People feel the need to validate their own choices. For this reason, when other people ask them for advice, they tend to recommend “do things like I do things.” It’s completely understandable, but wrong.

Everyone has their own set of beliefs, their own life experiences, their own preferences, their own dislikes. Because of this, often major decisions can be made completely differently by two people in the same situation, and both can be the correct decision. The key is that when someone comes to you for advice on a situation, you have to disassociate yourself from the decision. It’s not what’s best for you, it’s what’s best for them. Of course, if they knew the answer already, they wouldn’t be coming to you for advice, right? Well, that’s true, but it’s important to help people come up with their own decisions, rather than pushing your own perspective on them.

After having read that, you’re probably thinking that I have a specific incident in mind, where I asked someone for advice, and didn’t get it. You’d be wrong though. I can’t think of a specific incident, though I know it’s happened. What tends to happen though, is that I’ll get that form of “advice” from someone once, and then not ask them again.

I used to give bad advice to people on computers. I remember being asked to recommend computers to people, and recommending Amigas. Don’t get me wrong, they were great computers, but in the instances I’m thinking of, the people who were asking my advice would have been much better served by buying a PC (which they all ended up doing anyway - thankfully nobody listens to 12 year old kids ;)) There were a lot of people who could have benefitted from buying an Amiga, but those weren’t the people asking my advice.

So, having realized that I used to give really bad advice, I’ve tried to reform myself. The end result is that I tend to give much less direct advice. I’m far more likely to point people to a resource to do more research than I am to say “Take the job.” or “Buy a Panasonic DVD player” (Sorry Jason - had to get a mention in there somewhere.) I wish I could be more concrete with an example, but it’s just one of those things that I’ve been thinking about casually for a while now, and I’m left with mental impressions and not much else.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.” - Homer

I played in my first slopitch games of the season last night. While I managed to go 2 for 3 at the plate, I also managed to get myself in a rundown between second and third, and severely misjudged some balls in the outfield/overestimated my own speed. On the plus side, I was coming really really close to tracking down some fly balls from a pretty big distance, but on the minus side, having the ball just tick off the end of your glove isn’t a positive thing, when it results in the ball getting by you, and rolling for another 150 feet (no fences) and the runner being home before the ball is thrown in to the infield. I had one funny hop get by me too, so overall, it was an embarassing night in the field for me.

I had fun though, despite the cold.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Okay, let’s go over the ground rules. You can’t leave first until you chug a beer. Any man scoring has to chug a beer. You have to chug a beer at the top of all odd-numbered innings. Oh, and the fourth inning is the beer inning.” - Umpire

There have been some interesting promotions in the NHL down South, but this one surprised me the most. Apparently, Tampa Bay is offering free beer to season ticket holders. I’m not clear on the details - was it only one game, was it all season ticket holders, or only those who bought/renewed that day? I don’t know. Either way, it surprised me.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Congratulations Barney, and enjoy your prize, a life time supply of Duff Beer.” - Mayor Quimby

I have this bad habit when I’m browsing the web. I’ll make a mental note of where I read something, but not who it was written by. It’s like I can’t distinguish Gabe from Tycho, or Jordon from Chris. I don’t know why that is. I guess to me, content is produced anonymously. For that matter, as far as I know, everything I’ve ever read on Davezilla was written by Davezilla himself (even though I know he has other people post stuff there sometimes.) What am I trying to say? I don’t really know, but I think it has to do with me giving the publisher more credit than the author. In the case of this site (and many others,) the publisher is the author. In those instances, I have no problem with giving mental credit to the person responsible. If Gabe posts something witty though, it might just as well have been Porkfry, cause, they’re all the same person in my own little world of makebelieve. I couldn’t tell you which one likes RPGs and which one likes Turn Based Strategies - are they actually the same one?

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I am thinking of something orange. Something ORANGE. It’s an orange!” - Homer

I had a pretty busy weekend, starting Friday night, when I went to a friend’s place to play some BBQ and Playstation games. We played some Champions of Norrath, and finished the night with some multiplayer Bombastic fun. Multiplayer Bombastic is actually more fun than I expected, though I wish there were a handicapping feature built into it. Granted, we didn’t have any issues with any of us being way better than everyone else, but I can see that happening, and sucking all the fun out of the game for everyone. It was good chaotic fun though. I had hotdogs for supper.

Saturday, a guy at work was throwing a BBQ, to which we were invited. It was a good time, though we had to call it an early night because William was clearly in need of sleep. I had hotdogs for supper.

Yesterday, we went swimming at Lawson, then out for lunch (those of you who know the city at all have guessed where, by the title of this post.) William usually gets tired of swimming after a little bit, but for whatever reason, yesterday, he got his second wind, and didn’t want to leave the pool. He was so tired, he could barely walk three steps without falling down. He was good natured about it though. He fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant, but woke up before we were seated - full of energy, and grabbing everything on the table that was left within reach.

Last night, I helped my dad move some cabinets and shelving units from one friend’s garage to another, while Erin’s dad, John, took William for a walk to tire him out. He didn’t want to go to sleep, and Erin was getting frustrated. I was reading him stories when the phone rang from dad calling for me to help (I’d committed earlier in the day.) By the time I got home, William was asleep, or close enough. For some reason I decided to watch survivor at that point, which resulted in a 12:30 bedtime - kind of stupid of me.

It was a good weekend though, and I haven’t even mentioned all the work that got done on the bathroom (mostly because I’m not really involved in it, John and Erin are doing great work in there.)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Arr, have ye tried a Baltic Squid? They can suck the bolts out of a submarine’s hull.” - Captain McAllister

Lots of you have to get your picks in yet. Someone put theirs in without a name yesterday, and I haven’t heard from most of you. Boo hoo hoo, the leafs are out - get over it and get your picks in.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey, don’t blame me, this movie is tired and predictable. You know she’s going to wind up marrying Richard Gere.” - Homer

The second round wrapped up last night, and as a group, we only got one series correct. It works out well for me though, since I only got one series wrong, so I jumped a couple of spots. Serves us right for picking so many upsets.

Here come the picks:

(2) vs. (6) - Calgary is starting to gain momentum, and they’re playing really well. At this point in the playoffs though, everyone has won two series in a row. It’s possible to squeak into the second round, but not many teams fluke into the third. San Jose will be a true test for the Flames, but likewise, the Flames will be a true test for San Jose. Nabokov and Kipprusof are both excellent goaltenders at controlling rebounds, but unfortunatly for Nabokov, Iginla puts the first shot in, so there’s no rebound to control. I like the fact that the Flames were playing too high tempo of a game for the Red Wings to keep up (the OT in game 6 was particularly telling, Hatcher looked like he was wearing concrete skates) If they play like that against San Jose, they will come out ahead. I pick Calgary

(1) vs. (3) - The Flyers just came off of a physical series with Toronto. Eche looked good, but the leafs have a habit of making goalies look good in the playoffs. Khabibulin is having a phenomenal playoffs, and the whole team is very well rested after a sweep of Montreal. For those reasons (and the fact that Tampa was 4-0 in the season’s series) I’m picking Tampa Bay

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Okay people, go home now. Nothing to see here. O…my God! A Firey plane crash! Crowd around everyone! Come on, don’t be shy, crowd around!” - Chief Wiggum