The downside with corporate positive thinking...

A great piece about why realism is better than overly positive thinking:

Under your control or not? Internet addictions are real...

Some new studies are out, pointing out the troublesome backside of our connectedness online via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and texting (SMS in Swedish). A new study concludes that the internet is more addictive than alcohol and nicotine, and I am starting to believe that (I don't have the link to the study yet, will post it when I find it). I have worried about this a long time, and have made a conscious decision not to be active on Facebook, not to have a twitter account, and try to keep the flow of information into and out of my head under my own control.  But in today's world you can't do your job unless you are connected online, and without an e-mail account that you check everyday, your career and job availability would mostly be dead (well, maybe not if you are an artist living in New Hampshire, but I think you know what I mean... :).

I make it harder for me to be or get too addicted by not getting a smartphone, not having the laptop at the breakfast table, and consciously turning off e-mail and Skype during stretches of time at work, but the feeling is still there - "Oh, what is new? What is going on?  Who needs me now?  What cool things am I missing!?"  I believe that this deluge of wanted and unwanted information plays straight into our psychological triggers in our brain.  We get addicted, if we want it or not.  And the more we use it, the more addicted we get.

 (from Toothpaste for dinner, used with permission on this blog)

I teach at a university and cellphone and internet use is not allowed in my classroom.  But 30 seconds before class starts half the class is sitting with their cell phones and earpieces and hangs out online.  They are not present in the moment in the classroom.  After class starts, they put it away, because I do stop the lecture and ask students who text/surf/etc. on the internet if they want to leave the classroom.  So far, nobody has when I asked, everybody just apologies.

Some professors just give up and let the students do whatever they want, but I want to present a counterpoint to the deluge and addiction out there.  If you are in my class you should be focused on the class and the topic, nothing else.  I know this is hard, from my own experience, since I have been through many boring lectures, meetings and seminars in my day.  But if so, then doodle with a pen while listening, don't run to the internet and get totally off-track.

Meetings, which is a whole other subject.  I often sit in meeting at the big university with fancy professors, busy staff, or pompous administrators, and nearly half of them are playing around with their gadgets (mostly Blackberries, iPads or iPhones these days).  It is not only horribly rude to the persons that are trying to get things done, it is also inefficient and leads to longer, and more boring, meetings that take on the feeling that these meetings are unimportant.  If I lead a meeting from now on, I will ask everybody to refrain from any internet use, pay attention to the meeting and focus on solutions, instead of drifting off into unfocused realities.  Senior professors that just got an iPad or iPhone are the worst...

Remember when TV was all bad for you?  Carrying an iPhone with you is a lot worse than having a TV on at home (I do think TV on all the time is bad too).  But the iPhone is there, in your pocket, like a happy pill that you can take as often and as much as you can.  Who can say no?  And when there are free games that become truly addictive, a hundred contacts (that you really don't know), and everything is instant, forever, and shallow - it is not necessarily always a good thing.

The internet and social media could be used in a good way, and often is, but how do we make sure WE are in charge of our time and lives, and not someone else?   Gambling is considered an addition, but I think excessive internet use should be classified as one as well.  The problem is that internet use is EVERYWHERE, and includes kids from 2 years old and upwards. And here I am, blogging about the problems with the internet... :P

(from Toothpaste for dinner, used with permission on this blog)

So, here is my advice.  Turn off your cell phone sometimes.  Never check e-mail or your phone in bed. Read a book.  Insist on being unavailable at times.  Refuse to get addicted, use the internet on your terms.  Focus, focus, focus.  Laugh at funny YouTube videos, blog, and post photos and videos online, when you feel like it, not when you feel like you have to.  Let us enhance the good things about the internet, and not forget that the real things are things you can touch and think about without the help of a screen, like a deer vertebrae in a forest, a good book, making pasta primavera, and creating things that are possible to touch, view, smell.  In 3 months, nobody will care how many friends you have online, but you will care about how many friends you could have a good time with in person at your house.  And that is what really matters.

Don't get me wrong here, I think there are really creative and positive uses for internet resources, it is just the addiction and the lack of focus on real things that gets to me. It is all about the quality of the input to and output from of our brains. There isn't enough thinking in the world anymore. 

OK, enough ranting from me, and here are some articles about this for those of you that want to read even more:

Uppdaterade och sömnlösa (DN.se, in Swedish, "Updated and sleepless")

Why studios need to think about the ethics of social gaming (The Guardian, UK)

Internet addiction test 

Internet addiction disorder 

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price (NY Times article)

"I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore"

I just read a great thing about the way many people talk today = they talk in a way where it is impossible to understand exactly what they mean.  Or even remotely understand what they are trying to say.  The article is by Dan Pallotta, was published in Harvard Business Review, and you can read it here.  It is really worth to spend a few minutes on this article (it is not long).

Dan Pallotta talks about the five expressions of this epidemic of stupid talking:
Abstractionitis
Acronymitis
Valley Girl 2.0
Meaningless Expressions
Abstract Valley Girl 2.0 Acronymitis Using Meaningless Expressions   

I have seen all of these in presentations and discussions, and it often drives me crazy, even if I am guilty of it too.  But no longer.  But I will still wear my T-shirt (which is on today!) that says "think outside the box"  with a drawing of a TV.  But I do think we need to get the language we use back to reality.

It is very interesting to ask someone that just has fed you a long sentence of abstractionitis, "So, what does that really mean?"  Often, they have no good answer.  Which means, they had nothing real to say to begin with. In Swedish, we call this 'ordbajseri'. (That means sort of like 'bullshitting' in Swedish, but more mean.)

Dan's example about 'exceeding expectations' is hilarious.  I think most consumers no longer have any (and certainly not high) expectations regarding services and products.  The products or services just break or don't work out well.  Just ask anybody that is flying with Continental recently, for example. So, exceeding expectations is not really what you want to focus on as a company.  How about focus on making products that are not made to break, try to make customers happy and satisfied and not just poor and angry, and have a personal, local touch?  Without speaking abstractionitis or acronymitis... :)

What if the people that suffers from these epidemic speech patterns not only speak but also think this way?  That would be scary.  How can they then reason logically, think straight, and make good decisions? So, back to simple reality, in speech too.

Book Review: and I shall have some peace there by Margaret Roach

I like biographical books describing someones sudden change in life, travel to new places, or how they deal with new environments and experiences.  There are many great books about such challenges, from very introspective, to nature writing, to childhood tragedies.

So, when I picked up this book, I thought it would be about something similar, how a person did find peace on her own little dirt road.

Margaret Roach was an editor at Martha Stewart Living for many years, and lived a fast and stressed Manhattan life.  On the weekends she drove up to a cottage she owned a few hours north of New York City, where she tended a garden on a slope near the Berkshire mountains.

In the book she describes how she quits her job, leaves the city, and moves up to the cottage (hmm, I just realize that I have no idea how big her house is or how it looks), to live there full-time.  This is when the trouble starts, both in reality for her, and with the book.  She never describes WHY she left, what it was she wanted to get away from.  It is just very vague. Same thing when she is in her cottage, WHY is she lost and feel invaluable?  Her writing is great, but the content is fragmented, and there is hint after hint, but very little data about her (except she needs to point out several times that she is very petite and only a size 2, and a vegetarian for 30 years... it gets a bit tiresome).  I wish that she had described the situations and challenges better.  After reading the book I can't even picture her garden or house, nor the landscape it is situated in. I can picture many of her snakes though...  It is just not descriptive in a sense where you can understand, it is just fragments, like specks of paint on an old T-shirt.

She leaves her job at the start of the American recession in 2008, while the health care debate is going full steam and we are about to elect a new president.  The world is full of war, environmental problems, health care issues, unemployment disasters, and stock market crashes.  But all she cares about is to move to her little cottage, tend her garden and be alone.  That is all well, but she never seems to realize that she is incredibly lucky by obviously having amassed a fortune big enough to buy such a place, not work for pay, and still be able to have health insurance, enough food, and all others of life necessities. This is not how most people's lives are, so if she want us to understand her personal challenges and life story she better have to describe them better because most people would LOVE to be in her position. But, I have a feeling she thought that writing this book would be a great way to get some more money (she says so), so the content of the book was less important than that it was a book, period.

Maybe many upper-class women at a similar age (50s) can connect with her feeling of being lost in the world, but I cannot.  Is that because my world is filled with valuable things such as education of a new generation and research that improves society, knowledge and people around me...?  I can see that if you work at Martha Stewart Living how mostly caring about wall color, having a perfect geranium, and collecting green glass could get tiresome in the end.  Tiresome and maybe with a loss of doing things that really matter in the world.  But the solution to this would not be to create a garden just for you, but to do something that matters and brings change to many, I would think.  But Margaret Roach did not. There is a lack of balance here, and the lack of balance consist throughout the whole book.

She really lives a luxurious life in that she could make this decision and spend 2 years gardening and write a book...  but she seems totally unaware of what is going on in other people's lives and the world and is 100% self-centered.  In fact, after reading the book I must say that she portrays herself as very selfish.  Many people would love to have a garden they could spend all their time in, but few can realize this dream.  Margaret does, and she opens up her garden to the public a few times a year, but the rest of the time it is mostly her and the garden and a few friends.  The worst things that seem to happen is when a gray fox family moves into the garden and starts a communal fox bathroom in a corner, which she fights day after day with coyote urine. She comes through as a spoiled Manhattan rich girl, unfortunately.  I am sure she is a nice person, but her self-centered focus gets tiresome early on in the book.

Her deep fear of snakes is a theme in the book, as is her longing for 'being someone'.  So, there are snakes, and I am afraid of them too, and eventually she deals with them and manages her fear.  But everything is so personal, in the sense that you get the feeling she thinks the frogs are there for her, and her only.

People love her book, and her blog (which is equally self-promoting and selfish, I think), but I got rather annoyed.  If you want to make the world a better place, then go out and do something about it.  Make small changes in your local community if you like, you don't have to join the Peace Corps.  It is a great way to feel important and valuable, if you become valuable to others and creative positive change. (All Margaret seems to have done is to flip burgers on the grill once in a while at a local community picnic.)  But hunkering down behind a garden gate that you rarely open more than once a week and become an hermit living on past earned money, it is luxury and not a challenge.  Well, maybe a mental challenge, of course, depending on how your mind works.  I don't like to critize people that write biographies and stories like this, but I have to say that this book rubbed me so much the wrong way.

Summary: Rich girl moves to country where she writes and gardens, full of self-pity, selfishness, fear of snakes, and in the end realizes she is somebody. Grade: C (but the writing is good).
(Note: I am sure Margaret Roach is a nice person, and this review is only based on the book. But if you write books like this you set yourself up to get criticized, especially if you turn out to be as navel-gazing as portrayed in this book.)

Bits and pieces from the internet: Shaken, not stirred edition

If you ever wanted to know how a dog REALLY feels and looks in the middle of shaking off water from its body, you should look at Carlo Davidson's fantastic photos.  Amazing, and incredible.  I remember that we blew in the labradors' ears when I grew up to get them to shake off the water by the shore, and not in the middle of the picnic blanket. The fur coat of a lab can hold a lot of water, indeed.

Earthquakes are scary.  Yesterday there was a rather big one here on the east coast of USA, which is very unusual.  I missed it, was probably in the car or walking outside, but people in my work building felt desks and walls shaking and heard cracking noises.  A friend in Washington said his whole lab building was shaking for 15 seconds and everybody ran outside; most people realized it was an earthquake. Considering it was a 5.8 on the scale, very little damage happened.  But at first, many thought it might be a terrorist attack.  We are getting awfully close to the 10-year anniversary of Sept 11, 2001...

Talking about terrorism, here is an interesting list of 25 people and industries that profit from fear. This is worth reading and thinking about.  It is not just insurance companies and the beauty industry, but also seemingly harmless groups such as advocacy groups, the pet industry, and toy companies.  It is much, much worse here in the US than in Sweden, mostly because here in the US people has to blame and sue someone when something bad happens.

And here is the answer to why James Bond wanted his martinis shaken, not stirred. In case you wondered. (I don't like martinis, so I don't really care either way, honestly.)

Book review: Lost & Found by Jaqueline Sheehan

I have always loved books when people live on islands, and especially if they are suddenly there and have to create a new life for themselves.  When I was a kid it was Robinson Crusoe, later more modern day tales of people running away from something or seeking solitude or a new kind of life.  This book fits that trend as well, and takes place on an island outside the city of Portland in Maine in the US. 

A woman is suddenly widowed and decides to change her life, at least temporarily, by moving to a tiny island where nobody knows her.  She applies for, and gets, the part-time Animal Warden job, which is mostly catching the cats the summer tourists left behind when vacation is over, but also dealing with skunks and racoons. 

One day an injured dogs shows up, shot with an exquisite homemade old-fashioned arrow in the shoulder.  Nobody claims the dog, so the animal warden takes it in and fosters it back to health.  The mystery deepens and eventually the story is sorted out.  There are many wonderful characters in the book, including an older woman with synesthesia and a teenage girl with anorexia.  I won't tell you more about the story here, because then I spoil it for you.

This is a really well-written book, and it could have become a shallow, sappy, and superficial romantic story, but it is not.  The descriptions of the characters are great, and describes how people think and feel in depth.  The author is a psychologist and it shows (in a good way).  Even if part of the book is really sad, in the end it is a feel-good book that is easy and fast to read. 

Just two things bother me, and it has nothing to do with the author and her writing.  Whoever put a brown labrador on the cover hadn't read the book, or just wanted any good dog photo on the cover.  The dog in the book is a black lab.  And, the symbol at the beginning of each chapter in the book is a golden retriever, not a lab. I grew up with labradors, and there is a big difference between the two breeds. Goldens are more air-headed, and were never good hunting dogs.   Another major design flaw.  Harper Collins, shape up.  Details like this matter - I like factual accuracies, not sloppiness.

The left and right sides of the brain

Recent research results:

Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology. 

(link to more info)

Book review: Yrsa Stenius - Makten och kvinnligheten

(Sorry English-speakers, this review is in Swedish, since the book is in Swedish and not translated into English.  Here is the short review: great self-biographical novel from famed leftist journalist, author, and ex-chief editor of Aftonbladet Yrsa Stenius about power, gender, and how we deal with it all, or not deal with it...  insightful, brutally honest, and well worth the read, that is, if you can read Swedish.)

Jag har alltid beundrat Yrsa Stenius.  Jag har inte alltid hållit med henne, men jag har beundrat hennes styrka, och hennes Finlandssvenska dialekt har på något sätt fått hennes ord och kommentarer att kännas mer viktiga än andras.  Jag vet, det är nog inte så, men finskans allvar och samtidiga humor i livets svarta ögonblick färgar nog av sig i finlandssvenskan, iallafall inbillar vi det oss.  I somras hörde jag Yrsa Stenius i en podcast från ett svenskt radioprogram och hon var fantastisk - hon fick mig att tänka, och sånt gillar jag.

I boken Makten och kvinnligheten, som är självbiografisk och väldigt självutlämnande utan att vara överdrivet personlig, så skriver hon om sin livskris efter att hon avgått som chefredaktör för Aftonbladet.  Boken handlar om hur vi vill ha makt och blir beroende av den, hur vi ofta tror att vi är inget utan makt, och behöver iallafall lite makt över någon eller vår situation, och hur makten utnyttjas och påverkar.  Och kvinnor reagerar annorlunda än män generellt när de ställs inför någon med makt, får makt, eller förlorar den.  Makt låter som något mest politiker har, men Yrsa skriver om den i vardagslivet, och makten vi har (eller inte har) över våra livsval, våra kärlekar, karriärer, och hur makten eller bara aningen av lite makt kan påverka oss i livet.  Hon beskriver hur hon klappade ihop och hamnade på psyket efter att ha förlorat sin makt, och till slut vågade vara maktlös, och hur hon hittade tillbaks till sig själv och sin självkänsla.  Jag tror Yrsa Stenius är en av de modigaste människor jag känner till i Skandinavien, för iallafall i Sverige undviker man att sticka ut från mängden, undviker att prata om obehagliga ämnen (och där ingår makt), och den intressehämmande men alltför vanliga ytligheten flyter ofta över alltihop, speciellt i medie- och politikervärlden. I den här boken rannsakar hon sig själv och sina val, och bygger styrka ur sina svagheter. Många kvinnor (och män) borde läsa den och tänka efter ett tag.  Underbart och tack, Yrsa! 

Här är ett kort utdrag:

"Simone de Beauvoir uppmuntrade inte mitt kvinnliga självförtroende, så som jag alltid har påstått. Nej hon stimulerade mitt personliga självförtroende trots att jag var kvinna.  {...} Jag brukade henne till att fördriva mina kvinnodrömmar, plåna ut dem ofullgångna ur mitt medvetande. Jag ersatte dem med något dubbeltydigt som handlade om framgång i männens värld, om att förtjäna deras uppmärksamhet, uppskattning och uppvaktning genom att vara en av dem, lika duktig, om inte duktigare "

More articles on the digital revolution and how we think and react

More revelations, revoltings, revolutions, rambling and riveting thoughts:

"We can tap into 50 million websites, 2.5 million books in print, 75 million blogs, and other snowstorms of information, but we increasingly seek knowledge in Google searches and Yahoo! headlines that we gulp on the run. We can contact millions of people around the globe, yet we increasingly connect with even our most intimate friends and family via instant messaging and fleeting meetings that are rescheduled a half dozen times, then when they do occur are punctuated by pings, beeps, and multitasking."

From an UTNE article called A Nation Distracted by Maggie Jackson. It is really worth reading. 

Attention has created the experience and the self stored in your memory; looking ahead, what you focus on will create the life and person yet to be. Psychology has mostly examined our pasts to explain and improve our lives. If you think in terms of the present and future instead, you might encounter an intuition lurking in your mind, as it was in mine: If you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create—not a series of accidents, but a work of art.

From an UTNE article called The Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher. It is also really worth reading.

People who are zoning out (so deeply they aren’t aware of it until they’re asked) exhibit a signature blast of brain activity, specifically in areas associated with goals, decision making, and long-term thinking. 

From an UTNE article called Stop Paying Attention by UTNE staff. Fascinating stuff about why it is good to let the mind wander sometimes. 

But be aware if you are an introvert, because some psychologists and WHO then might think you have a problem.

One buttock playing

This video made me suddenly love classical music a hundred times more...



(Thanks to OK for sharing)

Book Review: Berlinerpopplarna av Anne B. Ragde

Just after forcing myself to finish Heat, I picked up a Norwegian book in Swedish called Berlinerpopplarna (The Berlin Poplars) by Anne B. Ragde that I got from my best friend KV (it is translated into English, aren't you lucky!). What a joy! The story is about three brothers and what happens when they are called to their mother's deathbed. One, the oldest at 54, runs the old farm that is still owned by the mother. The middle boy is a undertaker, and the first chapter made me cry because it describes grief so well. The youngest son is gay and lives in Copenhagen and hasn't been home to his parents home in 20 years. The oldest son has a daughter, 37-year year old Torunn, that he has never met and nobody except his mom knows about, but calls he calls her when her grandmother gets a stroke, and she also shows up at the farm.

This is a great book, with vivid, descriptive language and it is obvious that the author knows a lot about people, psychology, and dysfunctional families. Despite all the despair in the book it ends on a positive note, and I really liked it. The author has a way of describing the complexity of people and their faults and strengths in a non-judgmental way I really liked. This could have been a real story, and I wonder if someone is planning to make it into a movie, since it seems to fit so well for that. Oh, I just found out it was made into a TV series by Norwegian public television. I always read when I go to bed to go to sleep, and most books I read 1-2 pages and then I am out. Not this one, I finished it in 5 evenings! Heat took me forever.

Good morning!

This is post number 1001 on this blog. Bacon is still the theme.

The evening before a travel day...

Som vore det kvällen före en resa... eller hur det nu går, dikten som jag älskar och alltid glömmer bort... Om sex timmar åker AREA och jag till Costa Rica, och allt är packat och klart. Evenings like this, the few hours before I am gone on another trip, makes me think about Swedish poetry about travel - Harry Martinson, Fröding, and Ekelöf, and also authors such as Vilhelm Moberg and lot of others. For those of you that don't read Swedish literature, you have lots to discover.

But instead of a travel poem, here is one of the few poems I actually know by heart in Swedish, and one that I love. I can't translate it, but it is about happiness, and I am happy, right now, in my life. Or maybe I am just content with my life in general and have some kind of inner calm I didn't dare to have ten years ago. I know that if I wanted I could be upset over a million things, but I choose not to.

Lyckflätning

Än minns jag de lyckliga åren
då lyckan var lycklig och såren
ej lyckats få lyckan ur spåren;
då lyckligtvis ingen lycka
helt lyckats att lyckan förtrycka;
då lyckan var lyckad som lycka
och lyckades bra till all lycka.

På stigar där lyckan kan mötas
och lycka med lycka förnötas
fördrev jag i lyckliga hagar
de lyckliga ostarnas dagar.

Nu lyckas jag liksom de flesta.
Nu vet jag om lyckan det mesta.
Nu ser jag till mer än till lycka
och lyckan kan ej mera trycka.

I just can't translate this one, but maybe you know of some poems in English that are about happiness and luck without being sickly sweet and romantic and unrealistic?

The latest science news - humongous palms, dinosaur killing insects, and google brains

A few hand-picked favorites by LS:

Death by flowers: giant, suicidal palm has botanists stumped
"tree grows some six sto­ries tall be­fore sprout­ing hun­dreds of suc­cu­lent flow­ers"
"is so huge it can be seen in Google Earth"
Extra points for silly headline. Stumped, haha!

Google’s kinship with the mind
Our brains think just like a Google search. Maybe. Maybe it was just Google imitating our brains to begin with?

Did insects take down T. rex?
"The rise and evo­lu­tion of these bugs—the bit­ing dis­ease-carriers,in par­ti­cu­lar—co­in­cided fate­fully with the mighty rep­tiles’lat­er days
“In di­no­saur fe­ces, we found ne­ma­todes, trema­todes and even pro­to­zoa that could have caused dys­en­tery and oth­er ab­dom­i­nal dis­tur­bances. The in­fective stages of these in­tes­ti­nal par­a­sites are car­ried by filth-visiting in­sects.”

All from World Science.

Cabin fever

Just came back from the cinema where I saw "Zero Kelvin" / "Kjærlighetens kjøtere" (1995).

The poet "Larsen" leaves his girlfriend in Norway to work at a hunting station on Greenland for a season. Arriving at the station he meets his two hunting partners; the silent, calm and meticulous scientist "Holm" and the rude, vulgar and cynical "Randbek", also the station's boss. Right from the beginning there is a tension building up between Larsen and Randbek, with Randbek mocking Larsen's, in Randbek's view, naive and romantic belief in love. During the winter this escalates to a level where the inhabitants of the little cabin sleeps with a hand on a loaded revolver, and where the table is split up with a string of flour marking the border of between the two opponents halves of it. Great film and Stellan Skarsgård makes a splendid performance as the rough Randbek.

In the Biosphere 2 project, where 8 "bionauts" were sealed into a big greenhouse as part of a self-sufficient ecosystem for two years, they had problems getting along as well, with the group splitting up in two halves. Allegedly the two groups didn't speak with each other for ten years after they came out in the normal world again.

The polar explorer Ernest Shackleton had an interesting approach when it came to preventing "cabin fever". When he had managed to get his crew back on solid ground on the inhabited Elephant Island after his ship Endurance was crushed by the ice during the failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, he picked the men with the weakest psyche to sail with him for help. The remaining, mentally stronger men had to stay in their little rock hut over the winter waiting for him to eventually return with a rescue expedition. He did, not a single life was lost despite the extremely harsh conditions they suffered through. There are several well-written books about this expedition. His own record of the events, "South", can be found on Project Gutenberg for free.

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Derek Sherinian - Czar of Steel)

Pattern-quiz

When does a pattern start to emerge? How many repetitions does it need? And how is it with complex patterns, sometimes things not resembling each other makes "it" happen.
Does many things of the same type always create a pattern ?
How does the brain sort the images out, is it because we start to see a new object, a pattern instead of singular objects? Do the objects need to be small or do we see patterns even when there are just three of a thing standing in a row?

When do you see the object and when do you see a pattern? Place a comment!

by EH

Picture1. Leaves
Picture2. A pillow
Picture3. Strawberry tart
Picture4. Lilies of the valley
Picture 5. Lions
Picture 6. Pots in a row

Getting ready for Christmas III

But how to pay for those unexpected but perfect christmas gifts? Once again Derren Brown shows you how.

/O.K.

Getting ready for Christmas II

Derren Brown has solved the problem of finding the perfect gifts in his own special way.

So, start training your psychic powers. Christmas is only three months away...

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Buckethead - Elephant man's alarm clock)