I’m a little hesitant to post this, because Monopoly is my favorite board game and I like to win. But here are two great webpages with way too much quantitative information about probabilities of hitting spaces on the board and rolls to recoup an investment:
Probabilities in Monopoly by Truman Collins
How to Win at Monopoly by Tim Darling

Here are a few of my strategies:
-Ideally, be the first to get a monopoly. Any monopoly, though the ones on the second side are preferable. Build 3 houses ASAP on each property.
-Trade. Always trade. (I also employ lots of trading in fantasy football). Be willing to give up bit pieces to get monopolies. Or even to get pieces that give you the CHANCE of picking up a monopoly. Be willing to give expensive monopolies to people that are cash-poor if it gives you a monopoly you can build on.
-Railroads are only good early in the game, in my opinion. Trade them later on for anything that increases your chance of a monopoly.
-Until <5 properties are available, get out of jail ASAP. After that, never pay to get out of jail early. -I mortgage more bit pieces than the average player to get cash to build houses. -Try to be the person who knocks others out of the game, because then you get their property, which is almost always valuable, even it it's mortgaged. Position yourself in the end game to knock people out. -Sometimes it's wise to trade a bit piece for cash if it both gives you needed cash and starves someone who has an expensive monopoly of cash to build with. -Know which properties others are likely to hit with their next roll. Build there if possible.

Maria and I are of the opinion that they (Hollywood) don’t make movies for us anymore. We dislike the vast majority of adult movies. Most of them turn out to be vulgar, overly violent, pornographic, full of bathroom humor, or lousy sequels.

My suggestion is to watch animated movies, particularly those by Pixar. While they’re made for children, they’re full of jokes for adults. There are some silly childish gag scenes, but for the most part, I’m really impressed by the movies. They’re really funny and sometimes quite emotional.

Or perhaps I’m just seven years old.

You sit at work. You sit at home. Sitting is killing you. Try to stand up every hour. Walk to get water. Stand and read your book/papers. Stand and think. Stand and stretch. Just don’t sit for super long periods of time.

We have a lot of defined deliverables in our lives– work that comes with a deadline. And you bust your ass to create a good product, produce good work, and line yourself up for rewards. Which is great. But remember that once your deliverable is presented/turned in/sent into the ether, there’s not much more you can do. Don’t fret about the results. Let it go.

Worrying about the deliverable’s reception doesn’t do anyone any good. It makes you stressed and it annoys your co-workers that have to listen to you.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t do all you can to position your deliverable in a good place. You should. But all the accessory stress that comes with worrying about the fate of the deliverable should be avoided at all cost. After all, who has time to worry? Go work on your next project.

I had a saying as an undergrad: “As time to the deadline goes to zero, my productivity goes to infinity”. This is how I lived back then. There’s a good chance that I didn’t start any homeworks or projects until the night before they were due. Not one. On more than one occasion, I was finishing papers within minutes of when they were due. But everything got done on time and I got really good grades.

So why start early? I succeeded pretty well as an 18-22 year old by starting at the last minute. Well, three main reasons.
One: It’s stressful to work against the deadline all the time.
Two: I didn’t do my best work. This didn’t matter much in undergrad courses, but does matter for most things in life.
Three: It’s hard to work and live with other human beings and procrastinate all the time. In undergrad, I largely worked and lived independently. Now, I have bigger projects with more people involved. And I live with my fiancée, Maria. And it’s not fair to all these people to be selfish with my time and start at the last minute.

I still procrastinate, but I’m light-years ahead of where I was a half-decade ago.

The trick, besides starting early, is avoiding “acceptable inefficiency” when not working against the deadline. Without a deadline to motivate myself, I find myself working less efficiently than I could be. This inefficiency seems acceptable because no noticeable problems arise. But by spending more-than-necessary time on a project, the unseen problem of less available time arises. Less time for other projects, less time for leisure. So start early, but don’t let the lack of deadlines hurt that peak efficiency you used to have when you battled deadlines.

(image from http://www.pausecutplay.com/blog/2013/4/14/dont-fucking-procrastinate-rules-of-a-creators-life.html)

Your desk job is slowly killing you. Sitting all day in a chair is bad. Bad for posture, bad for health. While there are many possible solutions, I’m trying out sitting on a 75” stability exercise ball (bouncy ball for short) this summer.

At first, it was uncomfortable and made my lower back tired with all the balancing. A week in, however, I don’t feel any pain and really enjoy the alternative chair. My hope is that the balancing and bouncing eliminate some of the effects of sitting all day. Even if they don’t, it is undeniable that I am more active with a bouncy ball chair. Being active is good. I use a weighted, stable ball that doesn’t roll away when I get up. If all goes well, I will use the chair when I move back to my school office in the fall. Maria uses a bouncy ball chair at her job at IU as well.