dennis yang dot com

Minnesota, July 2010 from yizzle on Vimeo.

I’ve been fascinated with the field of “happiness research” lately, and yes, though it sounds made-up, it’s actually a bona fide field of study. In general, I’m a happy person, so I think that’s actually why I am curious as to *why* that is the case. The Atlantic (yes, my favorite magazine) published a fantastic story last year about “What Makes Us Happy?” that you should read.

In any case, this week, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, published his new book, Delivering Happiness, which kind of approaches happiness research from his personal angle. I met Tony this year when he came to my birthday party at SOM with my friend Jenn. He’s super cool and we ended up all hanging out together at SXSW in Austin (including one night with Ashton Kutcher). So, yes, full disclosure, I know Tony, and he gave me a copy of his new book, and now I’m writing up a review about it.

The book itself is a fast, entertaining read, and details Tony’s entrepreneurial path from selling worms to buttons to LinkExchange to Zappos. What’s the saying? Once, you’re lucky — twice you’re good?

The story is a fascinating study of how to build successful businesses and not be an asshole in the process, so that’s a little refreshing. That said, Tony isn’t just a “nice guy” — but rather, his genuine, honest, open approach to running a business (and life) is really cool. For example, he spoke very frankly about the reasons why he sold Zappos to Amazon.

And I can’t help draw personal parallels between Tony’s background and my own, which was kind of cool.. Taiwanese parents? Yup! Played musical instruments? Uh, yah, we’re asians. As a kid, loved Boy’s Life and the Johnson Smith catalog? uh.. yah. Ok. Getting eery now.

Anyway, one of my favorite passages was this one on “networking”:

So my advice is to stop trying to “network” in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you’ll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendships later down the road. You won’t know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

On my roadtrip through Utah over memorial day, I chatted with my friend Paul at length about “work people” vs. “friends.” Paul mentioned how there was a clear division between the two, whereas for me, there really isn’t a distinction. Throughout my entire career, I’ve kind of just blurred that line — at mySimon and now at Techdirt, some of my closest friends are the people I work with every day. I mean, you spend TONS of time with the people you work with.. shouldn’t they be people you enjoy hanging out with?

Everyone can tell when people are “networking” — eew.. It’s much, much nicer when people are just genuinely hanging out and getting to know each other. Cuz, if you don’t want to hang out with me to be with me — rather, you want something? Then, uh, yah.. that’s not cool. They have a word for that. It’s called fake. Or shallow. Hm, I guess that’s two words.

Anyway, go check out Tony’s book. I really enjoyed reading it, and for me, I have a lot of things that I’m thinking about right now, so it was actually quite helpful in putting my life in perspective. (Whoa, Dennis is getting all serious and stuff.)

You can buy it on Amazon. Or you can borrow my copy if you like.

Congrats Tony & Jenn the book! Cheers!

Happy Bike Month! (And don’t forget.. tomorrow is bike to work day…)

Early Saturday morning, I headed over to the East bay for the annual Head To The Hills rally on Gail, my 1964 Vespa GL. Alan told me about this ride, which runs for about 125 miles through some awesome twisty canyon roads. I’ve heard good things about the twisties in the east bay for awhile now, so this seemed like a perfect time to check them out.

Of course, in order to get over to the East bay, I had to cross the Bay Bridge, which, on a 46 year old 160cc scooter, is a tad daunting. I hopped on the 101 at the Bryant street on-ramp (the left side carpool one), which was nice because it dumps you nicely into the right-hand slow lane. There wasn’t much traffic, and soon enough, I was cruising happily at about 60mph. Even so, it was a little scary to not have any more power to go to in case I needed to get out of trouble. Also, the grooves in the pavement made the scoot wiggle nervously as we crossed the bay. Eep.

I made it to West Oakland without incident, and Alan and I rode over to Cole Coffee to meet up with the rest of the crew. In all, about 20 scooters came on the ride. Mostly vintage Vespas and Lambrettas, but a few modern plastic scoots (the retro looking-ones) joined us, in addition to a pair of of the goofy-looking new MP3s. And, as Alan pointed out, for some reason, scooter rallies always have one old, pot-bellied dude in sweatpants, riding a Ruckus. Great.

I don’t have any pictures from the ride itself — it was way too fast and twisty to even attempt to get the camera out. Oh well. I did have my Garmin 305 with me though, so I was able to map out the ride:

We stopped for lunch down in Pleasanton. Yes, in case you’re wondering, Pleasanton is very.. pleasant.

The craziest part of the ride was through Morgan Territory Road. On the east side of Mt. Diablo, it’s a one-lane road through some gorgeous hilly country — here’s a video of someone driving it on YouTube). So yah, imagine riding that road in a line of 20 scoots at a decently fast clip. It was pretty awesome.

As to be expected with any vintage rally, we had two scoots need to board the “shame train” with mechanical problems — one was a modern scoot, and the other was the ride leader Derek’s GS — whose rear wheel nearly came off due to a loose axle nut (yah, that would have been a lot worse, considering we had just finished riding Morgan Territory Road).

To get back to SF, I hopped on the highway right near Cole Coffee. Thankfully, there was a ton of traffic, so even though I had to merge from the 24 to the 580 to the 80, I was able to lane split my way through stopped traffic all the way to the tollbooths.

In all.. the ride took nearly 7 hours and went over 130 miles. Thanks to FLCSC for organizing an awesome ride.

In other scooter news, Andy and I started cleaning up the 1976 150 Super that’s been sitting idle in our garage for nearly a decade now… we really should have taken a “before” picture, but she’s looking really good now:

See you at Scooter Rage 24 in June.

So, someone recently asked me to recount my life.. musically.. It was an interesting task, and a fun one at that, so I looked back… and put together a little mix that represented my musical tastes thus far…

I’m trying something new.. a YouTube playlist of these songs — I’m actually quite impressed that YouTube has ALL of these songs. Wow.

(80s Phase)
Ok.. so I dont actually have any tracks in my iTunes from this phase — it was the 80s, and all of my music is either on LP or Cassette tape, and therefore, not in my iTunes… Anyway.. it WAS the 80s when I was listening to this stuff, so it wasn’t called “80s music” back then.. Back then, it was just “pop” and I remember listening to a lot of it on 107.9, aka POWER 108.

Thriller – Michael Jackson
Let’s Hear It For The Boy – Deniece Williams
Straight Up – Paula Abdul
Piano Man – Billy Joel (my first live concert)

(Classic Rock Phase)
So, In high school, I was big into classic rock.. You know, Zeppelin, Clapton, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles. I listened mostly to 100.7 WMMS (aka the buzzard with the wig). Then, I got my first CD player, a Sony Discman D-4, by saving up for like 13 years, I think. My First CDs were.. Pink Floyd’s Delicate Sound of Thunder and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
A Day In The Life – Beatles

(Folky/Classical Phase)
I was a huge fan of Northern Exposure, and this track was in the last episode of that show:

Our Town – Iris Dement

All throughout my childhood, I played violin, so yah, I had an appreciation for classical music.. My favorite classical track of all time is:

The Moldau – Smetana

(Ska Phase)
I’m not sure how I found ska in college, but I did. All throughout college, I pretty much listened to like 80% ska music. I did the whole deal, I had the flight jacket, a porkpie hat, oxblood doc martens, and skanked. Ya, I even had a Vespa (and still do).

007 (Shanty Town) – Desmond Dekker
Message To You Rudy – The Specials
He Wants Me Back – Dance Hall Crashers
Tell You Why – Pietasters
Come Back Baby – The Slackers

(Punk Phase)
The ska thing kind of developed into a punk fascination — I mean, OpIV is ska-punk, so it seemed like a natural evolution.

Sound System – Operation Ivy
Life Size Mirror – No Use For A Name

(Japanese Phase)
I had a brief fascination with Japanese music. Yah.

Baby Love Child – Pizzicato Five
Sugar Water – Cibo Matto

(Electronica Phase)
And then.. I moved to San Francisco. And in SF, electronica kind of found me. I probably spent like 6 months listening ONLY to trance, and on this one trip up to Tahoe, I ONLY had trance CDs in my car.. about 2 hours into the drive, I was so desperate for ANYTHING NON-TRANCE that I almost tore my ears out until I (thankfully) found a cassette tape from high school (classic rock) that I listened to for the rest of the weekend. I have a theory that you can only listen to so much trance in your lifetime, after which you’re just, like, done with it. So yah, even though I remember really, really liking this PVD track. Now, I can’t even be bothered to sit through it. Ugh.

Out There & Back – Paul van Dyk

So, from trance, I moved on to breaks, which I think is a natural progression. I probably spent the most time DJ’ing breaks, and my vinyl collection is primarly breaks. That said, for some reason, I don’t really like listening to breaks on my iPod. Maybe that’s cuz I don’t really like listening to breaks — I prefer dancing to it.

Collect – Emit

(Folky Phase.. Reprise)
I think as a backlash to my years of electronic/trance-ness, I rekindled my interest in folky stuff. These two tracks are my favorites:

The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice
Lonestar – Norah Jones

(Hip Hop, Turntabilist Phase)
For like a brief time, I really wanted to be a good scratch DJ/Turntablist, and it was during that time that I found a lot of hip hop that was pretty rad.

From 93 till Infinity – Souls of Mischief
Ghostwriter – RJD2
Point to B – Prefuse 73
Swing Set – Jurassic 5

(Indie Electronic Phase)
I think the pendulum swung back kind of crooked — and since everything merges anyway, I found myself in indie-land, with a bit of an electronic influence.

Hide & Seek – Imogen Heap
Needy Girl – Chromeo

(I LOVE Xmas music)
So, for the past 6 years, I’ve compiled a CD of Christmas music. I heart christmas music, and this is my favorite holiday tune:

Baby It’s Cold Outside – Elf Soundtrack

(Indie Phase)
Ok.. and now we’re kind of in my latest phase, which is just the “Indie Phase” — that said, “Indie” is kind of a wide spectrum of things, and pretty much, for the past few years, I’ve been putting together mixtapes like every quarter. So, here’s just a sampling from those mixtapes of tracks that I find to have a particularly high level of awesomeness.

First Breath After Coma – Explosions In The Sky
To Be Loved – Joan As Police Woman
Falcon Jab – Ratatat
Blood Bank – Bon Iver
Lisztomania – Phoenix
Comets – Fanfarlo

And.. that’s it, I think.. 34 biographically representative songs from my 34 years..

Ok.. here it is.. almost every musical act that I saw at SXSW 2010… in the order that I saw them.. as a mixtape:

Go listen. Hope you like it.

I like numbers.

• Days in Austin: 11
• Nights in Austin: 10
• Business Cards Collected: 67
• Twitter Followers Gained: 52
• SXSW Sessions Attended: 13
• Musical Acts Seen: 30
• ACL Tapings Attended: 1
• IFC Crossroads Tapings Attended: 2
• Tracks On 2010 SXSW Mix: 28
• Films Seen: 4 (A NY Thing, The Runaways, Strange Powers, & Alice In Wonderland)
• Comedians Seen: 3
• Comedians That Heckled Me For Taking A Picture With An iPhone: 1
• BBQ Meals: 3 (Stubb’s, Salt Lick, Salt Lick @ ATX)
• Korean Tacos Consumed: 0 (Dammit, I Meant To)
• Torchy’s Tacos Consumed: 2
• Alcoholic Beverages Consumed: A Lot
• Zone Bars Eaten: 1
• People Who Stayed In My Hotel Room: 6
• Hotel Rooms Visited: 2
• Foursquare Check Ins: 116
• Austin Mayorships Earned: 1 (The Parish)
• Friends met up with thanks entirely to Foursquare: 1
• Gowalla Check Ins: 2
• Wristbands Worn: 2
• Special Credentials Received: 3 (Delivering Happiness Bus, PureVolume, Hype Machine)
• Hollywood Celebrity Sightings: 4 (Ashton Kucher, Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michel Gondry)
• YouTube Celebrity Sightings: 3 (iJustine, Jon Lajoie, Philip DeFranco)
• Internet Celebrity Sightings: Lots
• Perez Hilton Sightings: 0
• Drunken Dials Of New York Friends: 1
• Drunken Dials Of NY Friends, Which Resulted In A Black Eye Caused By Friend’s Fiancé’s Elbow: 1
• Gift Bags Received: 3
• Gift Bags Brought Home: 0
• Free Tshirts Received: 4
• Free Tshirts Brought Home: 1
• Cornell Basketball Victories Watched: 2 (GO BIG RED!)
• Swimsuits Brought: 2
• Swimsuits Used: 0
• Umbrellas Brought: 0
• Umbrellas Used: 2
• Average Temperature Planned For: 95°F
• Actual Average Temperature: 59°F
• Taxicabs Taken: 3
• Pedicabs Taken: 1
• Total Steps Walked: 149,564
• Hours Slept: Not Enough

I just got back from SXSW in Austin (my first time there)… I was there for the entire thing, Interactive, Film and Music, and it was a crazy, overwhelming experience. Interactive was well attended, supposedly with double the attendance of last year — with the recession (maybe) on it’s way out, and also with the huge rise of social media, it seemed like everyone was clamoring for.. something. Though Foursquare was definitely the talk of the conference (and actually quite useful on many nights), Twitter was definitely the Twitter of the 2010 conference (if their well-attended party was any indication). I met a TON of fantastic people whilst networking at Interactive. It’s really an amazing industry to be working in, and I’m quite thankful that I’m knee deep in it. Maybe I’ll write up some more stuff about the interactive part of the conference, but for now, music is fresh on my mind.

Though the music portion of the conference didn’t officially start until Wednesday, I kicked off my week with Band of Skulls at the Austin City Limits studios. Despite the humongous line outside, we were able to breeze right on through, Goodfellas style, thanks to Carlo’s friend Emily, who works for ACL. Sweet!! Better than VIP!

After the show, we hung around the studio for a bit, and I met Emma Richardson, the bassist and chatted with their upcoming show at Rickshaw Stop here in San Francisco. She’s lovely and has a charming English accent — yes, we Americans are suckers for English accents.

Monday night, at the Gowalla party, amidst a mild Texas rainstorm, Diplo rocked the Belmont, which was renamed “The Tiki Room” for the night.

Tuesday night was the official closing party for Film, and Bay Area was representing with Mike Relm, who is best known for mixing YouTube videos together like this:

Insanely awesome. And thanks to Grace, I got to meet and hang out with him as well. He’s super nice. I like it when people are nice.

And then the music portion of SXSW officially started… Now, at this point, I’m a little freaked out because thus far, I had already been meeting and hanging out with people every night until about 4 or 5 in the morning… for Interactive.. I shuddered to think at what kind of late nights would be had during music, especially after my many a late night at MIDEM back in January.

Wednesday.

Ok, after working most of the day Wednesday(yes, I was still working..) I managed to miss many of the day parties, but no worry, there was still a ton of music going on… After wandering 6th street for a bit, feeling the energy starting to grow in the city of Austin, by chance, I happened upon the Alamo Drafthouse about 5 minutes before the next movie was about to begin. Since I had a platinum badge, films were free for me as well, so I went on in, ordered a beer (yes! beer at a movie theater!) and found myself with the last seat in the theater, right in the middle of the theater. Awesome. The film was A New York Thing, and was a nice little French-ish romantic-comedy-drama set in NYC. Damn, that reminds me… I saw a great sticker in Austin that said: “I (heart) NY but I’m not in (heart) with NY.” Ha.

Anyway, Wednesday night, I hit up 5 shows:

• Javelin: my friend Paul recommended them.. they were supposed to be a dope-ass electronic act, but for some reason, they decided to sing to their tracks, and ended up being like a bad version Chromeo. Not so great.
• Broken Bells: I had heard a lot about this band, so I hopped on over to Stubb’s to check them out. Stubb’s is a huge outdoor venue in Austin that serves up some tasty bbq, but ugh, I’m not a fan of crowds, so while I really enjoyed their set, I did not enjoy being smooshed amongst thousands of adoring Broken Bells fans. That said, I really did appreciate having a badge at this point, since I was able to walk right into the show, whereas the poor wristband people had to stand in line for hours, I think… Ouch.
• Frightened Rabbit: After the Stubb’s show, I whisked myself over to the Parish, where the Scottish folks were sponsoring the night. I had originally wanted to see We Were Promised Jetpacks as well, but was too late (and supposedly that show was PACKED).
• Database: I met back up with my friend Paul, who was at the Hype Machine party at Vice, where these djs from Brazil were tearing it up. Solid stuff.
• Delorean: Finally, to close out the night, 4 guys from the Basque country played some electro-indie stuff. Sweet.

Thursday.

I was walking through 6th again, and randomly I came upon the NPR party, where I saw that the top billing was Sleigh Bells. Um, awesome. I had been wondering if Sleigh Bells was going to be playing at all, but not having seen them on any official billing, I was kind of bummed. But.. there they were. SLEIGH BELLS. Right on the bill. I went on in. When I got in, a decent hip hop act was playing, G-Side, but they finished up and next up was Surfer Blood. This was another band that I had started hearing about a bit, but hadn’t really made any plans to see. They played a solid set, and then with my new found fellow Sleigh Bells superfan, Alison, we eagerly awaited the Brooklyn duo to take the stage.

Now, when I play SB’s track “Crown on the Ground” for people, most ask me if it is supposed to sound like it sounds. It’s EPIC, loud, and blown out — it sounds like it was improperly recorded — but, I really think that it’s part of what they were going for, and it’s perfect to me just the way it is. So, I was wondering if their lo-fi sound was going to translate properly into their live act, and it really did. They were awesome. I can’t wait to see them again.

After Sleigh Bells, I left the Parish elated and energized.. It was slightly weird to be so amped at 5pm in the afternoon, but I suppose it’s part of the SXSW experience. I met up with Espree at the AP party, where I had to weasel my way in since I didn’t RSVP ahead of time. One of the skills that I honed during my week in Austin was definitely the “weasel” skill. Apparently, if you just act like you know what you’re doing, most people will just assume that yah, you know what you’re doing and let you in. Although, you have to wait for the right time to do the weaseling though. Just walking right at a lone bouncer in a VIP section is *not* the way to do it (as I learned a few times). There should be a larger group already walking in, or he has to be otherwise distracted or something.

Anyway, I decided to start my evening with another movie — this time, The Runaways, a movie about Joan Jett and Cherie Curry, played by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, both of which were in attendance.

Thursday night, I saw 4 acts:

• JJ: Now, having really liked her song, Let Go, I was very excited to see JJ live. I arrived a little late, and found that JJ was just 1 woman, sitting by herself in an office chair, singing into a microphone. I mean, her music is pretty mellow, but wow.. low energy. I was slightly disappointed, but I guess after hearing her music again, maybe it makes sense that she’s just sitting there. Singing.
• Timber Timbre: After JJ, I was originally going to stay for Holy Fuck, but then I called an audible and booked it over to the Central Presbyterian Church, where Chilly Gonzales was slated to play next. Well, I apparently mis-timed it, because I was waaay early, and instead, got to catch some of Timbre Timber, a pleasant folky group. Afterwards, Paul informed me that the Holy Fuck show was THE BEST SHOW he’d seen. Argh. Oh well. I’ll have to catch them at some point in the future. Erg, I suppose another lesson I learned at SXSW was that you couldn’t really be pissed to miss cool stuff, cuz there’s so much cool stuff that you miss that you’d drive yourself batty if you worried about it all.
• Chilly Gonzales: Ok, this show was farking rad. I sat myself down in the 2nd row of pews (the show was in a church) as they rolled in the grand piano right in front of the first row of pews. They informed the 2 girls seated in the first row that they had to move back because they would be way too close to Gonzales as he played.. ha.. so I ended up sitting like 4 feet away from him as he played. Gonzales’ show was incredible — he arrived on scene in a bathrobe, slippers, and white gloves that he kept on during his whole piano performance.
• Midlake: Closing the night out, I hopped back to Buffalo Billiards to catch Midlake. I like these guys, but their show was kinda enh. Oh well.

Friday

Ok.. Home stretch now… Surprisingly though, I’ve made it home each night at a reasonable hour, considering all of the music that I’d been seeing — who knew.. Interactive parties harder than Music.

Friday afternoon, I discovered a secret gem.. East Austin. After checking out the Levi’s Fader Fort for a bit, where Cherie Curry was demonstrating her new career as a chainsaw artist, I wandered eastward, following the faint lure of music and bbq. In East Austin, there’s a few cool bars, a chicken & waffles place served out of an old bus, and a typewriter museum, where a thriving hipster party with $1 lonestar was kickin’. Hello hipster gentrification.

I found East Austin to be intoxicatingly photogenic, even with a crappy iPhone camera. Yah. I need to return with my real camera.

I started Saturday evening at the Velveeta Room, a comedy venue, where I saw 2 comics, Howard Kremer and Doug Benson (who I’ve seen on Best Week Ever). Doug made fun of me for taking this iPhone picture.

Friday, I saw 7 acts:

• Casxio: I saw this LA-based funk, soul, electronic group in a random parking lot in East Austin. Cool sound, and they gave me a cd. Thanks.
• Ben Gibbard: Best known as part of Dashboard Confessional Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, Ben Gibbard played a rare solo, acoustic set. His wife, Zooey Deschanel, was playing as part of She & Him over at Stubb’s at the same exact time, so any hopes of a surprise duet with her were dashed. Nonetheless, it was really cool to see him play. He did a fantastic version of Recycled Air.
• Bachelorette: New Zealand chick… dreamy, poppy tracks.
• Yacht: I had high hopes for Yacht, but I found them to be energetic, but musically meh.
• The Death Set: These guys were hilarious. I’m quite sure they were hammered drunk. Ridiculous punk energy, stage diving into a sparse crowd of about 15 people.
• Fanfarlo: AWESOME.
• MG&V: This was the debut of the supergroup, formed from members of Dawes, Deer Tick and Delta Spirit. Supposely, they had played together for the first time just days before, which was amazing since they sounded incredible together. I’d love to hear more from them.

Saturday.

Andy showed up Friday night with his crew, who were all here for a bachelor party. Saturday morning, they got together and piled into a rented van headed for the Austin Rodeo. They invited me along, but unfortunately, there was no room in the van for me. So, instead, I had chili for breakfast. I missed out on the rodeo. And . And fried testicles. Oh well.

I wandered back into town after being rejected from the party van, but.. it turned out to be fortunate, since I discovered the IFC Crossroads house — where they film bands for some show on IFC, I guess. I walked in, and they were filming the Frightened Rabbit show, who I had seen before, but honestly, seeing them this second time with only like 20 people made me like them a lot more.

After having such a magnificent time at the IFC, I returned a few hours later to see who else was filming. It was the last taping of the festival, a group from Saratoga Springs called Phantogram. Wow. With complicated time signatures and catchy melodies, they are my favorite new find of the week.

And yes, I saw another movie.. Strange Powers, a film about Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields.

Saturday, I saw 8 bands:

• Frightened Rabbit: 2nd time seeing them.
• Phantogram: AWESOME new find of the week.
• MyNameIsJohnMichael: Met up with Willo at this show, since I was across the street watching the movie. Fun band from Florida.
• Casiokids: I wanted some electronic, to cleanse the palate.
• Best Coast: These guys were recommended by SPIN as someone to definitely check out, and FourSquare gave me a nice badge for checking them out. Lo-fi girl band.
• Felix Cartal: DJ rocked the house before the Wallpaper show.
• Wallpaper: Bay Area! My friend Steve works with them, so I decided to check them out. They have a huge Bay Area following, so it felt like I was back in SF at this show.
• Stars of Track & Field: To close out my SXSW, I went back to the Parish (where I claimed mayorship on 4SQ). These guys are great and under-appreciated, I think. A fantastic way to finish up my SXSW.

So yah… wow. That’s a lot of music. I’m still a little overwhelmed.

SXSW Mix.. COMING SOON. Stay tuned.

So this weekend, my friend Carla came up from LA and we went up to Tahoe for the weekend.

Andy and Mer came too.

We went to snowfest and snowshoeing and hung out at the house.

And then Andy made this AWESOME VIDEO.

I’ve watched this thing like 173 times. It makes me happy.

Ok, so I got a ridiculous red light ticket in San Mateo (red light cameras are actually one of the topics that we frequently cover at Techdirt, ironically), and as a result, I had to pay a crazy ridiculous fine AND take traffic school to get the point off my license. I haven’t had a traffic violation (knock on wood) since 1997, so this kinda pissed me off to ruin over a decade of good driving.

Anyway, I just finished traffic school, and I thought I’d share with everyone an example of the quality things that I learned today that will SURELY make me a better driver.

Which of the following is an unlikely alternative to driving?

Driving steadily can improve your gas mileage by as much as ___ miles per gallon.

It is your responsibility to ______ and protect the environment you enjoy.

Uh yah.. awesome. Well, I sure do feel like a better driver now, don’t you?