then you hear this big clunk and Feder makes a negative mark in his book.

And these crazy maniacs? They’ll be your family too if you let them. I mean, they’ll fucking drive you bananas sometimes, but trust me when I say it’s totally worth it.” I believe him. “I can’t wait to meet them,” I say softly. His mouth travels along the edge of my jaw before hovering over my lips. “They’re going to love you.” He kisses me, slow and sweet. “I love you.” I rub the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip. “Loved you every summer since I was thirteen years old. Love you even more now.

Now that we know that Spring Roll is a girl, we should probably think about setting up her room. Gabriel kept his eyes on the road as he drove the Volvo one Saturday morning in May. We should also talk about names. That sounds good. Maybe you should think about what you want and we can go shopping. Julia turned to look at him. Now? I said I'd take you to lunch, and we can do that. But afterward, we need to start thinking about Spring Roll's room. We want it to be attractive, but functional. Something comfortable for you and for her, but not juvenile. She's a baby, Gabriel. Her stuff is going to be juvenile. You know what I mean. I want it to be elegant and not look like a preschool. Good grief. Julia fought a grin as she began imagining what the Professor would design. (Argyle patterns, dark wood, and chocolate brown leather immediately came to mind.) He cleared his throat. I might have done some searching on the Internet. Oh, really? From where? Restoration Hardware? Of course not. He bristled. Their things wouldn't be appropriate for a baby's room. So where then? He gazed at her triumphantly. Pottery Barn Kids. Julia groaned. We've become yuppies. Gabriel stared at her in mock horror. Why do you say that? We're driving a Volvo and talking about shopping at Pottery Barn. First of all, Volvos have an excellent safety rating and they're more attractive than a minivan. Secondly, Pottery Barn's furniture happens to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. I'd like to take you to one their stores so you can see for yourself. As long as we get Thai food first. Now it was Gabriel's turn to roll his eyes. Fine. But we're ordering takeout and taking it to the park for a picnic. And I'm having Indian food, instead. If I see another plate of pad Thai, I'm going to lose it. Julia burst into peals of laughter.

R.O.TC. kept me away from sports while the other guys practiced every day. They made the school teams, won their letters and got the girls. My days were spent mostly marching around in the sun. All you ever saw were the backs of some guy's ears and his buttocks. I quickly became disenchanted with military proceedings. The others shined their shoes brightly and seemed to go through maneuvers with relish. I couldn't see any sense in it. They were just getting shaped up in order to get their balls blown off later. On the other hand, I couldn't see myself crouched down in a football helmet, shoulder pads laced on, decked out in Blue and White, #69, trying to move out some brute with tacos on his breath so that the son of the district attorney could slant off left tackle for six yards. The problem was you had to keep choosing between on evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25, most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.

But at that moment all I could see was the wolf in the white van, so alive, so strong. Hidden from view, unnoticed, concealed. And I thought, maybe he's real, this wolf, and he's really out there in a white van somewhere, riding around. Maybe he's in the far back, pacing back and forth, circling, the pads of his huge paws raw and cracking, his thick, sharp claws dully clicking against the raised rusty steel track ridges on the floor. Maybe he's sound asleep, or maybe he's just pretending. And then the van stops somewhere, maybe, and somebody gets out and walks around the side to the back and grabs hold of the handle and flings the doors open wide. Maybe whoever's kept him wears a mechanic's jumpsuit and some sunglasses, and he hasn't fed the great wolf for weeks, cruising the streets of the city at night, and the wolf's crazy with hunger now; he can't even think. Maybe he's not locked up in the back at all: he could be riding in the passenger seat, like a dog, just sitting and staring out the open window, looking around, checking everybody out. Maybe he's over in the other seat behind the steering wheel. Maybe he's driving.

I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights. “Dad!” I said, throwing my arms around his waist. He let me keep them there, but all I got in return was a light pat on the back. “You’re safe,” he told me, in his usual soft, rumbling voice. “Dad—there’s something wrong with her,” I was babbling. The tears were burning my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to be bad! You have to fix her, okay? She’s…she’s…” “I know, I believe you.” At that, he carefully peeled my arms off his uniform and guided me down, so we were sitting on the step, facing Mom’s maroon sedan. He was fumbling in his pockets for something, listening to me as I told him everything that had happened since I walked into the kitchen. He pulled out a small pad of paper from his pocket. “Daddy,” I tried again, but he cut me off, putting down an arm between us. I understood—no touching. I had seen him do something like this before, on Take Your Child to Work Day at the station. The way he spoke, the way he wouldn’t let me touch him—I had watched him treat another kid this way, only that one had a black eye and a broken nose. That kid had been a stranger. Any hope I had felt bubbling up inside me burst into a thousand tiny pieces. “Did your parents tell you that you’d been bad?” he asked when he could get a word in. “Did you leave your house because you were afraid they would hurt you?” I pushed myself up off the ground. This is my house! I wanted to scream. You are my parents! My throat felt like it had closed up on itself. “You can talk to me,” he said, very gently. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I just need your name, and then we can go down to the station and make some calls—” I don’t know what part of what he was saying finally broke me, but before I could stop myself I had launched my fists against him, hitting him over and over, like that would drive some sense back into him. “I am your kid!” I screamed. “I’m Ruby!” “You’ve got to calm down, Ruby,” he told me, catching my wrists. “It’ll be okay. I’ll call ahead to the station, and then we’ll go.” “No!” I shrieked. “No!” He pulled me off him again and stood, making his way to the door. My nails caught the back of his hand, and I heard him grunt in pain. He didn’t turn back around as he shut the door. I stood alone in the garage, less than ten feet away from my blue bike. From the tent that we had used to camp in dozens of times, from the sled I’d almost broken my arm on. All around the garage and house were pieces of me, but Mom and Dad—they couldn’t put them together. They didn’t see the completed puzzle standing in front of them. But eventually they must have seen the pictures of me in the living room, or gone up to my mess of the room. “—that’s not my child!” I could hear my mom yelling through the walls. She was talking to Grams, she had to be. Grams would set her straight. “I have no child! She’s not mine—I already called them, don’t—stop it! I’m not crazy!

When Lebanese Muslims and Palestinians declared jihad on Christians in 1975, we didn’t even know what that word meant. We had taken the Palestinians in, giving them refuge in our country, allowing them to study side by side with us in our schools and universities. We gave them jobs and shared our way of life with them. What started as political war spiraled very fast into a religious war between Muslims and Christians, with Lebanese Muslims joining the PLO fighting the Christians. We didn’t realize the depth of their hatred and resentment toward us as infidels. The more that Christians refused to get involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to allow the Palestinians to use Lebanon as a launching pad from which to attack Israel, the more the Palestinians looked at us as the enemy. Muslims started making statements such as “First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday,” meaning first we fight the Jews, then we come for the Christians. Christian presence, influence, and democracy became an obstacle in the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Koranic verses such as sura 5:51—"Believers, take not Jews and Christians for your friends. They are but friends and protectors to each other"—became the driving force in recruiting Muslim youth. Many Christians barely knew the Bible, let alone the Koran and what it taught about us, the infidels. We should have seen the long-simmering tension between Muslims and Christians beginning to erupt, but we refused to believe that such hatred and such animosity existed. America also failed to recognize this hatred throughout all the attacks launched against it, beginning with the marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 all the way up to September 11, 2001. It was that horrible day that made Americans finally ask, What is jihad? And why do they hate us? I have a very simple answer for them: because you are “infidels.

I have something to show you." He sank down next to me and handed me a sketchbook. I opened it. And saw the mermaid. She was drawn in colored ink, exquisitely detailed; each scale had a little picture in it: a pyramid, a rocket, a peacock, a lamp. Her torso was patterened red, like a tattoo, like coral. She had a thin strand of seaweed around her neck, with a starfish holding on to the center. Her hair was a tumble of loose black curls. She had my face. I turned the page.And another and another. There she was fighting a creature that was half human, half octopus. Exploring a cave. Riding a shark. Laughing and petting a stingray that rested on her lap. "I'm calling her Cora Lia for the moment," Alex told me. "I thought about Corella, but it sounded like cheap dishware." "She's...amazing." "She's fierce. Fighting the Evil Sea-Dragon King and his minions." I traced the red tattoo on her chest. "This is beautiful." Alex reached into my sweater, pulled the loose neck of the T-shirt away from my shoulder. I didn't stop him. "It looks like coral to me." He touched me, then,the pad of his thumb tracing the outline of the scar. It felt strange, partly because of the difference in the tissue, but more because in the last few years, the only hands that had touched me there were mine. I set the book aside carefully. "Guess I don't see what you do." "That's too bad, because I see you perfectly." I curved myself into him. "Maybe you're exactly what I need." "Like there's any doubt?" He buried his face in my neck.I didn't stop him. "So." "So?" "We'll kill a few hours, watch the sunrise, have pancakes, and you'll drive home." "What?" I felt him smile against my skin. "I got you swimming with sharks. Next on the Conquer Your Fears list is driving a stick shift.Right?" "One thing at a time," I said. Then, "Oh. Do that again." In another story, the intrepid heroine would have gone running out and splashed in the surf, hypothermia be damned. She would have driven the Mustang home, booked a haircut, taken up stand-up comedy, and danced on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. But this was me, and I was moving at my own pace. Truth: My story started a hundred years ago. There's time.

I once read the most widely understood word in the whole world is ‘OK’, followed by ‘Coke’, as in cola. I think they should do the survey again, this time checking for ‘Game Over’. Game Over is my favorite thing about playing video games. Actually, I should qualify that. It’s the split second before Game Over that’s my favorite thing. Streetfighter II - an oldie but goldie - with Leo controlling Ryu. Ryu’s his best character because he’s a good all-rounder - great defensive moves, pretty quick, and once he’s on an offensive roll, he’s unstoppable. Theo’s controlling Blanka. Blanka’s faster than Ryu, but he’s really only good on attack. The way to win with Blanka is to get in the other player’s face and just never let up. Flying kick, leg-sweep, spin attack, head-bite. Daze them into submission. Both players are down to the end of their energy bars. One more hit and they’re down, so they’re both being cagey. They’re hanging back at opposite ends of the screen, waiting for the other guy to make the first move. Leo takes the initiative. He sends off a fireball to force Theo into blocking, then jumps in with a flying kick to knock Blanka’s green head off. But as he’s moving through the air he hears a soft tapping. Theo’s tapping the punch button on his control pad. He’s charging up an electricity defense so when Ryu’s foot makes contact with Blanka’s head it’s going to be Ryu who gets KO’d with 10,000 volts charging through his system. This is the split second before Game Over. Leo’s heard the noise. He knows he’s fucked. He has time to blurt ‘I’m toast’ before Ryu is lit up and thrown backwards across the screen, flashing like a Christmas tree, a charred skeleton. Toast. The split second is the moment you comprehend you’re just about to die. Different people react to it in different ways. Some swear and rage. Some sigh or gasp. Some scream. I’ve heard a lot of screams over the twelve years I’ve been addicted to video games. I’m sure that this moment provides a rare insight into the way people react just before they really do die. The game taps into something pure and beyond affectations. As Leo hears the tapping he blurts, ‘I’m toast.’ He says it quickly, with resignation and understanding. If he were driving down the M1 and saw a car spinning into his path I think he’d in react the same way. Personally, I’m a rager. I fling my joypad across the floor, eyes clenched shut, head thrown back, a torrent of abuse pouring from my lips. A couple of years ago I had a game called Alien 3. It had a great feature. When you ran out of lives you’d get a photo-realistic picture of the Alien with saliva dripping from its jaws, and a digitized voice would bleat, ‘Game over, man!’ I really used to love that.

He knew everything. He knew at least a thousand Hungarian folk songs, all the words and tunes, he could handle Gypsies, give them instructions and keep them in order, check their familiarity with the flicker of an eyelid, then win their affection with a lordly, condescending, and yet fraternal-playful sidelong glance, he could call 'acsi' perfectly, shout at the first violin when he didn't strike up Csendesen, csak csendesen quietly enough and the cimbalonist when the padded sticks didn't make the steel strings thunder and rumble sufficiently in Hullamzo Balaton, he could kiss the viola player's pock-marked face, give the double bass a kick, break glasses and mirrors, drink wine, beer and marc brandy for three days on end out of tumblers, smack his lips at the site of cabbage soup and cold pork stew, take ages inspecting his cards (with relish, one eye closed), dance a quick csardas for a whole half-hour, urging and driving himself on to stamp and shout and toss his partner high in the air and catch her, light as a feather, with one arm: so, as I said, he could do everything that raises Man from his animal condition and makes him truly Man.

A stack of Hawlatis on a ring-stained coffee table conjured the ardent recycler I’d broken up with two months before. Also on this table were an open can of Wild Tiger and a porcelain ashtray made to look like a crumpled Camels pack, completing a sort of Kurdish bachelor-pad tableau that inevitably led to comparisons with my own hermitic home life. But for a few moments there, distracted by the ashtray’s uncanny verisimilitude, I did succeed in not thinking about my singleness, nor about my dissertation, nor about when I was going to learn the results of my latest grant application and not about the long drive to Baghdad my parents and I were intending to make the following day—I was not even thinking about the drift and worthiness of my thinking—and I suppose another way of saying all this is I was happy.

The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of what is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.

GOD I am ready for you to come back. Whether in a train full of dying criminals or on the gleaming saddle of a locust, you are needed again. The earth is a giant chessboard where the dark squares get all the rain. On this one the wet is driving people mad—the bankers all baying in the woods while their markets fail, a florist chewing up flowers to spit mouthfuls here and there as his daughter’s lungs seize shut from the pollen. There is a flat logic to neglect. Sweet nothings sour in the air while the ocean hoots itself to sleep. I live on the skull of a giant burning brain, the earth’s core. Sometimes I can feel it pulsing through the dirt, though even this you ignore. The mind wants what it wants: daily newspapers, snapping turtles, a pound of flesh. The work I’ve been doing is a kind of erasing. I dump my ashtray into a bucket of paint and coat myself in the gray slick, rolling around on the carpets of rich strangers while they applaud and sip their scotch. A body can cause almost anything to happen. Remember when you breathed through my mouth, your breath becoming mine? Remember when you sang for me and I fell to the floor, turning into a thousand mice? Whatever it was we were practicing cannot happen without you. I thought I saw you last year, bark wrapped around your thighs, lurching toward the shore at dawn. It was only mist and dumb want. They say even longing has its limits: in a bucket, an eel will simply stop swimming long before it starves. Wounded wolves will pad away from their pack to die lonely and cold. Do you not know how scary it can get here? The talons that dropped me left long scars around my neck that still burn in the wind. I was promised epiphany, earth- honey, and a flood of milk, but I will settle for anything that brings you now, you still-hungry mongrel, you glut of bone, you, scentless as gold.

I ordered Pad See Ew from the Thai place, ate half of it, watched the 1995 remake of Sabrina starring Harrison Ford, took another shower, downed the last of my Ambien, and found the porn channel again. I turned the volume down low, shifted my body away from the screen so that the grunts and moans could lull me. Still, I didn’t sleep. Life could go on forever like this, I thought. Life would, if I didn’t take action. I fingered myself on the sofa under the blanket, came twice, then turned the TV off. I got up and raised the blinds and sat in a daze for a while and watched the sun go down—was it possible?—then I rewound Sabrina and watched it again and ate the rest of the Pad See Ew. I watched Driving Miss Daisy and Sling Blade. I took a Nembutal and drank half a bottle of Robitussin. I watched The World According to Garp and Stargate and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Moonstruck and Flashdance, then Dirty Dancing and Ghost, then Pretty Woman.

Rebel [Verse 1] I don't give a fuck my brudda, I never have I'm straight from the gutter my brudda, we never had We living on a budget - holes in the rooftop Room full of buckets, it's getting bad Things could be worse I suppose, school trips, school kids Cursing my clothes, is it the same in every house When the curtains are closed? (daydreamin') I'm in a world of my own (I ain't leavin') It must be because I hate my reality That's why I'm on the verge of embracing insanity Put me in a padded room Throw away the key and let me escape the anarchy I can't take it, I turn my back on the world I can't face it, Ray-Ban gang fam Can't see my eyes cause I'm on my dark shades shit (Ray Charles) [Bridge] Black everything, you can ask David Cameron if we're living in the dark ages Black everything, you can ask David Black everything, you can ask David Black everything, you can ask David Cameron if we're living in the dark ages [Hook] (It's a living hell) I'm a rebel Always have been Where I'm come from it's a mad ting (It's a living hell) Standing in my Stan Smiths Stamping on the canvas for action (It's a living hell) All I acquired from the riot Is people are sick and tired of being quiet (It's a living hell) Dying to be heard That's why there's fire in my words [Verse 2] I don't give a fuck my brudda, I never will Straight from the gutter my brudda, rare real We been living life like "fuck it", living life like there's nothing To live for but the money, I'mma keep it 100 The hunger inside is what drives us That's why there's youngers inside who are lifers They say love is blind so you might just Fall in love with them crimes that'll blind us And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't out late Around H, scales out, another ounce weighed More pounds made, sounds great Salts under my tongue, my mouth's laced So many feds chasing me down, the ground shakes Helicopters, bikes and cars chasing So many officers behind, my heart's racing [Bridge] [Hook x2]

Matthew knew it was wrong the instant their lips met. Because nothing would ever equal the perfection of Daisy in his arms. He was ruined for life. God help him, he didn’t care. Her mouth was soft and hot, like sunshine, like the white blaze of a heartwood fire. She gasped as he touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Slowly her hands came to his shoulders, and then he felt her fingers at the back of his head, sliding into his hair to keep him from pulling away. There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Nothing could have made him stop. A tremor shook his fingers as he bracketed the exquisite line of her jaw in the open framework of his hand, gently angling her face upward. The flavor of her mouth, sweet and elusive, fueled a hunger that threatened to rage out of control… he searched the damp silk beyond her lips, deeper, harder, until she began to breathe in long sighs, her body molding against his. He let her feel how much stronger he was, how much heavier, one muscular arm clamped along her back, his feet spread to hold her between the powerful length of his thighs. Her upper half was bound in a laced and padded corset. He was almost overcome by a savage desire to tear away the stays and quilting and find the tender flesh beneath. Instead he sank his fingers into her pinned-up hair and tugged it backward until the weight of her head was cradled in his hand, and her pale throat was exposed. He searched for the pulse he had seen earlier, his lips dragging softly along the secret pathway of nerves beneath her skin. When he reached a senstive spot, he felt the vibration of her suppressed moan against his mouth. This was what it would be like to make love to her, he thought dazedly… the sweet shivering of her flesh as he entered her, the delicate chaos of her breath, the helpless sounds that rustled in her throat. Her skin, warm and female, scented like tea and talcum and a trace of salt. He found her mouth again, opened it, delving into wet silk, heat, and an intimate flavor that drove him mad. She should have struggled, but there was only yielding and more softness, driving him past all limits. He began to ravish her mouth with deep, twisting kisses, bringing her body rhythmically against his. He felt her legs part beneath her gown, his thigh fitting neatly between them. She squirmed with innocent desire, her face blooming with the color of late summer poppies. Had she understood exactly what he wanted from her, she would have done more than blush. She would have fainted on the spot. Lifting his mouth from hers, Matthew pressed his jaw against the side of her head. “I think,” he said raggedly, “this puts to rest any question of whether I find you desirable or not.

Can your leadership team identify your trade-offs? It is often easy to see trade-offs in other companies, but can you articulate your own? There are no optical drives in any Apple Airs or data ports in iPads. Has your enterprise similarly been able to say no to your equivalent of optical drives and data ports? Apple may lose some customers who want an integrated DVD player. They are okay with that. Starbucks may lose some customers on a tight budget who are in a big hurry. They are okay with that.

At that point in time, Gokul Rajaram was a legendary éminence grise in the ad-tech world. The so-called godfather of AdSense, Google’s secondary gold mine after AdWords, Gokul was a constant presence on the conference circuit, and an omnipresent adviser or investor in just about every advertising technology company worth talking about. He too had come to Facebook via a small acqui-hire, though really that had been just a career breather between his time at Google and his hiring at Facebook. University at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), followed by an American MBA, he was your standard-issue Indian techie, and probably that country’s most valuable export after steel and Tata Motors. “What’s the first thing you would change about Facebook Ads if we hired you?” There was about as much polish and prologue to Gokul as that of a North Korean diplomat. “I’d build a conversion-tracking system. It’s unbelievable you don’t have one yet.” A conversion-tracking system is software that tells you if an advertisement has worked in driving a conversion (or “sale” in marketing-speak), and lets you retweak your marketing campaigns based on performance. An ads system without conversion tracking is like a car without rearview mirrors; nay, it’s like a car without even rear or side windows. All you can see is forward, merrily driving along, not even understanding what’s behind you or what you just ran over. It’s a danger to yourself and others, and it was a sign of just how out-of-touch Facebook Ads management was that this somehow never got prioritized. From Gokul’s smile the conclusion was clearly . . . right answer! And so the conversation went, traversing various potential aspects of the Facebook Ads system, and what the company needed to build. It was a giddy Gokul—I’d soon learn he was almost always giddy—who escorted me out the door. The boys and I had arrived separately, assuming we’d get out at different times, and separately did we go back to the GrokPad. There, we compared notes. MRM and Argyris weren’t exactly rousing in their reviews of the experience. In fact, it was clear that the fascist vibe the company gave off had very much rubbed them the wrong way. They had never really liked Facebook, as either product or company, going back to our visits to their developer events. The daylong hazing had done nothing to charm them.

Riding Practice Here’s an exercise you can practice to gain some experience crossing edge traps. Be sure to wear your crash padding just in case you haven’t quite absorbed the correct techniques yet. Ride a figure-8 path over different edges, concentrating on positioning your motorcycle to cross as close to a right angle as possible and using a bit of throttle to drive the front tire up and over. Yeah, it gets harder as you move down the list. • A wood 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 that’s at least 6 feet long • A low curb • A stiff garden hose • A large-diameter rope that’s at least 10 feet long

I realized that if someone told me right then that I could go back 10 years, have my old life back exactly as it was, a life where I never saw my husband, where our lives were always about becoming instead of being, I would have refused. It was such a simple realization, yet it seemed momentous. Being poor means not having a lot of options other people have; should I pay at the pump for gas or pay cash in the store, should I drive or fly to my destination, should I get new brake pads like the mechanic recommends or just hope the hold out a while longer. Now, if a hypothetical possibly embolden me, given the alternative of that life or this one, I would choose this one. And then for once, instead of trying to fill in the rest of that thought, but I really wish we had, I tried to leave it just as it was. I choose this.

He turned from Lashgarak Road onto Route 425, a paved two-lane road into the mountains, bordered by a guardrail and trees. A place of incredible beauty, with waterfalls tumbling from rocks to a gorge beside the road. About five kilometers up and above the tree line, the snow got deep enough that he had to stop at a turnoff to put on chains even with the rented Toyota RAV4’s all-wheel drive. He looked around at the mountains, stark and covered with snow. No one was following him on the road and only the occasional car or truck came the other way, down the mountain from Shemshak. He didn’t expect a lot of traffic heading up. It was late afternoon and there was no night skiing at the resort; not to mention the crisis. He didn’t need to check his iPad again to see where Zahra was. She had left her cell phone on, and his tracking software on the iPad showed she was about ten kilometers ahead of him up toward the Dizin ski resort.

Sixth, how much money or other people’s time do you need?  Do you want to slave away for all 79 years of your life expectancy?  Work up millions of dollars worth in time and then die, never getting to spend it or enjoy it?  Or do you want to have a little fun in life?  Go travelling, eating good food, driving fast cars, and imbibing in quality booze?  Life is not about slaving away and working all the time.  It is about enjoying life and living it.  But you cannot just have fun all the time, just as you cannot work all the time.  There has to be a balance.  This is what economists call the “leisure labor trade off.”    Every hour you work is one less hour you can spend on leisure or enjoying yourself. And every hour you spend on leisure is one less hour you can spend on labor.  There is no right or wrong balance as it is up to the individual tastes and desires of each person, but if there is an observation I have had in my two decades of economic experience it’s that humans tend to OVERVALUE labor and UNDERVALUE leisure. 

The garage door is open at Ben's house when we pull into the drive. Adele Cody is almost hidden by Bounty eight-packs in a stack nearly as tall as she is. She flits in and out of the shelving racks wearing yellow yoga pants and a black sports bra. Her abs are clearly defined, the muscles in her arms ropy and straining like an aging pop star's, with too little fat on her body and too much Pilates on her schedule. She's making room for the paper towels, moving boxes of Band-Aids to the shelves above and Brillo Pads to the shelves below, displacing display flats of Carmex and Altoids in either direction.

Pretty sure someone’s out there driving a U-Haul in my honor ... Fucking crazy sons of bitches.

Yo momma's so tall when I tell her to bend over she's still taller than me. Yo momma's so tall, she did a push-up and burned her back on the sun. Yo momma's so tall she went to Leeds and her legs were still at home. Yo momma's so tall she called the Ocean a kitty pool. Yo momma's so tall, she can see her house from anywhere. Yo momma's so tall when she jump in the sky it hit jesus' balls. Yo momma's so tall she could "69" big foot. Yo momma's so tall she has to take a bath in Niagra falls. Yo Momma's so Stupid   Yo momma's so stupid, she told me everything she knows during a commercial break. Yo momma's so stupid, that if I need a brain transplant I'll take hers, because it's barely been used. Yo momma's so stupid she sent me a fax with a stamp on it. Yo momma's so stupid. She went to the eye doctor to buy an iPad. Yo momma's so stupid she threw the clock out the window to see time fly! Yo momma's so stupid she took a spoon to the superbowl. Yo momma's so stupid, if her brain was chocolate it wouldn't fill a M&M. Yo momma's so stupid if you stand close enough to her you can hear the ocean. Yo momma's so stupid, the smartest thing to come out of her mouth was a penis. Yo momma's so stupid, the government banned her from homeschooling her kids. Yo momma's so stupid, she's the reason women only make 75 cents on the dollar. Yo momma's so stupid, she filled her car with water so she can drive in the Car Pool lane. Yo momma's so stupid, I would ask her how old she is, but I know she can't count that high. Yo momma's so stupid she called Dan Quayle for a spell check. Yo momma's so stupid she put cheese on my dad because he's a cracker. Yo momma's so stupid she stepped on a crack and broke her own back. Yo momma's so stupid she makes Beavis and Butt-Head look like Nobel Prize winners. Yo momma's so stupid she got locked in a grocery store and starved to death. Yo momma's so stupid she tripped over a cordless phone. Yo momma's so Stupid when i said One mans trash is another mans Treasure she jump in a trash bin. Yo momma's so stupid she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice box because it said "concentrate". Yo momma's so stupid she thought she needed a token to get on Soul Train.

She put her hand on her stomach, and as she measured the fat padding that was now there, she felt so damned dumb for sitting on her ass eating ice cream with Layla. She wasn’t any closer to her needing—whenever, if ever, that came, it was clearly going to be on its own schedule. All she’d done was make her pants tight and drive a wedge between herself and her husband. In the words of Dr. Phil, How’s that working for ya? Great, Phil. Just awesome. -Beth's thoughts

The waves lapped onto the shore in quiet, relentless ripples. A seagull screeched from somewhere down the shoreline, and another bird replied. She missed home, the comfort of her padded swing, her tall shade trees and scented lilac bushes. If she closed her eyes and blocked out the sound of the waves, she could almost imagine that she was back home in her garden, dozing on her swing under the tall oak— “Hey, Meri!” Jake’s voice shattered the illusion. She craned her head around, following the sound of his voice to an upstairs window. His elbows perched lazily on the ledge. She glared up at him. “Meridith.” “Wanna come take a look?” She’d rather beat the smug grin off his face. “Be right there.” Her bones ached as she climbed the main stairway, a repercussion of her night on the hard floor. Just beyond the guest loft, Jake stood in front of the doorway, making some final adjustment to the latch. It looked different with the area closed off from the hall. The smell of wood and some kind of chemical hung in the air. “What do you think?” He’d already hung the drywall, and the patching was drying, which explained the smell. He swung the door open, showing her the thumb-turn on the other side, then closed the door and demonstrated the lock with the key. Thank you, Vanna. “Are both doors keyed the same?” “Yep.” He threw her the new set of keys, and she caught it clumsily. She’d keep one set in her room and find a hiding spot in the kitchen for the other. He gathered his tools and supplies. Now that he was finished, maybe she could take the kids to the driving range. She could teach them how to tee off. Jake capped the drywall compound, then walked through the new doorway toward the family suite. “Where are you going?” Meridith followed him down the hall. “Patching up the other partition.” “I thought you were done.” “If I get them both patched, they’ll be ready to sand and paint on Monday. You got any more of this green?” “What? I don’t know.” He trotted down the back stairway and unlocked the new door’s thumb-turn. Meridith stopped at the top of the steps, sighing. The sooner he finished, the sooner he’d be out of her life. Out of the house, she corrected herself. That man was not in her life.

She thought how she might describe it, the way they bobbed on the illuminated water’s gentle swell, and how their hair spread like tendrils and their clothed bodies softly collided and drifted apart. The dry night air slipped between the fabric of her dress and her skin, and she felt smooth and agile in the dark. There was nothing she could not describe: the gentle pad of a maniac’s tread moving sinuously along the drive, keeping to the verge to muffle his approach. But her brother was with Cecilia, and that was a burden lifted. She could describe this delicious air too, the grasses giving off their sweet cattle smell, the hard-fired earth which still held the embers of the day’s heat and exhaled the mineral odor of clay, and the faint breeze carrying from the lake a flavor of green and silver.

The dying mall has attracted some odd tenants, such as a satellite branch of the public library and an office of the State Attorney General's Child Predator Unit. As malls die across the country, we'll see many kinds of creative repurposing. Already, there are churches and casinos inside half-dead malls, so why not massage parlors, detox centers, transient hotels, haunted houses, prisons, petting zoos or putt-putt golf courses (covering the entire mall)? Leaving Santee, Chuck and I wandered into the food court, where only three of twelve restaurant slots were still occupied. On the back wall of this forlorn and silent space was a mural put up by Boscov, the mall's main tenant. Titled "B part of your community", it reads: KINDNESS COUNTS / PLANT A TREE / MAKE A DONATION / HELP A NEIGHBOR / VISIT THE ELDERLY / HOPE / ADOPT A PET / DRIVE A HYBRID / PICK UP THE TRASH / VOLUNTEER / CONSERVE ENERGY / RECYCLE / JOIN SOMETHING / PAINT A MURAL / HUG SOMEONE / SMILE / DRINK FILTERED WATER / GIVE YOUR TIME / USE SOLAR ENERGY / FEED THE HUNGRY / ORGANIZE A FUNDRAISER / CREATE AWARENESS / FIX A PLAYGROUND/ START A CLUB / BABYSIT These empty recommendations are about as effective as "Just Say No", I'm afraid. As the CIA pushed drugs, the first lady chirped, "Just say no!". And since everything in the culture, car, iPad, iPhone, television, internet, Facebook, Twitter and shopping mall, etc., is designed to remove you from your immediate surroundings, it will take more than cutesy suggestions on walls to rebuild communities. Also, the worse the neighborhoods or contexts, the more hopeful and positive the slogans. Starved of solutions, we shall eat slogans.

The two of us were fighting for dominance and driving each other insane. If insanity feels this good, sign me up for a padded cell.

Daniel Kahneman put it this way: “Lewin’s insight was that if you want to achieve change in behavior, there is one good way to do it and one bad way. The good way is by diminishing restraining forces, not by increasing the driving forces.” Lewin’s “bad way” was to add—whether incentives for good behavior or punishments for bad behavior—because this increases tension in the system. Promising Ezra a cookie if he reads a book instead of watching a show increases his motivation not to swipe on his iPad. But promising Ezra a cookie does not make it any easier for him to resist the iPad. In fact, promising Ezra a cookie can make him more frustrated if he succumbs to the iPad temptation. I can pursue the same goal, getting Ezra to engage with a book instead of stare at a screen, by removing the tempting iPad from the situation, placing it out of sight, or accidently letting it run out of batteries overnight. This is an example of Lewin’s “good” way of changing a system, because it actually relieves tension.

It’s not a mistake I’m an alien experiment, I was born and placed in a tube. When I fuck girls in the ass, I do it without lube. I don't even have to look at the page to write this dude. The spirit of God is how I move. This shit's too easy, especially when you live eternally. I'm a fucking Wolf, the Alpha, and I was locked in a zoo It's just beginning, I'm sinking my teeth deeper inside of you Into your soul Where we're going only I know Connecting all your dots Never-ending Driving the wrong way on the street Hydroplaning through 4 feet Of water, like Paul Walker, the fire's getting hotter And I can't get out

A few seconds later, Liam replaces his fingers with his huge cock, driving into me in one swift movement and pushing me further onto his brother as I take the entire length of both of them at the same time. “Good girl,” Conor says as he rubs the pad of his thumb over my cheek, wiping away the tears as he hits the gag reflex at the back of my throat. “Such a good fucking girl,” Liam agrees as he rubs his hands over my ass before grabbing hold of my hips.

Kit wore a smile that stretched across the harbor. “I have asked Whitney to be my wife.” My stomach leaked through my shoes. Whitney started clapping like a six-year-old. “And I said yes!” It’s happening. It’s really, really happening. I don’t think I moved a muscle. My brain shorted. My eyes locked in place. A corner of my mind agreed with Whitney. They really should’ve let me get more settled. “Kiddo?” Kit seemed equally paralyzed. Grin cemented in place, he held Whitney’s hand and watched me like a hawk. His fiancée’s hand. I’ll have to get used to that. I couldn’t speak. The awkward moment stretched. Three people, staring in silence across a tiny dining room. Sensing the tension, Coop padded to my side. I ignored him. Ignored everything. This is what Kit wants. This is what makes him happy. He was here first. “That’s . . . that’s . . .” Don’t blow this. Don’t ruin the moment for your father. “I’m really . . . very . . .” Whitney took a small step forward. Don’t. Stop. I can’t screw this up. “Tory?” Whitney spoke softly and sincerely. “Please know that I love your father very much, and—” Abruptly she cut off, eyes widening in alarm. “Sweetheart, you’re filthy.” Nose crinkling, Whitney reached for my mussed, tangled hair. “There’s dirt on your sleeves, and I can smell—” She’d crafted the perfect escape. Like a release valve forcing open. “Mind your own business!” Batting her hands away. “Ben’s car got stuck in the mud. Is that okay?” Laced with all the sarcasm I could muster. A part of my brain understood what was happening, but those cells weren’t driving. “God, you’re always butting in!” I stormed past them both, pounding up the stairs with Coop on my heels. “I don’t need a replacement mother!

Except for reading my numbers on Saturday morning and going to our regular meetings, I don’t have much of a routine for anything else. I always carry my little tape recorder on trips, to record ideas that come up in my conversations with the associates. I usually have my yellow legal pad with me, with a list of ten or fifteen things we need to be working on as a company. My list drives the executives around here crazy, but it’s probably one of my more important contributions.

safeguards don't make you safe; they make you lazy. People drive faster, not more slowly, in cars with antilock brakes. American football players take more risks, not fewer, because of their padding.

Someone’s gotta do it. No one’s gonna do it. So I’ll do it. Your honor, I rise in defense of drunken astronauts. You’ve all heard the reports, delivered in scandalized tones on the evening news or as guaranteed punch lines for the late-night comics, that at least two astronauts had alcohol in their systems before flights. A stern and sober NASA has assured an anxious nation that this matter, uncovered by a NASA-commissioned study, will be thoroughly looked into and appropriately dealt with. To which I say: Come off it. I know NASA has to get grim and do the responsible thing, but as counsel for the defense—the only counsel for the defense, as far as I can tell—I place before the jury the following considerations: Have you ever been to the shuttle launchpad? Have you ever seen that beautiful and preposterous thing the astronauts ride? Imagine it’s you sitting on top of a 12-story winged tube bolted to a gigantic canister filled with 2 million liters of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Then picture your own buddies—the “closeout crew”—who met you at the pad, fastened your emergency chute, strapped you into your launch seat, sealed the hatch and waved smiling to you through the window. Having left you lashed to what is the largest bomb on planet Earth, they then proceed 200 feet down the elevator and drive not one, not two, but three miles away to watch as the button is pressed that lights the candle that ignites the fuel that blows you into space. Three miles! That’s how far they calculate they must go to be beyond the radius of incineration should anything go awry on the launchpad on which, I remind you, these insanely brave people are sitting. Would you not want to be a bit soused? Would you be all aflutter if you discovered that a couple of astronauts—out of dozens—were mildly so? I dare say that if the standards of today’s fussy flight surgeons had been applied to pilots showing up for morning duty in the Battle of Britain, the signs in Piccadilly would today be in German. Cut these cowboys some slack. These are not wobbly Northwest Airlines pilots trying to get off the runway and steer through clouds and densely occupied airspace. An ascending space shuttle, I assure you, encounters very little traffic. And for much of liftoff, the astronaut is little more than spam in a can—not pilot but guinea pig. With opposable thumbs, to be sure, yet with only one specific task: to come out alive. And by the time the astronauts get to the part of the journey that requires delicate and skillful maneuvering—docking with the international space station, outdoor plumbing repairs in zero-G—they will long ago have peed the demon rum into their recycling units.

For example, it is a common mistake to assume that middle aged man driving that $ 70,000 luxury car living in that $ 3 million McMansion is “rich.” The truth is most people who drive $ 70,000 luxury cars and live in $ 3 million McMansions are poor. Yes, they own a $ 70,000 car and a $ 3 million house, but they have a $ 70,000 car loan and a $ 3.5 million mortgage. In other words, they owe more than they own resulting in a NEGATIVE “net worth” of $ 500,000.

Many of the more than one billion Facebook users would be horrified to learn that the NSA has co-opted the website in order to monitor citizens who have not been accused of any crime. According to internal government documents leaked by Snowden and reported by journalists Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald, “In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with malware, which can be tailored to

For a second, I’m too shocked to react. I don’t know why; this thing has been lurking between us for weeks, never dormant, always present. But she’s been wary, pushing me away, and I didn’t expect this. My surprise lasts almost no time at all. Just a second’s worth of her lips against mine, her hands, warm against the cool, bare skin of my shoulders. My last intelligent thought is that I’m not letting this go to waste, and then I’m kissing her back. Wrapping my arm around her, bringing her close so that her body lies flush against mine. My free hand tangles in her dark hair, wrapping it around my fingers, following it up to her scalp, the line of her ear. She tastes so good—sweet, like an apple. Her hands slide down my chest, leaving a trail of heat, coming to rest on my hips. Tina shifts her weight and then straddles me. My nerves light up at that, sparking with desire. Fuck, I want her. She’s wearing jeans. I’m wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter that there’s layers of thick denim between us; my body still recognizes the feel of hips pressing against my pelvis. The friction of fabric is rough against my cock, but it’s everything I could have asked for. Her hands rise again, sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders. She kisses me like she’s been thinking of this as long as I have, like this kiss has been building from the first day we saw each other. She kisses me like there’s no space between us. And there isn’t—not much. I’m not trying to escalate things. I’m not even really thinking about it. But when she smoothes her palm down my chest, my hand creeps up by her side, sliding up until I find the fabric of her bra. Under other circumstances, I might rip it off. But I don’t want to freak her out. I cup her breast in the palm of my hand. She gasps instantly. I was already hard; with that, I find myself turning to stone. Needing, wanting, stone. If I’m stone, she’s fire. Her hips grind into me as my thumb finds her nipple. My lips graze her neck. My tongue darts out and traces down her collarbone. I can’t even remember why I ever thought it was cold in here. It’s a fucking furnace. I pull her close. She’s so fucking responsive. It’s hot beyond belief to watch her go up in flames on top of me, to watch how the smallest touch, the slightest pressure in the right place, gets her going. I don’t have much of a thought process, but it goes something like yes, yes, more now. And she must be thinking the same thing—thank God—because she takes her shirt off. She’s wearing a simple white cotton bra, no padding, and her nipples poke through. I lean forward and catch one in my mouth. She likes it. She grinds against me. Her fingers clench on my shoulders, gripping tight, so fucking tight. I find her other breast—small enough that I can palm it with one hand, so that my fingers can explore every last inch. She’s letting out little moans that seem to go straight to my dick. “You,” I growl out, “have awesome tits.” She freezes on top of me. And then, seconds later, she pulls away. “Don’t.” She reaches for her shirt. “Don’t lie to me. I have nonexistent boobs.” I run my finger over her nipple. “Yeah? What’s this, then?” She shivers. “You have awesome tits,” I repeat. “I love touching them. Licking. Sucking. It makes me fucking wild to be able to drive you crazy like this. Tits are a fucking gift for sexual pleasure. So never tell me you have nonexistent boobs again. I think I just proved otherwise.” She draws in a deep breath. Her eyes meet mine. She looks almost shattered.

For a second, I’m too shocked to react. I don’t know why; this thing has been lurking between us for weeks, never dormant, always present. But she’s been wary, pushing me away, and I didn’t expect this. My surprise lasts almost no time at all. Just a second’s worth of her lips against mine, her hands, warm against the cool, bare skin of my shoulders. My last intelligent thought is that I’m not letting this go to waste, and then I’m kissing her back. Wrapping my arm around her, bringing her close so that her body lies flush against mine. My free hand tangles in her dark hair, wrapping it around my fingers, following it up to her scalp, the line of her ear. She tastes so good—sweet, like an apple. Her hands slide down my chest, leaving a trail of heat, coming to rest on my hips. Tina shifts her weight and then straddles me. My nerves light up at that, sparking with desire. Fuck, I want her. She’s wearing jeans. I’m wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter that there’s layers of thick denim between us; my body still recognizes the feel of hips pressing against my pelvis. The friction of fabric is rough against my cock, but it’s everything I could have asked for. Her hands rise again, sliding up my chest to rest against my shoulders. She kisses me like she’s been thinking of this as long as I have, like this kiss has been building from the first day we saw each other. She kisses me like there’s no space between us. And there isn’t—not much. I’m not trying to escalate things. I’m not even really thinking about it. But when she smoothes her palm down my chest, my hand creeps up by her side, sliding up until I find the fabric of her bra. Under other circumstances, I might rip it off. But I don’t want to freak her out. I cup her breast in the palm of my hand. She gasps instantly. I was already hard; with that, I find myself turning to stone. Needing, wanting, stone. If I’m stone, she’s fire. Her hips grind into me as my thumb finds her nipple. My lips graze her neck. My tongue darts out and traces down her collarbone. I can’t even remember why I ever thought it was cold in here. It’s a fucking furnace. I pull her close. She’s so fucking responsive. It’s hot beyond belief to watch her go up in flames on top of me, to watch how the smallest touch, the slightest pressure in the right place, gets her going. I don’t have much of a thought process, but it goes something like yes, yes, more now. And she must be thinking the same thing—thank God—because she takes her shirt off. She’s wearing a simple white cotton bra, no padding, and her nipples poke through. I lean forward and catch one in my mouth. She likes it. She grinds against me. Her fingers clench on my shoulders, gripping tight, so fucking tight. I find her other breast—small enough that I can palm it with one hand, so that my fingers can explore every last inch. She’s letting out little moans that seem to go straight to my dick. “You,” I growl out, “have awesome tits.” She freezes on top of me. And then, seconds later, she pulls away. “Don’t.” She reaches for her shirt. “Don’t lie to me. I have nonexistent boobs.” I run my finger over her nipple. “Yeah? What’s this, then?” She shivers. “You have awesome tits,” I repeat. “I love touching them. Licking. Sucking. It makes me fucking wild to be able to drive you crazy like this. Tits are a fucking gift for sexual pleasure. So never tell me you have nonexistent boobs again. I think I just proved otherwise.” She draws in a deep breath. Her eyes meet mine. She looks almost shattered.

This love is the beginning of virtue. It is the launching pad for our highest and noblest aspirations. It is the motive power that drives the six pillars. It is the seventh pillar of self-esteem.