Evolutionary Mismatch Theory

One of the more recent perspectives to have guided our understanding of psychology and human behavior has been evolution and natural selection, and one very important theory derived from an evolutionary perspective is the theory of evolutionary mismatch. I think this is worth presenting at a layman level because it answers so many questions about why on earth we behave in such weird ways.

Dan Ariely's book, Predictably Irrational, outlines an array of seemingly irrational ways that humans behave. A more comprehensive list of such irrationalities, technically known as cognitive biases, can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases. Cognitive biases distort the way we perceive the world away from its objective features towards some other (incorrect) perception or interpretation of it.

Why do these psychological biases happen? The environment we live in today is drastically different from the environment we used to live in during ancestral times. Ancestral environments were particularly harsh, and many events were significantly a matter of life or death (and more accurately, a matter of reproduction or failure to reproduce). Harsh environments exert greater selection pressure on its inhabitants, since only those who survived could pass on their genes. Today's world is relatively secure and safe compared to the past and, as such, changes in our human nature are less likely. Additionally, our world has developed extremely rapidly such that our genetic makeup has not caught up. Our skulls therefore house stone-age brains, as described by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Our mind (and body) was forged through the trials and tribulations of an ancient world, and has remained largely suited for that ancient world, while the world itself changed to become more technologically advanced. As a result, we are still more afraid of snakes than cars and electric sockets, even though we're less likely to encounter and get killed by snakes than cars and electric sockets. In the psychological realm of human mating, women still care very much about how much a man earns (men don't care as much about how much women earn), despite the fact that many modern women today are capable of being financially independent, because women are still adapted to an environment where gaining the provision and protection of a resourceful mate increased her chances of survival.

Quite importantly, these biases suggest to us that we were not evolved to know the truth. We could, in principle, seek the truth consciously (which is what scientists do vocationally). However, the senses we are equipped with do not directly lead us to perceiving reality accurately; rather, they bias our thoughts and behavior in a way that best maximizes survival and reproduction. For instance, in a harsh ancestral environment, "losses" (such as injury or loss of food) may soon lead to death or failure to reproduce; people are therefore adapted to generally be more sensitive to losses than gains. Advertisements that tell consumers what they stand to lose are more effective than those informing consumers what they stand to gain. If a certain delusion enables an individual to survive and reproduce better, then that inaccurate, indeed irrational, way of perceiving the world will be more likely passed down into future generations. Rational truth is a luxury of our modern world.

We evolved in an outdated environment, but today's world doesn't facilitate the updating of many of the psychological traits that we have. Our irrationalities are a result of the mismatch between today's world and the ancestral world that our ancestors evolved in. And we were evolved to survive and reproduce first and foremost; truth-seeking comes later.

Don't make promises when you're happy. Don't reply when you're angry. Don't make decisions when you're sad.

And don't text when you're drunk LOL

Implied Value and Actual Value

Past a quarter of a century, I think I've had some fairly decent life experiences to be able to justifiably start making some observations and claims which may hold true (aside from the fact that study and research is a profession I'm engaged in).

One of these aspects of life is value, or more specifically how others see value in you. Value leads to being desired, being preferred, and being attractive (not always in the sense of looking good - although that is certainly one form of it - but in the sense of garnering attention either because the attractiveness is an end in itself, or implies some other underlying quality).

Value is made up broadly of two things - implied value and actual value. Both are important in the long-term, particularly actual value, but sad to say, in the short-term and for immediate assessment purposes implied value is more critical and important. Humans are evolved to take cognitive shortcuts in many decision-making moments, especially when there is a lot of uncertainty, so they rely on heuristic cues and snap-judgments; indeed, people form first impressions rapidly and seldom waver from that first impression. If a person has high actual value but low implied value, nobody would give him the chance to demonstrate his actual value. Implied value is the gateway to demonstrating one's actual worth and substance.

I'm far from being a successful person, but I suppose my life so far has been rather charmed. I'm on a path towards something I'm passionate about, I have balance between various social domains ranging from friends to solitude to work to relationships, it's easy to build meaningful connections with people, and I'm handed roles and opportunities wherever I go from people who are confident that I can deliver. There is little else more fulfilling for a man to be judged as competent, or of value. Self-esteem is hinged on how much one is accepted and included in social relations, and male emotional and psychological well-being is highly dependent on being respected for his capability. I think I'm doing okay there.

I think this has a lot to do with how I've capitalized upon implied value so far in my life. Whether I learnt it somewhere along the way or was lucky enough to have reaped the benefits of putting up a strong front since young, I have known for quite a while that first impressions are critical for anyone else to give a damn about anything else you might have to offer. I think an interesting example of this is my ability, from a very young age, to juggle a football quite well. Football juggling, while fancy and perhaps implies good ball control, has little to do with actual field performance, such as being able to dribble past opponents or coordinate well with teammates. However, people still link good football juggling skills (very visible and easily executed implied value) with good football playing skills (requires longer term assessment of actual value), and as a result I have always been associated with being rather good at playing football and often got selected to make the team (the reality is that while I think I was an above average player in my younger days, over the years I never really fulfilled this promise). And boy, did I dedicate an obsessive amount of effort to perfecting the art of keeping a football in the air. The point is that these two levels of value require investment of time and effort towards, and it is woeful to neglect one over the other.

There are people who have far more implied value than actual value. In dating, these are douchebags and players who jack up implied mate value, such as by using suave lines, deliberately gaming the mating psychology of women using pick-up tricks, and utilizing social proof by surrounding themselves with lots of women, while having very little relationship building substance to offer in the long run. In marketing, these are products that have extremely gimmicky advertising and branding but are actually rather subpar in performance. In the office, these are office rats who do everything to look good, such as sucking up to the boss and doing things well only when their effort is conspicuous, but actually skive and slack off on projects when nobody's looking, resulting in loss of efficiency and productivity for the company as a whole. The reality is that a person can exploit a very high implied value so that the trust, reciprocity, and investment from others can be acquired because they fall for a shiny exterior believing that there is more to be gained back from the person having high implied value. A person using such a strategy can get away with it these days because our highly socially mobile world allows him or her to move on to others quickly. The fact that s/he has little actual value requires repeated interactions with the same people before they can catch him or her out on the bullshit.

However, on the other hand, there are people who have a great deal of actual value, but tragically have implied value that is too low for anyone to bother. In our fast-paced world, people gauge actual value from implied value, and as a result these folks with high actual value but low implied value get passed over.

People can do this unknowingly. There are nice, decent guys who think it is good enough to just work hard and that just desserts will come later. This is clearly not always the case anymore - girls pass over a guy who does all the hardwork of chasing her for relationship commitment, employers pass over an employee with years of valuable experience but who has a badly written CV, consumers pass over superior products with poor advertising and branding. It is unfortunate, but this is the reality of human nature.

On the other hand, people can also do this knowingly. I have little sympathy for this camp. People who knowingly have low implied value but do nothing about it often do so to uphold some kind of ideological stance, but the underlying justification is often somewhere along the lines of: "why should I bother, people should see me for who I am, I am fighting a just war against superficiality." This is plainly petulant and immature thinking.

Understanding that there are two levels to value provides hope for those who have high actual value but unknowingly have not been working on their implied value. It is surprisingly easy to increase implied value, and the rewards are immense. It is not difficult to be more presentable. Throw on some fitting clothes, hit a neighbourhood gym that does not charge exorbitant membership rates, go get a decent haircut. Image is the first step that people take to gauge whether somebody bothers to put in the effort. It is not difficult to be more interesting. Take part in a wine tasting event, sign up to learn a new dance, explore a new language, give diving or skiing a try, and/or travel. Even if you're not particularly skilled at the end of the day in any of these activities, having any experience at all in these other areas of life besides your 9-5 job gives people the impression that you potentially have more to offer, which makes you more interesting. It is not difficult to seem competent (which is just another way of saying implied value). Walk straight, do not slouch, maintain a confident poise, be bold, dare to talk to people, listen with a keen ear, and have something interesting to say in return (which is therefore dependent on trying out all those other experience-building activities). People follow when you take the lead.

If in the unfortunate circumstance you realize that you have high actual value but low implied value, you are now a knowingly low implied value individual already by definition. There is then no longer any excuse to not work on being presentable or interesting. It should be a personal responsibility. Your life quality will increase with this, and everyone else who would now bother to access your actual value will gain too from what you can offer. To lament the superficiality of this reality is to cop out. Do not allow that. Take active and positive steps to enhance implied value, while quietly working on your actual value in the background so that you can return on the trust that others have given as a result of being attracted to your implied value.

These are two critical aspects to being of value to others, and implied value is often tragically neglected, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Keep it nice and vague. Black and white is boring; I thrive right in the grey.

Mental Complexity and why Everything Seems so Seamless

In Chapter 3 (The Kind of Mind it Takes) of Pascal Boyer's book, Religion Explained, he provides what I personally consider to be one of the best analogies for the complexity, specialization, and efficiency of the human mind.


"About halfway through Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the heroine Elizabeth and her relatives are given a tour of the house and grounds at Pemberley, the vast estate of her proud acquaintance and spurned suitor Mr. Darcy. The place is grand (“The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor”) and promises pleasures thus far unfamiliar to Elizabeth (“To be mistress of Pemberley might be something!”). Being no social historian, Elizabeth is more interested in the many delights of owning these commodious apartments and lush gardens than in the hard work involved in maintaining this kind of household. She lives Upstairs and does not talk much about (or even consider) what happens Downstairs.

But a lot happened downstairs. The efficient running of large households like Pemberley, with stables and fields, gardens and kitchens, guest rooms and dependents’ quarters, required the execution of precisely defined tasks distributed among dozens of specialists—house steward, housekeeper, groom of the chambers, butler, valet, lady’s maid, chef, footman, underbufler, young ladies’ maid, housemaid, stillroom maid, scullery maid, kitchen maid, laundry maid, dairymaid, coachman, groom, postilion, candleman, oddman, steward’s room man and servants’ hail boy, to name but a few. These specialists all had a precisely defined position in a hierarchy (there were several castes of servants, such as the Upper Ten or the Lower Five, which dined separately) and specific duties. The chef cooked but had no control over wine. The butler decanted wine but the stiilroom maid handled the china. With this complex division of labor came a complex chain of command. The housekeeper hired and directed all the female servants but not the lady’s maids and nurses; the steward, not the butler, could give orders to the chef; the chef controlled the preparation of food but not its serving, which was the butler’s domain.’

What is truly impressive about this system is how invisible it remained to the denizens of upstairs rooms, especially to house guests. Food and drink would appear magically at the appointed time, freshly shined boots would be brought to bedrooms in the morning. Even the owners of such places had but a vague notion of the complicated hierarchy and distribution of tasks, which was the steward’s full-time occupation. As a guest, you would not even perceive any of this but only marvel at how efficiently it all seemed to work. However, another feeling (commonly evinced by visitors to such places) was that getting everything you could possibly need is not quite the same as getting what you want. For the complex hierarchy came with a certain measure of independence and rigidity. Footmen were not supposed to do a valet’s work and vice versa. Kitchen maids who cleaned floors would not make breakfast for you. Your boots would be shined, but only in the morning—the relevant people were busy at other times. So master and guest could certainly nudge this organizational juggernaut in certain directions but they could neither really direct it nor in fact clearly understand how it worked.

THE GUEST’S VIEW OF THE MIND

It is unfortunate, and almost inevitable, that when we talk about religion we quite literally do not know what we are talking about. We may think we know our own thoughts (“I know what I believe; I believe that ghosts can walk through walls”), but a good part of religious concepts is hidden from conscious inspection: for instance the expectation that ghosts see what is in front of them, that they remember what happened after it happened, that they believe what they remember and remember what they perceived (not the other way around) and so on. This is so because a good part of what makes all concepts remains beyond conscious access.

Another misconception is that we can explain people’s having particular thoughts if we can understand their reasons for holding them. (“They believe in ghosts because they cannot bear the grief of losing people”; “they believe in God because otherwise human existence does not make sense,” etc.) But the mind is a complex set of biological machines that produce all sorts of thoughts. For many thoughts there is no reasonable reason, as it were, except that they are the inevitable result of the way the machines work. Do we have a good reason for having a precise memory of people’s faces and forgetting their names? No, but that is the way human memory works. The same applies to religious concepts, whose persistence and effects are explained by the way various mental systems work.

Now having a complex brain is like being a guest at Pemberley. We enjoy the many advantages of that efficient organization, but we have no real knowledge of what happens downstairs, of how many different systems are involved in making mental life possible. The organization of mental systems is in fact far more complex than anything you would find in the most extravagant household.

At Pemberley, different servants poured wine and tea; in a more modest household, the same person would have carried out both tasks. Because our mental basement usually works very well, we tend to think that it must be simple in organization. We often have a suburban view of the mind, assuming that a few servants may be enough; but that is only an illusion, and the brain is much more like a grand estate. What makes the system work smoothly is the exquisite coordination of many specialized systems, each of which handles only a fragment of the information with which we are constantly bombarded."



Boyer, P. (2001). Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Inequality, Marriage, and Republican Irony

Income inequality is a major factor contributing to either delayed marriages, lower rates of marriage, or divorce. From an evolutionary perspective, women value status in men as long-term partners, and likewise men can use their status as a bargaining chip to attract women. In highly unequal countries, very rich men have less of an incentive to commit to one partner, while very poor men have problems attracting a mate. Constants are also less interesting when it comes to observable preferences - we can only exert selective behavior based on variations, not constants (e.g., if everyone's good looking, it's no longer interesting; you'll find personality traits to be more appealing). In highly unequal societies, women therefore may also become more selective about long term marriage partners as they calibrate their standards in relation to the men who are more successful.

One immediate irony of the Republican Party elucidated by this insight is that although they claim that gay rights undermine marriage, their advocacy of capitalism and pro-business policies actually lead to greater income inequality (for which they actually consider as justifiable), which ultimately undermines marriage.

Your bravery taunts uncertainty. Your self-awareness betrays depth, which you're prudently unhurried to reveal. Your will to live to the fullest within your means fascinates me. Your measured chuckles often give way to unbridled laughter. An enlightened wit underlies your banter. Your struggles capture my imagination.

Touché, Mademoiselle.

What the Kitty

If you're in Singapore and haven't been living under a rock the last few weeks, you would have been aware of the McDonald's Hello Kitty saga that has unfurled to such divided reaction from Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans alike.

In a nutshell, people are willing to queue long hours for limited Hello Kitty toys, with the risk of queueing for nothing when the stock runs out. This is usually done with the aim of trying to procure the entire set of Hello Kitty toys within the sale period. The toy retails for S$4.60.

As the weeks went by and each new Kitty emerged, people started to realize the resell value of these toys, and sell-out rates have increased with the onset of people buying them in order to deplete the supply, raise the value, and then sell them back to eager buyers who need the toys to complete their set.

Some ridiculous screenshots of eBay activity:

These are likely due to scam bids, but from what I've heard from friends, the toys have resold within the range of S$25-S$50 on average. That's still quite a handsome profit of about at least 600%. There has been some reactionary backlash to this for sure, and this one takes the cake for me (click to enlarge):

The question in most people's minds is why are people willing to put up with so much cost (in time, money, and effort) to get these Hello Kitty toys? This might be even more befuddling when, after I've indulged in some dumbfound probing, most people can't articulate why they want or need the toys, besides seemingly just desiring to have them.

I would speculate that the "experience" per se is sufficiently accountable for all this madness. Just like a dog that chases cars but doesn't know what to do once it catches up with the car, McDonald's knowingly or unknowingly has engaged this aspect of consumer (and arguably human) psychology.

People are willing to pay huge premiums for intangible aspects of a product or service once they feel it has value to them, and the tricky thing about such intangible value is that there is almost no rationalizable monetary price to it. Just like how people say that you can't put a price on love or experiences, which almost takes on a moral tinge because it sounds somewhat calculative to valuate intangible "goods" like your mum's good cooking or your friend coming over to help shift the furniture, the desire of owning the toys becomes the end in itself.

This experience comes first and foremost from some aspects of the toy that make it somewhat "hard to get", such as fact that it doesn't come around all the time, or that there is some difficulty and commitment involved in acquiring the entire set of toys, but this experience is further enhanced when everyone else seems to want it too, and scarcity of the toys is elevated by everyone jumping on the bandwagon, including resellers.

People who do not buy-in to the fad have no clue what on earth could induce such obsessive behavior, but as with all such desired experiences, we are willing to pay premiums to do seemingly irrational things. Take haunted houses or rollercoaster rides, for example. These are activities that deliberately induce objectively unpleasant emotional experiences in people. Yet, we will gladly pay to go through these "pains" once we see value in them. In this sense, there's a fine line between pleasure and pain.

This is underscored by the fact that although most people are well-aware that Taobao manufactures the Hello Kitty toys and it is much easier (and cheaper) to get the toys directly from them, they would still rather endure the "pain" of costly procurement of the Hello Kitty set, and through this they actually derive immense pleasure and satisfaction.

G

I'm quite racked with remorse right now. It's been a while.

Power and its Endorsement by the Masses

Thinkers begin with assumptions about human nature, and then proceed to rationalize behaviors and suggest improvements to order and efficiency based on those assumptions. I'm no different.

When it comes to my assumptions about human nature, I believe that power corrupts. Or at least, power leads to an increased tendency to take up the added opportunities and benefits associated with it. Where there's suddenly the opportunity to exploit, why wouldn't people take it up? We can't rely solely on the goodwill of human beings to do good and avoid being corrupt. I don't blame the powerful from taking advantage of their power. Why shouldn't they? In fact, considering one's payoffs (or capacity to get away with something) seems more predictive of one's behavior. It is naive to hope that those in power know the "right" thing to do. Even more so when the morality of our actions is a subjective matter, open to interpretation and debate.

The corollary to this assumption is that rather than devote time and effort to encourage those in power to behave, it is the masses who should be empowered. Power is a social construct and thus doesn't exist in a vacuum - it is nothing without the endorsement of followers and subservients. Thus, instead, I would hold responsibility of power abuse-prevention to the empowerment of followers, both potential and existing. Teach them to think for themselves and ask just one more question. Remove their ignorance. When the masses are critical, leaders cannot take advantage of their ignorance. That is a safer bet to the prevention of abuse of power than educating leaders on how they should behave and hoping that they will.

Men to Ah Boyz

Time to go for my first reservist! Haha hope I don't get into trouble and end up extending this military vacation. It's been a rollercoaster of a year since I began my PhD studies, and I've got ideas spilling out of my skull. More updates when I'm back after the 20th of May.

Tschüss!

Pompous Ass Words

LOL here's a site dedicated to pompous ass words, very useful.

http://www.pompousasswords.com/www/index.htm

For example, inchoate versus impartial, or coruscating versus brilliant.

For all the irritating, redundant, and difficult synonyms you've come across.

Leap

"Sometimes you have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down."
- Kobi Yamada


Kind of makes me think of how Bruce Wayne could only make the leap once he didn't have the harness on.

You Okay with That?

Maiden MMA Experience

Attended my first ever MMA fighting event at the One Fighting Championship 8 held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Friday. I think it'll be an experience I'll never forget, and the fact that I spent almost the entire day the next day watching MMA videos is testament to that.

There is something absolutely gripping about seeing two men take it out in physical combat. Aside from the practical requirement for rules and safety precautions (not quite the "first rule of Fight Club" sort of stuff haha), such battles are deeply rooted in our mammalian psyche. The same exciting, conflicting tension between the fear of vicarious pain and the anticipation of seeing a new victor emerge engulfs both those who have never seen a fight and those who have watched these fights for the 100th time alike. These combat scenarios are timeless - men (and some women) have been duking it out since time immemorial and there is always honour, either from earning it or defending it, from defeating your opponent while an audience devours the scene with hungry eyes. These fights are psychologically gripping also because deep in every man the question is asked, "when I'm head to head with another man for a fight and I'm stripped of my socially constructed but physically very useless accolades, can I hold my own?" In our society today, we (rightfully and thankfully) do not need to physically assert ourselves to the extent that men had to in the ancestral past, but when the time comes that might decides who's right, do we have what it takes?

There was an exciting line-up of fighters from all over the world and all sorts of different fighting styles, and it is in the differences that interesting observations can be made. These are cursory observations that are only anecdotally substantiated, but for instance I've noticed that Asian fighters are a lot more patient than Western fighters. For good reason, perhaps, because on the one hand, Asian fighters tend to have less mass and thus, on average, cannot go head on with a Western fighter on strength alone. On the other hand, there is a weakness to be exploited when up against aggressive Western fighters, who may leave themselves exposed while on the attack. There are exceptions, of course - Brock Larson was extremely patient in his fight against Melvin Manhoef (although one's from the US while the other is Dutch), and the Filipino Kevin Belingon is a hard-hitting little striker.

I found style match-ups to be extremely crucial. The most exciting fights involved a compatible match between either striking specialists (going for the knockouts) or grappling/take down specialists (going for floor work). Matches with different styles are interesting too, which usually involves the fighters trying to manoeuver their opponent into unfavourable positions. Such fights may become quite tactical.

Then, there are the heavyweight "mismatches". OK, there wasn't exactly a heavyweight category during this round of fights (or maybe One FC doesn't have them), but in the middle weight category between the grappling specialist Brock Larson and the striking specialist Melvin Manhoef, the fight went on for loooong stretches where nobody threw a punch or did anything (much to the displeasure of the fans, and the referee "booked" both fighters!). It was supposed to be an explosive fight between two very overpowered fighters, and yet nobody made a move. When somebody finally did, all hell broke loose for very brief periods.

This makes sense from a power balance perspective. When we think of war between two entities, the more powerful the arms, the less likely the individuals will make a move because it would be too decided and costly. Exciting head-on battles with lots of charging and fighting occurs when armies wield swords, but once you arm soldiers with powerful guns, everyone sits in trenches, not daring to make a move. Likewise for the Cold War - when the threat of total destruction is too costly, a tense peace prevails. Status hierarchies among individuals work the same way too - powerful men at the top seldom fight head to head; instead they trade politically correct back-and-forths that usually amount to nothing other than reminding the other party that they're still here, while low status men at the bottom are the ones who really slug it out.

Here's the colossal match-up between Melvin Manhoef and Brock Larson that for long stretches only served to bore, until the epic triggering of kicks and strikes from Manhoef led to a comical roundabout chase at 3:47.

INTP

Babel Fish, QED

Gonna repost a classic from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

The Light

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
- C. S. Lewis

Great quote, maybe, but only for its point on illumination rather than anything to do with Christianity in particular. Replace the word "Christianity" with "science" or "good theory" and it still makes sense to whoever has a different set of faiths and beliefs comprising of those (such as me).

The only people who fear death
are those with regrets.

I Never Saw a Wild Thing Sorry for Itself

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

- D. H. Lawrence, Self-pity


Saw the line in bold tattoo-ed on a chick's back the other day. It is one of those illuminating moments where a light goes on in my head. I just had to go discover the source.

I can't find an exact date for when the poem was written, but apparently D. H. Lawrence wrote this while the study of psychology was experiencing a breakthrough. Thought, ideas of emotions, human motives, intuition, reason, and behavior greatly interested him. Lawrence lived between 1885 to 1930, so one might expect the psychological philosophies of William James and Sigmund Freud to be revolutionary and prevalent at that time. His essays reflect this energy and sense of enlightenment. In Self-pity, Lawrence emphasizes that man, of all animals, has the greatest ability of and capacity for self-pity, and sadly can express the most self-loathing despite his longer lifespan and capacity of thought as opposed to other animals.

Indeed, this is true even among humans with their vast variations in dispositions. The people I know who are wild and free are the most fulfilled and unregretful. They make delightful company.

My Life so Far According to Songs

PRESENT

Medina - You and I
Sunlounger - Change Your Mind
Pendulum - The Island
Gareth Emery - Sanctuary
Dash Berlin - Man on the Run
Armin van Buuren - In and Out of Love
The Killers - Mr Brightside
Muse - Starlight
Eminem - Love the Way You Lie
Gym Class Heroes - Cookie Jar
Fall Out Boy - Hum Hallelujah
My Chemical Romance - Helena
Trivium - A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation
Seether - Broken
Damien Rice - Amie
The Spill Canvas - 3685
Stars - Your Ex-lover is Dead
Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day
Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Drive By
Jimmy Eat World - If You Don't, Don't
Gregory and the Hawk - Birds and Boats
Nada Surf - If You Leave
Lifehouse - Blind
The Juliana Theory - Jewel to Sparkle
Cradle of Filth - Nymphetamine
In Flames - Cloud Connected
Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence
Bowling for Soup - Life After Lisa
Earshot - Wait
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Nightwish - Nemo
Anberlin - Paperthin Hymn
Saosin - Bury Your Head
Senses Fail - Bite to Break Skin
I Am Ghost - We are Always Searching
Kill Hannah - Kennedy
Thrice - Stare at the Sun
Taking Back Sunday - Number Five with a Bullet
Black Lab - Learn to Crawl
Yellowcard - Gifts and Curses
Sick Puppies - All the Same
MXPX - Wrecking Hotel Rooms
Spineshank - Smothered
Placebo - Every You/Me
Chevelle - The Red
Brand New - The Quiet Things that No One Ever Knows
Puddle of Mudd - Blurry
Papa Roach - Blood Brothers
System of a Down - Chop Suey
Limp Bizkit - Rollin'
Linkin Park - Papercut

PAST

"Marriage kills your life. Then kids kill your marriage. And in the end we're all dead."

You get no less from my supervisor himself.

Banter never felt better.