"You don't want to go to the Academy Awards by yourself, " says Sherry Lansing, former chairman of Paramount.

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But that being said, you can make your job a whole lot easier by educating yourself as you go.

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For all of the people surprised by this, go out and find yourself some real HD material and maybe you will finally understand what all the HD fuss is about.

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Go in advance to the restaurant you choose, by yourself or with a friend.

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Go to an art museum, by contrast, and you may catch yourself wondering how many of the people in a gallery are genuinely interested in the paintings that hang there.

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Do you talk yourself out of pursuing new possibilities by focusing on all the things that could go wrong?

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Say you are inspired by the person who bought the monkey and camel and decide to go out to garage sales yourself to replicate her return.

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It says by 2017, if you have a better way of doing it, help yourself, go ahead, take that route.

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Unfortunately, this will never go back to just gifting each other with homemade cookies, but you can give yourself some financial relief by giving the same gift you gave last year.

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