I lowered that number, betting him that no more than 20 people would say old people. I also said that my guess for the most popular answer would be “pain.”

Here’s the chart detailing the results:

Here are some random observations I have about the results:

• 100 people were surveyed, so each percent represents the number of people who voted for a specific topic.
• I was generous with my interpretation for “old people,” filing the following responses there: old ladies, my grandparents, and grandpa’s kisses.
• I didn’t expect the answers to be so varied.
• The “other products” category included responses like Ben Gay, Biofreeze, and bandages.
• The miscellaneous category contains any answer that only got a single vote. I’ll list my favorite single vote answers below.
• My favorite common answers were Shaquille O’Neil, the smell, and tingling or burning genitalia.

Emailing someone you don’t know can be stressful. How do you phrase your email without sounding like you’re just using them to get work, when, in actuality, you’re using them to get work?

Being employed in Hollywood is all about who you know. Relatively speaking, though, meeting people is the easy part—if you know how to get in touch with them. Let me share an email I recently got from a fellow University of Central Florida alumna:

Hi Jesse,

I’m a recent graduate of UCF’s film program, and a good friend of [professor]. She sent me your contact information as one of her “all-stars” out in L.A. I just recently moved out west, and am looking for any P.A. work. If you, or anyone you know needs help with any projects, definitely let me know.

Thanks so much.

This is a good example. Of what not to do.

To contrast, there’s another email I recently received:

Hello Jesse,

I’m a fellow UCF graduate that is moving out to the Los Angeles area. I graduated with a degree in television production and worked as a freelance production assistant in Orlando for the past year. If you are available, I would love to meet and buy you lunch or coffee to talk about work, Los Angeles and any other advice you may be willing to share.

I will be available to meet starting July 24th. You can e-mail me back at this address or call me at [phone number]. I understand if you are busy, but thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail.

The latter email is a clear and substantial improvement over the first email’s not-so-subtle “can you get me a job?” vibe.

Some pointers when constructing your own letter:

• Get to the point. Tell me why you’re writing in the first few lines of the email, if not the first line.
• Keep your emails short. There’s rarely a good reason to write more than 120 words.
• I love the line in the second email: “I understand if you are busy, but thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail.” This is reverse psychology at its finest. The person understands that I’m busy and appreciates that I’ve given their email my time and attention. I’m more inclined to meet with people who understand that my time is valuable.
• If you’re asking a stranger to meet with you and share their life experiences, the least you can do is offer to buy them lunch. “But Jesse, hold on! Moving is expensive,” you say, as you promptly throw down $50 for a night out on the town with your friends and eat out 7 nights a week. Moving is expensive. And part of the money you have set aside to move should be for networking as well. Besides, it’s just classy to offer, even if the person you’re meeting with doesn’t take you up on it.

I Googled for a bit and discovered a bunch of ways to do it on older versions of Mac OS, but nothing that still applied to Snow Leopard. Here are the (very simple) steps:

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Select Print & Fax.
3. On the left, you’ll see the available printers. Select the one you want to use.
4. Now, on the right, you’ll see an option that says “Open Print Queue.” Click it.
5. This will open your printer queue. Simply drag the whichever files you want to print from your computer into the bottom portion of the print queue box.

I read your blog on moving and not registering a vehicle…I am going to be moving to Ventura County as my job is relocating me to Westlake Village. I was trying to figure out roughly how much it would cost me to register my vehicle if I bought a new one (which I need to) here in Oregon. According to the do-it-yourself, not-so-handy nonresident calculator, by stating I’m buying my car in Oregon and putting $0 for taxes (there is no sales tax here), it’s telling me I’d have to pay $1440 dollars for a $17,000 car. $1200 of that is for use tax. Do you have any more insight on that? Thanks for any and all help.

- Chris

Chris, thanks for writing in. I did the vehicle registration for my own car, and it came out to roughly $200, which is what I remember paying when I moved here in 2009. Some other friends of mine paid much less. It really just depends on what your car is, where you bought it, and what you paid.

I’m guessing that you’re getting charged more because you didn’t pay taxes. I know I did, as I purchased my car in Florida where there is sales tax. Try calling the DMV and asking them directly, “Do I pay more because I didn’t pay sales tax?” See if there is any way they can waive the fee. They have procedures they follow and it’s unlikely, but it’s worth a shot. Also, if you find that the DMV isn’t helpful, try calling a California car dealer. The wait time to talk to them will be shorter, no doubt, and they may be friendlier.

In the end, you’ll pay what you pay. California is notorious for charging high taxes and fees on everything. And don’t think for a second that you can park in that No Parking spot for “just a minute to run in and grab some Pepto.” The parking enforcement officers are indeed psychic and you’ll end up having the most expensive bottle of Pepto ever.

Welcome to CA.

I’ll just get to the point. I’m a big fan of Nickelback and I’d like to see more people get into their music. So I thought it would be nice if you could put a link to their itunes page on your videos, it could make at least a bit of a difference. Even if you don’t get a lot of views you never know. So yeah, here’s the itunes link, shortened for your convenience and everything.

http://bit.ly/iITQrm

Just paste it into the video description and say something like ‘Nickelback on iTunes’ or ‘Hear more from Nickelback here —>’. You can use the long link but it doesn’t really look all that great. Maybe you could even add one of those annotations things to your video. And if you got a better idea, let me know, I’m glad to hear all the suggestions and criticisms.

A few random thoughts I have:

• I love how this person feels the need to “spread the word.” Nickelback is not some struggling grass roots indie band. Though they essentially have zero musical credibility, they’ve sold over 20,000,000 albums in just the U.S.
• However unlikely it is, I laugh imagining that the person commenting someone in the band, perhaps even Chad Kroeger himself.

I hate this.

Mostly because I’m printing out contact lists for our office. You can’t click a hyperlink when you’re holding the document in your hand¹. Word got rid of the old right click, remove hyperlink function a few versions ago.

And it frustratingly took me more than 30 seconds to find the solution on Google, so I figured I’d post this here in case someone else needs to figure this out as well. Here are the steps.

1. Highlight all your text by pressing Command+A (or Ctrl+A on a PC).
2. Then press Command+Shift+F9 (or Ctrl+Shift+F9 on a PC).
3. Yes, that’s it.

If this helps one lonely Word user at 3 a.m. who doesn’t want to manually remove 300 hyperlinks, my life will be complete.

1. Yes, technically you could hold a document in your hand and then, separately, click on a hyperlink on your computer. But that’s just a semantic loophole.

Gone were the days of opening 20 websites and checking for new articles. Now I could plug in all the websites I frequented and Google Reader would keep a queue of the articles those sites published. What’s more, it would display them in an easy-to-read, clutter-free environment.

I still use Google Reader daily. Occasionally, however, I will get sent an article from a friend in an email. Or I’ll click a link in a Google Reader article. This sends me into the terribly ad-ridden, overly designed WORLD WIDE WEB.

Enter Readability. It converts virtually any article into an extremely eye-friendly version. The font is beautiful. The layout is minimal. And if you’re reading this on my actual blog, you’ll notice that I’ve recently been inspired to follow suit.

Readability is free, but it also has a paid version where you can save articles to read at a later time¹. For this, I still use Read It Later.

I use the Google Chrome plugin for Readability, which allows me to instantly convert any page instantly. I highly recommend it.

1. Part of the proceeds for a paid account go to the authors of the article, which I think is a fantastic concept.

We’re still receiving calls asking for our expert advice. And we still love it. There are 10 episodes online that you can watch on YouTube. Here’s our latest one:

Take the time to understand the top 10 car insurance myths to save yourself time, money, and headaches. Car insurance is a difficult road to navigate and you want to get the most coverage for your dollar.

1. Military Personnel Pays Higher Premiums. There is a myth that military personnel pay higher premiums. This is not only untrue, but the opposite is usually true. Many insurance companies offer discounts to those in the military, rescue, law enforcements and teaching fields.
2. Red Cars Cost More to Insure. Another myth is that the color of the car, primarily red, is more expensive to insure. This myth was fueled by the cost of repairs paint colors that were difficult to match. The reality is insurance companies do not take the color of your car into consideration.
3. The Older You Are, the Higher the Premium. This is completely untrue, and usually premiums can go down with age. Each insurance company is different, so different age thresholds may need to be met.
4. One Insurance Policy Covers a Work & Personal Use Vehicle. This is untrue. Your personal car insurance policy does not cover your vehicle for business use. You need to add a rider, or consider a secondary policy to be covered for business use.
5. Old Cars Don’t Get Stolen. This is a terrible assumption. In fact, older or classic cars may be more attractive to a thief if they are worth more, or easier to break into. Comprehensive insurance is always recommended and if you don’t spend a significant amount of time and money on upgrading or aftermarket work, consider classic car insurance instead.
6. Luxury Car Owners Pay a Higher Premium. This myth is based on the myth that luxury car owners get more tickets, but this has been found to be completely untrue. In fact, the highest number of tickets are shown to be drivers of Hummers, followed by drivers of Scions.
7. Insurance Will Pay for a Rental. Your insurance company may not pay for a rental in the event of theft or damage, even if you have comprehensive and collision coverage. It’s important to read your policy carefully and ask for add-ons if you feel you need them.
8. Insurance Will Pay Off the Loan. Some believe that their insurance company will pay off the balance of their loan if the vehicle is totaled. This is a car insurance myth. The truth is that if you have comprehensive insurance and your car is totaled the insurance company will define the value of your car pre-accident and give you the cash for it. You can purchase GAP insurance to help take care of the remainder of your loan.
9. Tickets Will Increase Premiums. This isn’t entirely true. It depends on the situation. If you have an otherwise clean record and the ticket is minor, your insurance company will likely leave your rates alone.
10. Personal Property is covered. Many believe the personal property in their car is covered in the event of theft. This isn’t necessarily true. Your car is the covered entity, not your belongings. You can cover those items under your home or renters insurance policy.

The top 10 car insurance myths can hold you back from getting the coverage you need. Always talk with your car insurance agent about any concerns you have and ask about riders or add-on insurance that can help cover the concerns you have.

From: Daniel Chapman
To: Jesse Chapman
Subject: Taoism and stuff

Hey brother Jesse,

Click on the link below and download this eBook.. I have just read it and got alot out of it.. talks about energy like I have heard you talk about before.. I think you will like it.. let me know how you go.

http://www.yangtown.com/ebooks/revive-your-sex-drive-free-taoist-sexual-energy-techniques-ebook

DC

From: Jesse Chapman
To: Daniel Chapman
Subject: Taoism and stuff

Sorry, but who is this?

From: Daniel Chapman
To: Jesse Chapman
Subject: Taoism and stuff

I am someone from your past.. someone who knows all about your golly golly.. someone who knows koodu and pee pee… who am i?

From: Jesse Chapman
To: Daniel Chapman
Subject: Taoism and stuff

I tracked your IP and it looks like you’re from Australia. I don’t know anyone in Australia. And based on this exchange, I don’t think I want to.

From: Daniel Chapman
To: Jesse Chapman
Subject: Taoism and stuff

Haha oh your really not the Jesse Chapman I thought you were.. that is so weird coz my brother, Jesse John Chapman’s email address is supposedly yours.

He’s only just set it up though and he’s not very computer literate so he may have got it wrong.

I’ll sort it out. Sorry to confuse you like that..

Jesse John Chapman probably has a Hotmail address. What a loser. And apparently a creep.