Apparently, you’re not supposed to chew Tic Tacs.

Who knew?

I’m not the only one who eats them this way, am I? For breakfast?

It is urgent that YOU contact us concerning your eligibility for lowering your interest rate to as little as 6.9%. Your eligibility expires shortly, so please consider this your FINAL notice.

Emphasis mine.

Okay, YOU called me. Why should I contact you? And FINAL notice? If only! I’ve been receiving this robocall for years now, nearly one a day, in spite of being on being on the no call lists. PLEASE let these notices stop!

Having a telephone would be so much more pleasant, if these kinds of calls disappeared—completely.

Unfortunately, I can only imagine they will continue to increase. It’s too easy for these lecherous companies to get every. available. phone. number. out there. And with no actual employees making the calls, the overhead must be super low. I imagine a single hit out of ten million calls is a thousand percent profit... or more.

Still, one can dream. I’m just thrilled modern phones have both Do Not Disturb and Call Blocking.

Speaking of... those ads for the iPhone X. iOS and the phone itself does nothing for me—but that camera. My. God. Can I justify spending a grand simply for that camera?

Perhaps.

Especially with that interest rate.

Are you kidding? With APR like that, I could just die!

This morning, I had a nugget of great advice waiting for me in my inbox.

The best advice I got from a sales rep is to 1) get paid and, more importantly, 2) be unapologetic about your price. Nearly every time I have had the courage to follow that advice it has surprisingly paid off.

As long as I can remember, I have been generous to a fault. In fact, I’ve had close friends tell me I’m an idiot, as some business associates have taken advantage of my generosity.

Gene Simmons would not be proud.

So, for today’s uncomfortable act, I fired a client. It is time.

Does it feel good? Not necessarily, but it does feel as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Of course, it’s not quite over—I gave her forty-five days. Yet I should feel no guilt about cutting loose the client who pays the least, yet demands the most of my time for support.

What i'm listening to:

Let's Go
The Cars
Candy-O

I need to stop telling girls I don’t believe in love.

Not because it isn’t true.

Because it makes them determined to prove me wrong.

I may never get rid of some of these girls.

Thank God for fake phone numbers.

What i'm listening to:

Rump Shaker
Wreckx-n-Effect
Hard or Smooth

I’m aware that, in the past, I’ve tended to leave things unfinished... so this year, I resolv

Yeah, it’s kind of like that. I make fun of myself, because of my tendency for incompletion. However, now, looking at a new year, and the success of my resolutions from last year, I am looking forward to what the new year will bring... and the challenges.

There’s a certain je ne sais quoi, to getting something done. Something meaningful.

Yet, before we move on, let’s raise a toast. To reading. To setting a goal to read fifty books in one year, and to actually reading sixty-five books, front-to-back, before the year’s end.

And now, the list—read in 2017:

1. Everybody Writes - Ann Handley
2. The Shining - Stephen King
3. UnMarketing - Scott Stratten
4. Up the Down Staircase - Bel Kaufman
5. Contagious - Jonah Berger
6. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin
8. The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason
9. The Lotus Caves - John Christopher
10. Reinvention Made Easy - Jim Mathis
11. The Last of the Breed - Louis L'Amour
12. Traffic - Tom Vanderbilt
13. Looking for Alaska - John Green
14. Joyland - Stephen King
15. The Door Into Summer - Robert A. Heinlein
16. The Social Organism - Oliver Luckett & Michael J. Casey
17. Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
18. UnSelling - Scott Stratten & Alison Kramer
19. The Bridges of Madison County - Robert James Waller
20. Drive - Daniel H. Pink
21. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
22. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell - Tucker Max
23. Quiet - Susan Cain
24. Managing Oneself - Peter F. Drucker
25. Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris
26. What to Say When You Talk to Yourself - Shad Helmstetter
27. Orange Roofs, Golden Arches - Philip Langdon
28. The Guardians - John Christopher
29. Time for the Stars - Robert A. Heinlein
30. Faces of Fear - John Saul
31. Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
32. Radical Honesty - Brad Blanton
33. Awareness - Anthony di Mello
34. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
35. ‘Salem’s Lot - Stephen King
36. Mastery - George Leonard
37. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L’Engle
38. Sex Money Kiss - Gene Simmons
39. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
40. The Futurist - James P. Othmer
41. Disturbing the Peace - Richard Yates
42. The Game - Neil Strauss
43. The Barmaid’s Brain - Jay Ingram
44. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
45. Leadership Just Got Personal - Steven B. Fulmer
46. Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
47. Who Moved My Cheese? - Spencer Johnson
48. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
49. Social BOOM! - Jeffrey Gitomer
50. Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
51. Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
52. Always Talk to Strangers - David Wygant
53. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
54. The Rules of Management - Richard Templar
55. From Russia, with Love - Ian Fleming
56. The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
57. Body Language - Julius Fast
58. 11/22/63 - Stephen King
59. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
60. Time and Again - Jack Finney
61. Fascinate - Sally Hogshead
62. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson
63. Tasting Beer - Randy Mosher
64. Finders Keepers - Stephen King
65. Goldfinger - Ian Fleming

Happy New Year!

What i'm listening to:

Bright Lights, Bigger City
CeeLo Green
The Lady Killer