Back from an exhausting but fun weekend trip to NYC for various family events. The weather in Manhattan was perfect. I only wish I'd been able to spend more time with family and less time in transit (traffic around NYC Sunday was brutal due to the 5 Boroughs bike ride and street fairs and car accidents).

With gas prices over $3 a gallon nationwide, I got myself a Discover Open Road credit card which offers 5% cash back on gas and auto maintenance purchases (and 1% back on other purchases). No annual fee.

Maria Sharapova lists her top 10 dream mixed double partners. Yao Ming?!

"Fluorescent Adolescent" by the Arctic Monkeys is my favorite new rock tune this year (here's the album). Alex Turner is a fantastic lyricist.

Help to fight global warming by having fewer children. Since U.S. citizens tend to be the world's worst carbon dioxide emitters, this is especially true for us. A simple way to encourage this would be to impose tax penalties on families for each additional child. Take that Shawn Kemp.

I was born without replacement teeth for my top two canines. Those two baby teeth have been hanging on forever. I went to a new dentist here in LA last week who recommended I get them replaced before they fall out. I asked how much it would cost, roughly, and she told me to talk to the receptionist up front. Always a bad sign when you ask how much something costs and get the runaround. The receptionist's quote: $8,000, not covered by insurance. Are you kidding me?! I may just have to go toothless if they fall out. At any rate, I'm going back to my insurance company on this one. That hardly seems just for a congenital condition.

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