his little boat looked like fun

Charlie Bartlett, with Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr, and Kat Dennings. And, yeah, she's pretty damn hot. At first I couldn't quite get into it...something about drugs being the easy quick fix for things and making people like Charlie and there being no better answer than popularity...like, I felt it was good and funny but couldn't agree with it. But then it picked up and deepened progressively more and more towards the end, so I guess I ended up liking it and agreeing with the sentiments expressed by then. The main characters' relationships are very cute, Downey is great as usual, Dennings is wonderfully curvy and charismatic. I'd almost say it's kind of a very oblique tangent to Igby Goes Down in some senses - just much more uplifting, purposeful, and pleasant.

Thirty-six Stratagems from Sun-tzu - chock full of interesting little anecdote-stories of sheer cleverness winning battles and wars.