Via the interesting Lifehacker blog (which is a 21st-century Hints from Heloise), tips for getting good customer support. On the other hand, lies Verizon DSL support has told.

Via Tabarrok, the Self-Referential Aptitude Test. Check out Marginal Revolution for good Star Wars analysis.

Via Kim, this restaurant children's menu poses the following quandary:

TWENTY - ELEVEN = 99 HOW?

Trademark lawyers, disregard the unlicensed endorsement of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Porky and Bugs.

Via Eric, funny New York Times story. Jennifer 8. Lee is wrong that the lottery was fortunate that all six numbers didn't hit: had there been a complete match, the lottery would have been able to split the main prize 110 ways, and wouldn't have had to dip into its reserves.

There are other famous examples of lottery coincidences. On November 12, 2001, Flight 587 crashed, and so many people played that lottery number that when "587" hit, the winning prize was $16 instead of $500. The second-best strategy for playing the lottery is to pick numbers no one else will pick (e.g., above 31 in games like Powerball to avoid people playing birthday combinations) so you don't have to split a prize if you win; the best strategy is not to play at all, since the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.

Puzzle. I have to say I have no evidence that this puzzle has a solution. The first two moves are forced, which should make it easier, but.

Ok, you can guess how the story will end, but it's still worth telling:

At a recent parents' meeting at the progressive Abraham Joshua Heschel School on Manhattan's Upper West Side, two fathers of young daughters introduced themselves and learned, remarkably, that both of their fathers had been born in the same small Ukrainian town.

The Heschel parents, an American and an Israeli, realized that, since there was only a single Nazi transport from the town, both of their fathers were undoubtedly on the same train bound for an extermination camp in October 1942. The American told of his then 19-year-old father, who escaped by jumping through a plank he had dislodged from above a window in the car. His father, telling the story, always added that, before he jumped, he pushed a boy up and out through that loosened plank.

The Israeli instantly knew who the boy was, for his own father had always told of how there was an opening too high for him to reach—he was then age 11—and of how an older boy lifted him up and pushed him out. The two boys never saw each other again, but each, miraculously, survived the war by hiding in Ukrainian farms and forests. Now their children, so far in time and space from these events, came to learn that their daughters are in the same class.

Photos of toy cars in parking spaces (via Radosh).

Also: Mad Ape Den, a blog limited to words of three letters or less (via Stachiew).

The other side of Bob Saget (link will die soon) (lots of naughty language) (via Romenesko).

Create your own personalized map of the USA. (via Friedman)

Utah was a touch-and-go for a connecting flight in September 1998, so I don't know I should count it. Kentucky and Arkansas I drove through as a passenger in 1975, and haven't been back since. I was thisclose to being scheduled to attend a deposition in Fargo last year; not sure how I'm going to have an excuse to visit North Dakota otherwise. That Florida gap in my record is admittedly odd. Seven of these states were visited solely for purposes of litigation.

If you think I had an ego before I got the new job, wait 'til you see what I have planned for overlawyered (sorta via Grace).

Brandeis University's effect on Bruce Springsteen.

This invitation includes latitude and longitude, but fails to mention altitude, which will only lead to tears when people start materializing under and above ground. (via Bonin)

ObFuturama Quote: "You musn't interfere with the past! Don't do anything that affects anything! Unless it turns out you were supposed to do it, in which case, for the love of God, don't not do it!"

I'm rationally ignorant of the methodology and rules behind BlogShares, which seems to be some sort of rotisserie baseball for weblogs, but now that I'm getting hits from there, I'm amused that it's a GMU economist who's predicting that he can make a killing buying shares of my blog low, perhaps anticipating that this weblog will somehow become wildly popular. Such a vote of faith! Imagine how disappointed Kevin will be when he realizes that the majority of my 20 hits a day are from my parents. Or maybe I'll have something else on which I can compete with my brother, whose blog has only partially recovered from an Enron-like plummet. And we're both behind a blog that doesn't exist any more.

"School mistakes huge burrito for weapon, goes into lockdown" (via Kim).

From the April 1955 Atlantic: "Studebaker's designer and stylist expresses his irrepressible opinion of the American automobile today, and of what it may be fifty years hence." Surprisingly reasonable and accurate. Subscription required, but if you're not subscribing to the Atlantic, you should be. (via Postrel)