Birthday Bounty

Here’s a quick shot of all the fun stuff I got. Among the notable items, I got a kickass Mr. T tee from Chelsea, and some of Ben’s own artwork (a lot of the cool artwork I have around my apartment is thanks to Ben). Great presents all around.

Ok. This just fucking made my day.

At the reading tonight, I remembered a conversation I had with Steph and Liz several months back. We were at Artful Dodger drinking and chatting, and they were telling me about some great book they had read. It involved intuition and snap decisions.

It wasn’t until tonight, at the Gladwell interview, that I wondered if maybe he was the guy they were talking about. And so guess what?

I held off opening this gift (that I found in the afternoon), as I wanted a shot of all the presents laid out on the table. After the interview, I came home, took the shot, and unwrapped their present to me.

Fucking unbelievable. Justin and I both had debated buying a copy of this at the reading, but opted not to. And here it is, waiting for me at home.

I have to say, once more: my friends are awesome. Opening this gift ends a fantastic two days, and solidifies what I’ve known all along – the folks I’m running with are all smart and on top of things, and we’re all plugged into the same, cool shit.

There was a comment from Gladwell in his talk tonight that stuck with me. He said that people aren’t necessarily smart. According to him, the contents of a person’s head are really a collection, a sum total of the heads of those who happen to be around that person.

And if that’s the case, well… consider me one smart, hip bastard. Because all of my friends, quite simply, rock.