Foreword: Inefficiency is for Crazy, Evil People

Installment from "The Bowling Ball in the Freezer and Other Secrets of a Highly Efficient You." Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

Business is life. Life is business. If you want to be happy in your “personal life” and have a justifiable claim to inner peace and mental cleanliness, you have to succeed in business. And you can’t succeed in business unless you’ve got your shit together upstairs. And vice versa. Otherwise, it’s like a snake eating itself. A very hungry and stupid snake. The Mormons know it. The Scientologists know it. And now you know it too.

I work with clients who aren’t satisfied with mediocrity. They won’t stop until they achieve excellence. But they’re not particularly brilliant or talented. Actually, some of them are quite stupid, like our friend the very hungry snake. No, what they have is something that surprisingly few people have – real desire. And flexibility in matters of morality and basic human decency. And money to pay me.

Do you have those things? At least one of them? The money, I’m hoping?

Ten Second Gourmet – Cooking with Wine

From the recipe box of Dr. Porker:

Before you even crack the "Joy of Cooking" to find some outrageously implausible recipe, uncork a cheap but sturdy Beaujolais. You'll find it refreshing and amusing.

While you look at the pictures on how to dress wild game, which has nothing to do with the mac and cheese you are actually going to make, move on to the Costco-sized bottle of 2007 Pinot Noir from the Pennsylvania coast.

Drink directly from the Chardonnay box wine spigot to cool off while grating the cheese.

Always sip tawny port from plastic children's Ronald MacDonald glasses during any kind of sautéing.

As things truly begin to degenerate, decant that old bottle of Claret you were saving to celebrate the promotion you never got. Finding it long gone corky, and with the nose of an old dead whore, splash liberally into the unidentifiable mess in pan to see what nuance that will add.

Declare evening a smashed success.