You Are Not So Smart

Not an insult, just the name of a podcast...

While working in the yard I've been binging my way through the back catalogue of the You Are Not So Smart podcast. Just finished Episode 019 – Placebo sleep and other new discoveries in placebo research. Host and interviewer David McRaney has an engaging style, does careful research, and selects interesting speakers. Mr. McRaney is also the author of two books:

• You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

• You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Ou tsmart Yourself.  

McRaney eats a cookie - made from a listener's recipe, some of which sound quite tasty - at the end of each show, a schtick which may be skipped without risk, especially if you're trying to stick to a careful diet.

I Have Pine Needles

64 "lawn" bags of them, and counting...

Having a couple dozen Ponderosa Pines on my property means I'm treated to a thick crop of pine needles and pine cones every spring. I have an appointment to have a trailer hitch installed on the Tribeca so I can haul this all away. In the mean time I'll continue the raking and the bagging and the stacking...