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Don Gabor, author of "Words That Win: What to Say to Get What You Want" (Prentice-Hall Press, $14.95) offers these tips:

• Do bring a small gift for the parents, such as flowers or specialty foods. Compliment them, be positive and be prepared with several light conversation topics that you know interest them. Ask your significant other what topics to avoid. Expect quizzing about your background, and be prepared to answer personal questions.
• Don't talk politics unless you know you're like-minded. Don't show off, talk too much about your work, expect to be waited on or reveal any family secrets.

You can hum along

Roses? Check. Chocolates? Check, check. Barbershop quartet?

Send your sweetheart a Valentine like no other with a quartet performance Feb. 13 or 14 by members of the Sounds of Aloha chapter of the Barbershop Society.

The quartet will present your love with a card, rose and two songs: "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and "Heart of My Heart."

The service is proving more and more popular each year, said member Hank Drayton. "We took 80 orders last year and we hope to do more this year," he said.

Special deliveries will be made to restaurants, workplaces, residences, hospitals and more. Cost is $50. To reserve a time or for details: 262-7664.

Jugglers no dummies

Juggling as a brain-builder? If recent studies by German scientists are true, juggling does indeed bulk up the brain.

Scientists took brain scans of people who had spent three months learning to juggle three balls for 60 seconds. At the end of three months, the amount of brain tissue had increased in areas involved in processing and storage of complex visual motion.

After three months without juggling, the expansion had decreased. The scientists, writing in the latest issue of the journal Nature, say more studies are needed to figure out what aspect of the brain tissue actually increased. Existing brain cells may have enlarged, or new cells may have been born.

Either way, the researchers write, the study challenges the assumption that the structure of the adult brain can't change.