As long as we aren’t hurting others or breaking the law, these innocent lies can make life more pleasant.  They can absorb potential friction between our varying personalities and vacillating moods as we nudge into one another on the quest through our daily routine.  Most of these white lies only stretch an interpretation of what the truth actually is anyways.  Given our rigid optimism to each lead a tailored ideal life, white lies simply cushion us from ourselves.

Here’s my list of the 15 most common white lies and why we tell them:

1. It wasn’t me! – Because some things just aren’t worth taking credit for.
2. The table will be ready in 5 minutes. – Because it sounds a lot better than 15 minutes.
3. Oh, yeah.  That makes sense. – Because option B involves admitting that I am clueless.
4. Thank you so much!  I just love it! – Because telling someone that their gift sucked would make me look like an insensitive jerk.
5. Yeah, you look great in that dress. – Because it’s better than being slapped.
6. Oh, things would have been different if I was there! – Because I’m Superman and I can always make a difference… or at least that’s how I want others to perceive of me.
7. No, officer… I have no idea how fast I was going. – Because claiming ignorance is sometimes better than admitting to insubordination.
8. I’m 29. – Because 29 is like 20 years younger than 30.
9. Yeah, I’ll start working on that ASAP! – Because telling you I have 10 things to do first would just irritate you.
10. Yes, John was with me last night. – Because that’s what friends do… we agree and ask questions later.
11. My resume is 5 pages long for a good reason. – Because I’m darn good at bullshittin’!
12. Man, that sucker was 10 feet long! – Because anything less would be boring.
13. Yeah, I was a badass on my high school football team! – Because I want to be seen by others in an even stronger light than I see myself.
14. I’m 21, 6’5, with a muscular build. – Because you can’t see me in this online chat room… ha ha!
15. I thought I already sent that email out.  I’m sure I did. – Because telling you that it was a low priority and I forgot would probably hurt our relationship.

Also, check out these best selling books on common white lies:

• How To Spot A Liar: Why People Don’t Tell The Truth and How You Can Catch Them
• Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind
• The Truth About Lying: How to Spot a Lie and Protect Yourself from Deception

Do you want a MySpace page that is guaranteed to help you fit in with the majority?  Allow me enlighten you:

The more flashing graphics you have on your profile page, the better!  Add at least 100 digital photos, cropped in all different sizes, all over your homepage.  Organization is of no concern.  Have a loud rock or rap mp3 queued for auto-launch as soon as a visitor hits your page, and make sure the media player’s stop button is hidden amongst the clutter of random photos and flashing graphics.

Then, tile the background with a really bright, high contrast image… Or better yet, use a large, high contrast, fixed background image right in the center of your page.  No worries, your fellow MySpacer’s will be happy to scroll around your flashy fixed background image in order to read the insightful content squeezed into your two sentence “About Me” blurb.  Oh, and don’t concern yourself with populating that optional blog thingy with intelligent content.  Your MySpace friends just want you to mesmerize them upon a single glance, so continue to concentrate all your efforts on uploading more photos and animations.

Sorry for the sarcastic negativity… but, I just pray that this 90’s web design virus stays contained within the MySpace domain.  I understand MySpace uses sophisticated Web 2.0 technologies on the backend, but gosh, the front end is an open wound of bad taste.

Critics say his advice is subjective nonsense.  Advocates say he’s the only big stock market guru who speaks the truth to the average American stockholder.  I personally like the guy because, win or loose, he’s passionate about what he does and he tells you exactly what’s on his mind.  This is a little off-topic with my recent posts, but I really thought it was worth sharing.

The original CNBC news feed:


A Comedy Central Colbert Report recap with Jim Cramer:

In reality, most 2007 college freshmen were born in 1989 and probably barely remember any the following… it’s scary:

1. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
2. Ronald Reagan
3. The Cold War and the Berlin Wall
4. Hardback (Funk & Wagnalls) encyclopedia sets
5. Getting tangled up in a long kitchen phone cord
6. Setting the record timer on your VCR
7. When Michael Jackson and the moonwalk were cool
8. Recording music off the radio
9. Desert Storm
10. A floppy disk
11. Windows 95
12. The Nintendo Entertainment System (and Duck Hunt)
13. The Oklahoma City Bombing
14. The O.J. Simpson Trial
15. Life before the World Wide Web

I installed the Google Toolbar last month on one of my machines and didn’t realize that Google’s Web History was activated by default.  Angel and I had fun (or not) looking through some of the search queries I made over this month-long period.  I had a tough time explaining the motivation behind a few of them. 😉  Some were a little scary and others were downright hilarious, but one point became clear: If you’re not careful, Google will know every move you make on the web… the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Here are 7 Google searches that I made last month and wish I could take back:

1. Funny/Scary – filetype:txt “windows XP” +cdkey – No Mr. Gates, it’s not what it looks like.
2. Scary – My home address mapped out in several Google Maps driving direction queries.  Well, now they know where I live… lets hope Bill can’t afford to buy Google.
3. Funny – pamela anderson’s cup size – Honey, one of my coworkers must have typed that in when I wasn’t looking.
4. Funny – hemroid symptoms – Google now knows more about my ass than I’m comfortable with.
5. Scary – My full name – We all Google our own name right?  So what if they have my name and address now.
6. Funny – Kama Sutra – Yeah baby… I was just studying up for the big game!
7. Funny – -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(mpg|wmv) “paris hilton” – Oh, I’m a big fan of her music, so I was just looking for her latest music video… I swear.

When was the last time you checked your Google Web History track record?

Cna yuo raed tihs?  Suteids sohw taht olny aoubt 55 prcenet of plepoe can (atculley trheer is no scuh sudty).  I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.  Tihs sohws us the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid.  Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are in, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae.  The rset of the txet can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.  Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but isntaed rades the wrod as a wlohe.  Azanmig huh?  Yaeh and we awlyas tghuhot slpelnig was ipmorantt!

Pretty interesting… I’m not exactly sure who wrote it.  I originally saw this a few months ago inserted as the test blog entry in a fresh installation of the Joomla content management system (so maybe a Joomla programmer wrote it).  Now it seems to be spreading around in chain mail as well… thanks Ash 😉  I looked into it far enough to confirm that there is absolutely no such study on this topic at an English university.  Anyway, it was interesting enough to post.  Okay, now everyone quickly send this to your favorite English teacher… I mean… Oaky, now erveoyne, qciukly sned tihs to yuor fvaortie Eginslh tahceer.

Oh, by the way, Angel hacked my PIN number last night… and she hacked your PIN number too.  It appears in the list below:

0000 0001 0002 0003 0004 0005 0006 0007 0008 0009

0010 0011 0012 0013 0014 0015 0016 0017 0018 0019

0020 0021 0022 0023 0024 0025 0026 0027 0028 0029

0030 0031 0032 0033 0034 0035 0036 0037 0038 0039

0040 0041 0042 0043 0044 0045 0046 0047 0048 0049

0050 0051 0052 0053 0054 0055 0056 0057 0058 0059

0060 0061 0062 0063 0064 0065 0066 0067 0068 0069

0070 0071 0072 0073 0074 0075 0076 0077 0078 0079

0080 0081 0082 0083 0084 0085 0086 0087 0088 0089

0090 0091 0092 0093 0094 0095 0096 0097 0098 0099

0100 0101 0102 0103 0104 0105 0106 0107 0108 0109

(more…)