Movies: American Beauty, Into the Wild, Fight Club, Abre Los Ojos, Pay it Forward, American History X, Shawshank Redemption, Good Will Hunting... Music: Radiohead, Built to Spill, Cat Stevens, Jack Johnson, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Muse, Tiger Army... Books: Shantaram, Outliers, David and Goliath, The Big Short, Boomerang, The New New Thing, Liar's Poker, The Signal and the Noise, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Freakonomics, Tuesday's with Morrie, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Marley and Me, Into The Wild...

Hanging out with my roommate in the Summer of 2004, we were working on different things on opposite sides of the room. I asked if he had a pencil, and he grabbed one and threw one my direction. I wasn't looking when he actually threw it, and when I looked I barely saw it flying through the air. I turned my head and put my hands up fearing I was about to get stabbed in the face by this flying pencil. Somehow it hit the lofted bed next to me, bounced off and slid gently behind my ear. Magical isn't the right word to describe it, but it's the first that comes to mind.