How old do you feel?

George W. Bush was sworn into office 10 years ago.

Coldplay's first album was released 11 years ago.

The Matrix hit theaters 12 years ago.

The Department of Justice filed its antitrust case against Microsoft 13 years ago.

Mother Teresa died 14 years ago. Also a princess died.

Kobe Bryant was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, 12 picks after Allen Iverson and one pick after Vitaly Potapenko, 15 years ago.

Bill Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes 16 years ago.

Brazil defeated Italy in the FIFA World Cup 17 years ago.

Cheers was cancelled 18 years ago.

Wayne's World was released 19 years ago.

Pearl Jam's Ten, Nirvana's Nevermind, and U2's Achtung Baby were all released within four weeks of each other. Twenty years ago.

iPads, NASCAR, and Arrogance

Of all the criticisms tech pundits hurl at people who enjoy Apple products, the laziest and most insulting is that nobody with a brain would buy this stuff if it weren't for Apple's brilliant marketing. This is lazy for the same reason it is insulting: it makes no effort to understand the product's appeal to the people who buy it. The latest example comes from Katherine Noyes in PC World, who explains the iPad's success this way:

Purely marketing, I believe. Apple is nothing if not master of the glitzy sales pitch, and there's never been better proof of that than the iPad's current success… It's a fancy new toy, and--in the case of the iPad--one from Apple, at that. Never underestimate consumers' desire to impress each other with the latest and greatest gadget, especially if they're Apple fans.

Classic. Noyes is aware that Apple sold 15 million iPads in nine months, but because she doesn't personally see the appeal, she constructs a reality in which millions of hard-working people will part with $500, $600, even up to $800 simply because of a slick 30-second TV ad. That's a bold claim. To put it extremely charitably.

Listen, I don't understand NASCAR: I really don't get it on any level. I don't know why people care. I even give my NASCAR friends a hard time about it. "Drive fast, turn left, repeat" and all that. But what I don't do is suggest that the only reason they like it is because some Don Draper type in a Nashville office put a spell on them that makes them want to spend five hours sitting on the couch making "vroom vroom" noises every Sunday.

You know what I did instead? I asked my friend Tim, the biggest NASCAR fan I know, to tell me a little bit about what he sees when he watches a race. It turns out there's a lot more to it than I would have guessed: strategy, technique, engineering, and more. I still don't really care to watch it myself (and yes, I still make the "drive fast turn left" joke occasionally), but I learned a little something about NASCAR. And more importantly, I learned a little something about culture and about my friend Tim.

And not to turn this into a sermon, but this actually does contain a lesson that we could all stand to learn. It's a lesson about humility. There's something in all of us that wants to assume that anyone who sees things differently than we do must be under some kind of spell: that Apple fans are all unwitting victims of Steve Jobs's marketing acumen, that your buddy's girlfriend doesn't really love him and is playing him for a fool, or that people who believe in a particular doctrine have surrendered their minds (and souls) to nefarious religious propaganda.

And it's not just lazy and insulting to think about people this way. It's also deeply arrogant. It comes from an assumption that you are always right about everything. This is quite unlikely, you know. It leads to arguments and bitterness in your relationships, frustration in the workplace, and alienation from God. So the next time you find a person or group of people who disagree with you, try to understand why they think they're right instead of coming up with some explanation for why they're wrong. But be careful, because you might end up changing your mind.

Or worse, buying an iPad.

The worst kind of blog post

No one wants to read a blog post that begins with "Wow, it's been a really long time since I wrote anything here!" But it has been. Eight months, to be exact. And the truth is, everything in the world that matters most to me has changed quite a lot since then. Most notably, my wife Tracey has been carrying a new baby for that length of time. And so in a week or two (please not three or four), my life will be even more markedly different.

I don't know why I'm writing this, other than that I'm tired of not writing. And I don't really anticipate that I'll be able to do it with any more regularity over the next year than I did over the past year.

I guess I'll leave you with an old favorite of mine, a list of Ten Second Thoughts.

1. Cannonball Adderly was great. I don't think he gets enough appreciation from jazz lovers.

2. It's much better to do a small thing than to do nothing at all.

3. Internet commenters make me genuinely sad.

4. I'm still not sure I've grasped the idea that I can't do everything I want to do, that my options are finite. But I'm getting closer.

5. I'm looking forward to a nice cup of coffee in the morning.