Still avoiding alcohol, ciggies and that guy you swore you would never date again? New Year's resolutions have their time and place, but, let's face it, they peter out right around now. Luckily, science offers a more measured, long-term approach to get us to a ripe old age.

I am staring at the Ferris wheel in the distance when I feel a tap on my shoulder. A group of local youths want a photo with me. Wandering Jakarta as a white foreigner makes you a C-list celebrity, so this is neither the first nor the last time I will be so approached. But it is the most apropos. "We had to ask because of the sign," one girl says, a tad sheepishly.

Finally, at 2.30 a.m. on a Wednesday night over 20 years ago, after bugging a fellow L.A. DJ to let him cover a set for months, Adam Bravin - stage name Adam 12 - took control of the DJ booth in an empty VIP room at Glam Slam, Prince's personal Hollywood club. Bravin started playing a set of "the sickest funk" that he'd been working on for weeks.

Because geniuses are sometimes not so very different from you and me after all. By 1927, 30-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald was already widely acknowledged as a great American author. But all the laudatory reviews of his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, hadn’t brought the big payoff that Fitzgerald had hoped for. And things weren’t going well with his highly anticipated next book. Meanwhile, his marriage to wife Zelda was starting to unravel.

I found Magoo passed out in the backseat. He had been drinking for a dozen hours or more, then crawled into my car to sleep it off before undoubtedly heading back into the tornado of Hells Angels mayhem that whipped around Lake Sonoma. My chest zapped with pain whenever I moved, but I managed to turn and grab Magoo by a pant leg. After a few painful tugs, he sat up, and immediately recoiled when he saw my bruised and bloodied face in the sad glow of the cabin light.

EUGENE, SIR: We have been dating for three months now. He’s funny as hell and very good-looking. At 50 years old, he’s the oldest man I’ve ever dated. But we haven’t had sex yet. And that, if you know me at all, is personally a miracle since it’s usually three dates. Sometimes three hours if things are working right. Yes, we seem to connect on a different level. I want to have sex, but now I’m nervous. It’s like there is all this pressure and expectation.

Granddad shot Blackie under the big old tree in the center of the barnyard. My cousin Janet was lounging on a low branch, Alice in Wonderland-style, with me down below. I don't remember what kid stuff my cousin and I were discussing, but I do remember my grandfather ordering Blackie, a mostly Labrador lying by my side, to go get the cows.

The author is The Medical Futurist, a health care speaker and author of The Guide to the Future of Medicine and My Health: Upgraded.From Virtual and Augmented Reality and smart algorithms analyzing our wearable data to robots, gadgets and sensors, medical technology affects our lives every day. But what will take humanity forward next? Here's a look at what I expect to see at the crossroads of health and technology over the next 12 months.Diabetes CareAfter years of false hopes, the U.S.

When he stepped up to the plate in Game 3 of the '32 World Series, Babe Ruth made a bold prediction. He pointed to the sky, toward the outfield - all the way to the bleachers - and on the next pitch he blasted the ball to center field. 'Round the bases he wound. The Great Bambino, the man who cursed the Red Sox and made the Yankees great, seemed to control everything back then. To this day, he remains an all-time leading slugger. He smashed his way to the end of the dead ball era, averaged .

The three of us were standing in waist-deep surf. In our underwear. In the dead of night. Shark fishing. I remember thinking, This is probably a really bad idea — and, no, we weren’t drunk. The big greasy hunk of raw meat on the end of a huge hook, tethered to a ropelike line I was gripping tightly, just had to be spreading blood in the water. It was a beautiful night, though, there on the north side of Trinidad on my last day visiting my friend Jim on the island.