Today was just another regular day spent at the family business. My day consisted of action-packed activities like cleaning up some rotten apple juice that someone spilled, catching people that try to steal our door stoppers, and answering the endless questions and requests of two college-aged girls while they did their laundry.

Oh, and seeing this on the TV:

… then checking back in ten minutes and noticing that the text was changed to:

So apparently there was a unanimous decision by the jury that the former governor is guilty of supplying false declarations to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, but was no final decision made for the other 23 counts that he was tried for.

What I’m Watching

Earlier today, I watched Knocked Up, a movie featuring Seth Rogen and Katherine Hiegl.

Knocked Up is about a man named Ben Stone who lives in an apartment with four of his male friends. He doesn’t have a job, and aspires to be successful via a website he and his friends are creating called Flesh of the Stars. One evening, he goes to a club where he meets Allison Scott, a reporter for the E! channel. They go home together, have a one night stand, and think that everything is going to be fine…

… until Allison discovers that she is pregnant with Ben’s baby. From that point on, mass chaos breaks out as Allison and Ben’s personalities clash, and the unstable relationship of Allison’s older sister makes the situation worse.

I thought this was a pretty good movie. The relationships between the characters are well developed. The plot has a comical twist to it that takes an emergency-level situation and makes it funny while still having the characters act sincerely towards the problem.

What I’m Reading

After reading and being intrigued by Malcolm Gladwell’s books Blink and The Tipping Point, I went on to read Outliers.

Outliers is a book about the special people in the world – the people that are different enough to be no­ticed as different when placed in a regular societal setting. These people have gifts and advantages starting from birth that define who they are and how much they will succeed later on in their lives. The main concept of this book is that the fortunate opportunities that affect these people are what makes them so special, not the individual effort they put into their work. Although effort and determination is important, luck is the catalyst for success.

Gladwell goes on and gives examples of how this is true, like the explanation behind why people born in the last quarter of the calendar year should not even bother trying out for professional hockey. He also follows the story of the lives of famous people like Bill Gates, who, due to a bit of luck, was able to fall under the 10,000-Hour Rule for programming and become the successful founder of Microsoft.

Like all of Gladwell’s other books, I recommend this book to everybody, as it gives insight on a facet of life that not many people realize is important. The ideas of this book may explain to some people why they are unsuccessful, and how they could change they way they live to place themselves in the path of luck. The time invested in reading this book could result in massive benefits in the future.

The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day

Make a photograph that features a sign of some sort today. Maybe a stop sign. Maybe an information sign. Or an advert.

Quote of the Day

“Here’s a useful tip: hot glass looks exactly the same as cold glass.”

Picture of the Day

I actually had this picture for a while, but I finally got to cropping and posting it to my blog. This picture is from Tetris Arena on the Tetris Friends website. It was during a one-on-one challenge match, where if you win three consecutive matches against three different people, you get a Challenger’s Crown.

As you can see from the picture, I’m busy at work stacking my pieces and sending lines to my opponent. This screenshot was taken by my opponent, who had a glitch on his side – he couldn’t see any of his pieces. That meant, even if I sent lines to him, he would never get them, because lines only flood after the next piece is dropped. Because of the glitch, we effectively were put in a never-ending Tetris match.

Fortunately, my opponent was a good sport and said that because it was his side that had the glitch, he would close his browser window to forfeit the match and give me the victory. I decided that I would post his screenshot on my blog and tell the story to show how appreciative I was for his generosity.

What I’m Reading

After reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and being satisfied with it, I decided to read Gladwell’s other books. Earlier today, I finished reading The Tipping Point, a book about the the top of the mountain – the point that something reaches and becomes an epidemic.

The book goes on to describe three key things, among others, that turn something into an epidemic: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.

The Law of the Few states that there are a handful of very special people that can set off an epidemic because of their social status, may it be because they are extremely popular or extremely convincing.

The Stickiness Factor states that in order for something to become an epidemic, it must stick to the general population. Without it being sticky, or memorable, it will never last an extended period of time in a successful state.

Finally, the Power of Context states that in order for something to have a maximum effect, it must take place at the right time. The environment has a more significant effect than many believe it does, and could be the difference between an epidemic and a failure.

Similar to Blink, The Tipping Point brings insight to some interesting and intriguing topics that could be put to positive use in real life. However, the writing itself from an entertainment viewpoint isn’t as good as Blink was; although some good anecdotes were included in The Tipping Point, I feel it wasn’t as attention-holding as Blink.

What I’m Watching

By recommendation of a few different people, I watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry earlier today. The movie stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Jessica Biel.

The two main characters, Chuck and Larry, are best friends and are firefighters in New York who have been partners at work for a long time. The main conflict of the movie is introduced when Larry tries to change his beneficiaries after his wife’s death, but is denied because over a year has passed since his wife’s death. After saving his partner Chuck’s life, Larry knows that Chuck owes him. Larry devises a plan to form a same-gender union with Chuck so Chuck can become his beneficiary. However, something that seemed simple turned out complicated when the state government began sending out investigators after suspecting that neither Chuck nor Larry were homosexual and were only united for benefits.

After watching Brüno two days ago and getting enough homosexual jokes to last me a long time, I was discouraged before I started watching I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. However, as I got several minutes into the movie, I knew that it wasn’t as crude as Brüno was. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry quickly became comedic and interesting, and I enjoyed the entire movie. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good movie – the great natural personalities of Adam Sandler and Kevin James make the whole movie hilarious.

The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day

Triangles keep the viewer’s eyes on a photo. Follow a triangle, and you see other elements. Make a pho­to with triangles.

The rounded triangular shapes of guitar picks were the closest thing I could find to the shape of a tri­angle.