Monthly Archives: December 2007

10 Most-Anticipated Movies of 2008

As we look back into 2007, we didn’t have many remarkable movies.We are hoping 2008 to be a better year in the movie sphere.Here is a list of most anticipated movies of 2008 according to yahoo:

Cloverfield

Release Date: 18 January 2008
Director: Matt Reeves
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Plot Outline: Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.
Cast: Michael Stahl-David / Mike Vogel /
Lizzy Caplan / Jessica Lucas

Shrouded in mystery since the untitled teaser trailer appeared last summer, producer J.J. Abrams’ modern take on the monster movie has had people everywhere buzzing about just what it is that’s tearing New York City apart.

5 ?DISPOSABLE? Web Accounts to Keep Your Identity Safe

Written by by Aibek

Fed up with spam? Tired of telemarketing calls? Feelin’ paranoid about identity theft? ? Here you’ll find a bunch “throwaway” web tools that can help you out.

Disposable email account

Mintemail – Instant disposable email for any ‘fishy’ registration form or sign-up. Go to mintemail.com and a random email address will be automatically generated and copied to your clipboard. You can either bookmark the location of created inbox and use it on a regular basis or always use a new one.

Highlights include: Automatic eMail verification, email forwarding, option to set custom expiry times (from 1 hour to 1 month) and more.

Disposable phone number

Numbr – This is a really good one. Basically, Numbr gives you an anonymous disposable phone number that can be set to forward all incoming calls to any provided landline or mobile number (US only). Absolutely free. It’s an ideal solution for times when you want to keep your phone private but want to list your contact number in places like classifieds listings, social networking sites, blogs ,etc.

Disposable Phone Number

Along with the number, you also get access to dozens of cool functionalities, i.e. forward to voicemail, ability to activate/deactivate nr. at any time, etc. Read more: Numbr – Disposable Phone Number.

Disposable login details

BugMeNot – Here you can get disposable login details (username/password) for a huge number of popular news/review/download websites that normally require users to register.

BugMeNot - Disposable Login Details

For example, let’s say you clicked on a link that points to an article on a popular media website (eg. NYT). Usually instead of landing straight on the article page you’re asked to signin or register. Maybe there is a good reason behind it, but what’s the point of signing up if that is your first and only visit to that website. When it comes to BugMeNot, it instantly gets you a number of “public” login details that can be used to access the website. It’s fast, it’s convenient and you don’t have to worry about getting spammed.

Disposable name and address generator

FakeNameGenerator – Fun tool for quickly generating fake but totally sound names and contact address. Cool part about it, not only you get to choose country of residence but can also specify what kind of name you’re looking for, i.e. Chinese, American, Indian, etc.

Fake Name Generator

Disposable file sharing

File.io – Anonymous file sharing service where you can upload and share file/s (via password-protected URL) for 30 days. Once 30 day period is over, all shared files will be automatically deleted. Read More: File.io – Disposable File Sharing.

Are you aware of any other ‘disposable’ web service ? Share it in comments.

Science vs. Faith flowchart

Source: www.freethoughtpedia.com

10 Top Funny, Odd and Interesting Images of 2007

Collected by OddO Rama

Some pictures are worth 1,000 words, but others are worth 1,000,000. By (subjective) category, here are 10 of the
most amazing viral images of 2007. Undoubtedly some of these you will have seen before, but some will be new as well.
Click on the images to go to the full-sized originals. Enjoy!

Most Touching: Loyal to the End

Most Geeky: Why We Love Firefox

Best of Technology: 1 Gigabyte Then and Now

Best of the Web: Why Net Neutrality is So Important

Photoshop Humor: Photo With and Without Flash

Religious Humor: God's Inbox

Religious Satire: Satan Goes to Sunday School

Commercial Humor: FedEx Pwns UPS

Gaming Humor: Carmen Sandiego Finally Found

Celebrity Humor: Chris Farley Found Alive

Honorable Mention: Do Not Take This Flyer Down

7 Ways Modern Games are Spoiling us

Written by OMGLists_Team

Before this generation, gaming gave us quite a bit of pain to suffer through before enjoying the pleasure. Nowadays, it seems as though we’re being served everything we wished for on a silver platter. Here’s seven new advances in gaming that have made us happier, yet lazier.

7- Open Worlds

Back in the 2D era, games would be filled with interesting backgrounds you never could quite reach. Knowing our car, no matter how well we raced it, would never get to that theme park in the distance, or that those gigantic blue mountains in Super Mario World were never going to be traversed kinda took the wind out of our sails. While there are still barriers and deceptive backgrounds being used in games today, there are quite a few games that let us explore every nook and cranny of gigantic virtual worlds. Now how about letting us bust down doors instead of searching for stupid keys?!

6- Online Matchmaking

The history of multiplayer gaming goes as such–early gamers had to suffer through actual interaction with friends, most of which played at a much different profieciency level as you. Fast forward a few years to the dawn of internet gaming; back then most people had dial-up internet connections and the process of playing a game online went something like this: Call friend on the land-line to make sure they’re in the game. Hang up phone right before attempting to connect. After waiting ten minutes for them to show up in the waiting room we’d disconnect and call them to find out what happened. When we finally were succesful, we’d have to quit because our mom needed the phone. These days all we really need to do is push about three buttons and we’re automatically connected with 15 other players of similar skill in a lag-free, high-speed deathmatch. The best part? We don’t even have to look at them.

5- Console Based Web Browsing

While surfing the net on a gaming console or portable still can’t beat the simplicity of firing it up on your PC, it’s easy to tell the industry has already plotted a course that will place the console at the center of our internet life. The beauty of having an internet browser on a game console at this point in time is that there is almost no chance that anyone unfamiliar with gaming will come across our seedy browsing history or our download queue filled with weeks and weeks of porn. Thank God for modern technology. The downside is that while parents are now less likely to learn of your porn addiction, siblings are more likely to become suspicious when their downloaded games get erased.

4- Roster Updates

For hardcore sports-fans, every sports title is plagued with the industry’s version of Original Sin: outdated rosters. Back in the 16-32-64-bit days, our only recourse was to spend hours making trades and creating players so we could have your home team as accurate as possible. Still, we could never quite replicate the schlub our team called up from Triple-A. Thankfully, developers have made a modicum of effort to keep teams modern, if only to ensure a level playing field online. Those efforts usually die down around the time the next year’s version rolls around, but hey, any progress is good.

3- Easy Saving

With larger hard drives at our beck and call, saving has become a snap– if a game isn’t saving its progress for us, it’s allowing us to save wherever and whenever we damn well please. Why only a short time ago, we had to trudge for hours, uphill, in a blizzard, just to reach a save point. If we died before reaching a save point, that was it, and the resulting heartbreak often caused us to completely give up on a game. Even this save-point process was a luxury compared to the days where there was no such thing as saving. In those days we’d just leave the console running for weeks on end.

2- Downloadable Games

We’re ready for the revolution, America. Why are we still visiting retail locations to purchase products?! Okay, granted, we’ll buy the big products like the Hey, Lo and the Rocking Band at stores, but we’re ready to buy the big games from the comfort of our couch. Warhawk, Tekken, Geometry Wars, and every single NES and Genesis game we valued as a youth?! Yes, give us a credit card form, and we’ll enter our most vital info toute suite.

1- Wireless Controllers

What a hassle it was having wired controllers. After spending thirty-minutes unravelling cords we still had to worry about people or dogs running between us a the television. Modern wireless controllers make playing the video games of the past seem more like chores than fun. Nowadays we don’t even have to get up to turn the system on – removing the last 1% of physcial activity involved in gaming. Every gamer’s dream of beginning and ending a gaming marathon without engaging in physical locomotion has come true.

This list was created by OMGList writers Dave Rudden and Ben Karl.

Christmas Truce

You can contact with me here anytime and anything

Christmas Truce 1914

20 More Photographs Taken at the Exact Right Angle

Written by Sawse – Stir it Up!

What is the most critical element to taking amazing photographs? There are a number of candidates including lighting, focus, timing and camera type, but one device has been at the heart of producing some of the funniest and strangest pictures around: proper angle. Sorted into three categories, here are some awesome examples of images taken at just the right angle! If you enjoy these, you may want to look at the others in the series: 20 Photos at the Exact Right Angle and 25 Photos at the Exact Right Time. These also follow in the rich tradition of The 7 Giants in the Streets and The Amazing Little People of London.

Illusions of Overlap: perhaps the most common trick, usually used to comic effect in perfect-angled photographs, is the use of overlap to create an illusion of an impossible, unlikely or entirely strange set of circumstances. These kinds of images are easy to stage, it’s catching candid ones or creating compellingly staged ones that is the real challenge.

Unusual Moments in Time: sometimes a photograph taken at just the right angle and time takes advantage of the peculiarity of a circumstance, such as a man at an intersection with an uncommonly relaxed dog or a worker in a hole with a pudding-covered spoon. Focus is critical, with the first image capturing the expressions of curious bystanders and the latter revolving around the hat and spoon.

Juxtaposition of the Similar: catching similar objects or like poses can create chance relationships between apparently completely different kinds of options, connecting them across scale, material and purpose in curious and comical ways. What’s your favorite? Know of others that would fit in the mix? For more fun images, check out WallStreetFighter, DeputyDog and WebUrbanist.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

The Definitive Top 25 Movies of 2007

Written by Peter Sciretta

This is the time of year when all the critics and websites begin to publish their Top 10 lists for 2007. But every list is different, just like every person is different. Last year I attempted to compile all the lists together, to figure out what movies appear on the most Top 10 lists. But my attempt to create a definitive listing never came to be, due to various reasons – but for the most part because of the extensive hours it required to compile.

This year I thought I’d make it a little easier. If I’ve learned anything from Steve Jobs it is that Simpler is better. Movie City News has a good compilation of the top 10 lists of the nation’s top critics. But there is a clear divide between critics and mainstream audiences, and a definitive list must account for both groups. A regular top ten list represents the opinion of one, so a definitive list must represent the combined opinion of everyone. You can read about how this list was compiled at the bottom of this posting.

The Definitive Top 25 Movies of 2007

There Will Be Blood

1. There Will Be Blood 91

The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

2. The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 90.5

Ratatouille

3. Ratatouille 90

Persepolis

4. Persepolis 90

In the Shadow of the Moon

5. In the Shadow of the Moon 90

Juno

6. Juno 89.5

Sicko

7. Sicko 89

Once

8. Once 88.5

The Bourne Ultimatum

9. The Bourne Ultimatum 88

No Country For Old Men

10. No Country For Old Men 88

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

11. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 88

Enchanted

12. Enchanted 86.5

Gone Baby Gone

13. Gone Baby Gone 86.5

Away From Her

14. Away From Her 86.5

This is England

15. This is England 86.5

The Savages

16. The Savages 85.5

Control

17. Control 85.5

Hot Fuzz

18. Hot Fuzz 85

Hairspray

19. Hairspray 85

3:10 to Yuma

20. 3:10 to Yuma 84.5

Rescue Dawn

21. Rescue Dawn 84.5

Zodiac

22. Zodiac 84

Superbad

23. Superbad 83.5

Knocked Up

24. Knocked Up 83.5

Michael Clayton

25. Michael Clayton 83.5

More Movies?

26. The Simpsons Movie 83.5
27. My Kid Could Paint That 83.5
28. Atonement 83
29. Waitress 82.5
30. Grindhouse 81.5
31. Into The Wild 81.5
32. The Host 81.5
33. American Gangster 80.5
34. Lars and the Real Girl 80.5
35. Stardust 78
36. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 78
37. The Nines 74.5
38. The Darjeeling Limited 73.5
39. Lust, Caution 72.5

IMDb Logo

Internet Movie Database’s Top 25 Movies of 2007

1. There Will Be Blood 9.1 (1,151)
2. No Country For Old Men 8.9 (21,431)
3. Juno 8.6 (3,352)
4. In the Shadow of the Moon 8.6 (705)
5. Sicko 8.5 (20,557)
6. The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 8.5 (2,246)
7. The Bourne Ultimatum 8.3 (61,620)
8. Ratatouille 8.3 (48,149)
9. Lars and the Real Girl 8.3 (2,445)
10. Persepolis 8.3 (1,807)
11. American Gangster 8.2 (34,034)
12. 3:10 to Yuma 8.2 (23,370)
13. Atonement 8.2 (6,487)
14. Control 8.2 (3,780)
15. Grindhouse 8.2 (47,849)
16. The Nines 8.2 (636)
17. Hot Fuzz 8.1 (67,072)
18. Stardust 8.1 (28,778)
19. Into The Wild 8.1 (6,460)
20. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 8.1 (6,215)
21. Lust, Caution 8.1 (3,274)
22. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 8.1 (965)
23. The Savages 8.1 (550)
24. Enchanted 8.0 (10,298)
25. Superbad 8.0 (57,064)

Rotten Tomatoes Logo Beta

Rotten Tomatoes’s Top 25 Movies of 2007

1. Once 98% (131)
2. Ratatouille 97% (195)
3. The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 96% (82)
4. No Country for Old Men 95% (170)
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 95% (81)
6. Away From Her 94% (127)
7. In the Shadow of the Moon 94% (101)
8. The Bourne Ultimatum 93% (207)
9. Sicko 93% (180)
10. Juno 93% (138)
11. Gone Baby Gone 93% (137)
12. Enchanted 93% (130)
13. My Kid Could Paint That 93% (68)
14. This Is England 93% (82)
15. Hairspray 92 (191)
16. The Host 92% (131)
17. Rescue Dawn 91% (141)
18. Knocked Up 90% (207)
19. Persepolis 90% (31)
20. Michael Clayton 90% (170)
21. The Savages 90% (96)
22. There Will Be Blood 9.1 (30)
23. Zodiac 89% (206)
24. Hot Fuzz 89% (178)
25. Waitress 89% (149)

How Was The Definitive Top 25 Movies of 2007 List Compiled?

When I was brainstorming this list, I decided that both the movie critics and mainstream audiences both should be represented. Rotten Tomatoes represents the biggest repository of critical response, while the Internet Movie Database has the largest user rated database. We averaged the two together and compiled the definitive listing of the top 25 movies of 2007. Note: A movie must have been released in theaters in the United States between January and December 2007, and must have garnered more than (either) 400 imdb user votes or 80 movie reviews to qualify for this list.

Is there a Divide Between Critics and Mainstream Audiences?

There is a definite divide between Critics and Mainstream ticket buyers, but it isn’t as big as most people think. For example, there are quite a few R-rated comedies and even a sci-fi horror film included in the top 25 critically acclaimed list this year.

Why is there a Divide?

I would attribute the divide to three big factors (and this is just my opinion):

#1 Critics see 300+ movies a year and comparably rate and review movies based on the tides while mainstream audiences see only a few movies a month. A more limited selection equates into an entirely different scale of what is good and what is bad.

#2 By conception, most of the people that saw Ratatouille probably wouldn’t have seen an art-house film like Once or Persepolis. Also critics see a lot of movies that they normally wouldn’t, while Mainstream audiences attend a movie screening because they are already sold.

#3 Since the average education of a movie critic/journalist is higher than the average movie-goer (who usually skews towards High School age), films with more depth and intelligent are usually more highly rewarded.

Can we see some examples of this Critic/Mainstream Audience Divide?

Here are some of the ones with larger gaps:

The Nines (8.2 on IMDB 67% on RT)
Lust, Caution (8.1 on imdb, 64% on RT)
Once (7.9 on imdb, 98% on RT)
Hairspray (7.8 on imdb, 92% on RT)
The Host (7.1 on imdb, 92% on RT)

A couple of these are against the usual stereotypes and conventions: Audiences loved Ang Lee’s dramatic war thriller, but for Critics just didn’t take to it. And Critics fell in love with a sci-fi monster movie, while mainstream audiences weren’t as impressed.

Why isn’t Box Office Included in the equation?

Because this list (like most year end lists) has to do with Quality, and not money. Just because a Britney Spears album sells more than a Weezer CD, doesn’t mean that Britney made a better product.

What is the Biggest Shocker?

The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is the second best movie of 2007 (according to this list), one of the best received documentaries of all time both critically and by mainstream audiences, yet the Academy has announced that they are not considering the film for the Best Documentary Oscar. A travesty.

Note: /Film is not associated with IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. Stats provided from both sites were accurate as of December 22nd 2007.

So Many Signs, So Little Time

Collected by Dookie McBride

1. Certainly covers all bases.

(Photo by loungelistener).

2. And a Happy New Year.

(Photo by David Mongeau-Petitpas).

3. Over my dead body I’m waiting for you.

(Photo by -beatnik-).

4. Right next to the sign that reads: “All you can eat that we put on your plate.”

(Photo by Yeashua).

5. Nice.

(Photo by excard1970).

6. Pass.

(Photo by iluvcocacola).

7. “Living in America!”

(Photo by SheenaU).

8. Nothing like truth in advertising.

(Photo by sgacouple01).

9. It’s like Disneyland for nursing babies!

(Photo by Suncoyote).

10. Miracles sold separately.

(Photo by whizchickenonabun).

11. Rriigghhtt.

(Photo by Gunnar Bangsmoen).

11 “Don’t-Tell-the-Wife” Secrets All Men Keep

Written by Ty Wenger

I was in the ninth grade when I learned a vital lesson about love. My girlfriend at the time, Amy, was stunningly cute, frighteningly smart and armed with a seemingly endless supply of form-fitting angora sweaters. And me? Let’s just say I was an adolescent Chris Robinson to her budding Kate Hudson — and well aware of my good fortune.

Then one day, as we stood in line for a movie at the mall, Simone Shaw, junior high prom queen, sauntered by. Suddenly Amy turned to me. “Were you looking at her?” she asked. “Do you think she’s pretty?”

My mind reeled. Of course I was looking at her! Of course she was pretty! My God, she was Simone Shaw! I paused for a second, then decided to play it straight.

“Well, yeah,” I chortled.

Five days later our breakup hit the tabloids (a.k.a. the lunchroom).

There comes a time in every man’s life when he discovers the value of hiding the grosser parts of his nature. He starts reciting the sweet nothings you long to hear: “No, honey, I play golf for the exercise.” “No, honey, I think you’re a great driver.” “No, honey, I wasn’t looking at that coed washing the car in the rain.”

We’re not lying, exactly. We’re just making things…easier. But Glenn Good, Ph.D., a relationship counselor, disagrees, and maybe he has a point. “These white lies are pretty innocent, but they can turn confusing,” he says. “Many women think, If he’s lying about himself, is he also lying about something else? Is he having an affair? To establish trust you have to tell the truth about the innocuous stuff.”

And so, in the interest of uniting the sexes, we’ve scoured the country for guys willing to share the private truths they wouldn’t normally confess. Some are a bit crass. Some you’ve always suspected. Some are surprisingly sweet. (Guys don’t like to reveal the mushy stuff, either.) But read on, and you may discover that the truth about men isn’t all that ugly.

Secret #1: Yes, we fall in lust 10 times a day — but it doesn’t mean we want to leave you

If the oldest question in history is “What’s for dinner?” the second oldest is “Were you looking at her?” The answer: Yes — yes, we were. If you’re sure your man doesn’t look, it only means he possesses acute peripheral vision.

“When a woman walks by, even if I’m with my girlfriend, my vision picks it up,” says Doug LaFlamme, 28, of Laguna Hills, California. “I fight the urge to look, but I just have to. I’m really in trouble if the woman walking by has a low-cut top on.”

Granted, we men are well aware that our sizing up the produce doesn’t sit well with you, given that we’ve already gone through the checkout line together. But our passing glances pose no threat.

“It’s not that I want to make a move on her,” says LaFlamme. “Looking at other women is like a radar that just won’t turn off.”

Secret #2: We actually do play golf to get away from you

More than 21 million American men play at least one round of golf a year; of those, an astounding 75 percent regularly shoot worse than 90 strokes a round. In other words, they stink. The point is this: “Going golfing” is not really about golf. It’s about you, the house, the kids — and the absence thereof.

“I certainly don’t play because I find it relaxing and enjoyable,” admits Roland Buckingham, 32, of Lewes, Delaware, whose usual golf score of 105 is a far-from-soothing figure. “As a matter of fact, sometimes by the fourth hole I wish I were back at the house with the kids screaming. But any time I leave the house and don’t invite my wife or kids — whether it’s for golf or bowling or picking up roadkill — I’m just getting away.”

Secret #3: We’re unnerved by the notion of commitment, even after we’ve made one to you

This is a dicey one, so first things first: We love you to death. We think you’re fantastic. Most of the time we’re absolutely thrilled that we’ve made a lifelong vow of fidelity to you in front of our families, our friends and an expensive videographer.

But most of us didn’t spend our formative years thinking, “Gosh, I just can’t wait to settle down with a nice girl so we can grow old together.” Instead we were obsessed with how many women who resembled Britney Spears we could have sex with before we turned 30. Generally it takes us a few years (or decades) to fully perish that thought.

Secret #4: Earning money makes us feel important

In more than 7.4 million U.S. marriages, the wife earns more than the husband — almost double the number in 1981. This of course is a terrific development for women in the workplace and warmly embraced by all American men, right? Right?

Yeah, well, that’s what we tell you. But we’re shallow, competitive egomaniacs. You don’t think it gets under our skin if our woman’s bringing home more bacon than we are — and frying it up in a pan?

“My wife and I are both reporters at the same newspaper,” says Jeffrey Newton, 33, of Fayetteville, South Carolina. “Five years into our marriage I still check her pay stub to see how much more an hour I make than she does. And because she works harder, she keeps closing the gap.”

Secret #5: Though we often protest, we actually enjoy fixing things around the house

I risk being shunned at the local bar if this magazine finds its way there, because few charades are as beloved by guys as this one. To hear us talk, the Bataan Death March beats grouting that bathroom shower. And, as 30-year-old Ed Powers of Chicago admits, it’s a shameless lie. “In truth, it’s rewarding to tinker with and fix something that, without us, would remain broken forever,” he says. Plus we get to use tools.

“The reason we don’t share this information,” Powers adds, “is that most women don’t differentiate between taking out the trash and fixing that broken hinge; to them, both are tasks we need to get done over the weekend, preferably during the Bears game. But we want the use-your-hands, think-about-the-steps-in-the-process, home-repair opportunity, not the repetitive, no-possibility-of-a-compliment, mind-dulling, purely physical task.” There. Secret’s out.

Secret #6: We like it when you mother us, but we’re terrified that you’ll become your mother

With apologies to Sigmund Freud, Gloria Steinem — and my mother-in-law.

Secret #7: Every year we love you more

Sure, we look like adults. We own a few suits. We can probably order wine without giggling. But although we resemble our father when he was our age, we still feel like that 4-year-old clutching his pant leg.

With that much room left on our emotional-growth charts, we sense we’ve only begun to admire you in the ways we will when we’re 40, 50 and — God forbid — 60. We can’t explain this to you, because it would probably come out sounding like we don’t love you now.

“It took at least a year before I really started to appreciate my wife for something other than just great sex; and I didn’t discover her mind fully until the third year we were married,” says Newton. “But the older and wiser I get, the more I love my wife.” Adds J.P. Neal, 32, of Potomac, Maryland: “The for-richer-or-poorer, for-better-or-worse aspects of marriage don’t hit you right away. It’s only during those rare times when we take stock of our life that it starts to sink in.”

Secret #8: We don’t really understand what you’re talking about

You know how, during the day, you sometimes think about certain deep, complex “issues” in your relationship? Then when you get home, you want to “discuss” these issues? And during these “discussions,” your man sits there nodding and saying things like “Sure, I understand,” “That makes perfect sense” and “I’ll do better next time”?

Well, we don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense to us at all. And although we’d like to do better next time, we could only do so if, in fact, we had an idea of what you’re talking about.

We do care. Just be aware that the part of our brain that processes this stuff is where we store sports trivia.

Secret #9: We are terrified when you drive

Want to know how to reduce your big, tough guy to a quivering mass of fear? Ask him for the car keys.

“I am scared to death when she drives,” says LaFlamme.

“Every time I ride with her, I fully accept that I may die at any moment,” says Buckingham.

“My wife has about one ‘car panic’ story a week — and it’s never her fault. All these horrible things just keep happening — it must be her bad luck,” says Andy Beshuk, 31, of Jefferson City, Missouri.

Even if your man is too diplomatic to tell you, he is terrified that you will turn him into a crash-test dummy.

Secret #10: We’ll always wish we were 25 again

Granted, when I was 25 I was working 16-hour days and eating shrimp-flavored Ramen noodles six times a week. But as much as we love being with you now, we will always look back fondly on the malnourished freedom of our misguided youth. “Springsteen concerts, the ’91 Mets, the Clinton presidency — most guys reminisce about the days when life was good, easy and free of responsibility,” says Rob Aronson, 41, of Livingston, New Jersey, who’s been married for 11 years. “At 25 you can get away with things you just can’t get away with at 40.”

While it doesn’t mean we’re leaving you to join a rock band, it does explain why we occasionally come home from Pep Boys with a leather steering-wheel cover and a Born to Run CD.

Secret #11: Give us an inch and we’ll give you a lifetime

I was on a trip to Mexico, standing on a beach, waxing my surfboard and admiring the glistening 10-foot waves, when I decided to marry the woman who is now my wife. Sure, this was three years before I got around to popping the question. But that was when I knew.

Why? Because she’d let me go on vacation alone. Hell, she made me go. This is the most important thing a man never told you: If you let us be dumb guys, if you embrace our stupid poker night, if you encourage us to go surfing — by ourselves — our silly little hearts, with their manly warts and all, will embrace you forever for it.

And that’s the truth.