Happiness

I found this piece on Matthieu Ricard (aka the Happiest Man) interesting. Not sure how applicable much of it is, and I think his understanding of selfishness is shallow, but still, good stuff. I have to say, though, my favorite part is the description of people who score a +0.3 on a certain MRI test as being in the Morrissey zone of unhappiness.

Shorter Scott Adams

Some stupid people labor under a delusion of grandeur. If you agree with me on a particular issue where I am basically just playing word games, then, like me, you do not labor any delusions of grandeur and are smart.

Name dropping that will impress no one

I met Tim Westergren today. He's the main founder of Pandora, the very cool outgrowth of the Music Genome Project. Good dude, good product, probably a good company (too early to say for certain, but I'm not alone in being optimistic about it). Check it out.
This bit of honest pretention brought to you by this excellent short film, Truth in Advertising (NSFW).

Tallying it up

So, the Colts won it all. Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy got the monkey off their backs. Rex Grossman was just as bad as many people said. Congratulations to Colts fans who deserved the win (R and J may be it). Anyway, I finished 7-4 picking winners, 6-5 against the spread. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

Health Care

Great post, great links. Please read it all.

Too close, too much

George Saunders explores Samish-Sex Marriage. He's right, it does need an amendment.

Ok, onto the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl (that's right, NFL, I said Super Bowl. Super Bowl. Super Bowl.). In the conference championships I was 1-1 both ways, bringing my records to 7-3 picking winners, and 6-4 against the spread.
Indianapolis Colts "at" Chicago Bears, Colts favored by 7. I understand why people think the Colts will win. They put on a great performance against the Pats (yes, the Pats lost that game to some extent, but it was more about the Colts winning it). Peyton seems more in control of himself than I've ever seen. Despite the 34 the Pats hung on the D, I'd say that the defense is not bad. However, I think that the Bears defense is good enough to contain Manning, they have the psychological edge, and they have the running game to not have to rely on Grossman. I expect it to be close, and I expect the Bears D to win out. Bears 154, Colts 3. No, wait, I mean Bears 23, Colts 20.