My tip of the week anyways …
I’ve not seen mention of this before and I found it by accident (and have been using it ever since!) - If you are not fimiliar with the [ctrl]+lmb lasso select please visit the documentation kindly updated by Quartz et al
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartII/Selection
Massively helpful in edit mode since you can select any shape you want.
Enjoy