Monthly Archives: August 2009

Lead By Example

Once upon a time there was a baby alligator. He was born like other alligators are born, first in an egg, and then hatched by time and his mother. He had several brothers and sisters. If he knew how to count, he would have counted at least sixteen alligator brothers and sisters.

The alligators lived in a very large alligator community, which had been established for several generations. They lived in a swampy place, just outside of several cotton field that were run by a few cotton farmers, that had been there for just as may generations.

Despite speaking different languages, the alligators and the farmers had a mutual understanding. The alligators wouldn’t wander on to the farmer’s fields, and they wouldn’t get shot. The farmers (or more likely their curious kids) wouldn’t wander on the alligator’s neighborhood, and wouldn’t be eaten.

Shortly after this young alligator was born, or hatched, there was a terrible storm. It hadn’t rained in quite a while, and both the farmers and the alligators were getting worried, for different reasons.

The farmers, of course, were overjoyed when the rains came, because it meant that years cotton crop would be particularly lush, which would get them quite a lot of money at the cotton marketplace.

The alligators weren’t so lucky. The rains came at a particular bad time of year. Baby alligator hatching season is a particularly precarious time on the alligator life cycle. The nests are especially vulnerable at this time, as the alligators are too weak to defend themselves, but the mother alligator has to leave them from time to time to get food. If the floods come during this time, it is all too easy for the baby alligators to get swept away and plucked by hungry birds.

Because of the extraordinarily heavy rains, the adult alligators didn’t fare much better. Before long, over half of the entire alligator community was wiped out by the floods, leaving many young orphans.

This young alligator suddenly found himself without a mother, and several siblings that he felt responsible for. He didn’t know how to hunt yet, and he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to provide for them.

One day he was out wandering around, wondering if he would even survive, let alone care adequately for his siblings. He came across a very old alligator, and asked him what he should do.

Young boy. Many have come before you that have faced much harsher conditions. They survived, and so shall you. You must not focus giving food to your siblings and your neighbors, for they must also learn how to fend for themselves. Fate has chosen you to be the next leader in the alligator community. And to do that you must not only provide, but also lead. Your actions will be an example to others. As you show others that you can get your needs met, they will also learn that they, too, can get their own needs met. As you show them that you can survive, they too, will realize they can as well. As you prosper, so shall they.

The young alligator, uplifted by this strange old alligator’s words, walked back to his nest, and rousted his siblings and his neighbors.

“Come!” he shouted.
“We have much work to do!” he turned and began to work. Everybody else followed, certain of their future.

The Structure of the Modern Musical Experience

Yesterday I went to a grand opening of a huge electronics superstore. It is only a couple stops up the line from my station, so it’s very convenient. I didn’t really have anything specific I was looking for, perhaps a new iPod, or maybe even a new laptop. My laptop is fairly new, a little over two years, but I could use some more memory. I’m not sure if I want to upgrade, or buy a new machine. Either way is fine, or my machine will likely keep me satisfied for a while longer.

What was really amazing to me was how brand new everything was. I know when you go shopping at an electronics store, you expect everything to be new, but I was surprised anyway. I mean super clean, like the whole place had been sterilized or something. The whole place had that fresh out of the box feeling to it. Like when you buy something, and it has that protective plastic film over the display, and you don’t want to take it off because you want to keep that brand new feeling.

I wandered over into the mp3 section, and was impressed with how much those things have changed over the years. I have an iPod I bought a few years ago, and it is completely outdated. Compared to the one they had on sale there, mine looks like it was made in the sixties.

When I was a kid, they were still making eight track tapes. I had a stereo that played both vinyl records and eight track tapes. And that was fairly advanced for the day. Today I routinely see people on the trains listening to mp3 players that are smaller than my credit card.

What is truly intriguing, at least to me, is that despite the drastic changes in the delivery of music, the music itself hasn’t changed much. Sure there are different bands with different songs and music, but the overall structure of music hasn’t really changed. They still play with the same instruments, the songs are about the same length, and the same chords are used. The songs are still about the same things. But the way music is delivered is completely different. You can buy all your music online, and download it straight to your mp3 player or iPod, without ever needing to handle anything physical, other than your musical storage device.

The musicians, on the other hand, still play with the same instruments, using the same notes, and the same recording equipment. The message is the same, but the method of delivery has been completely changed.

Like if you were sending smoke signals using Morse code versus sending a text on your cell phone. The origin of the message, the thoughts in your brain are the same, and the receiver of your message will still respond in the same way. Despite the structure, the content remains the same. In other ways, it’s the opposite. The content changes, but the structure remains the same. I’m a big movie fan, and despite different characters, and writers, and actors, and even wildly different plots, the story structure of modern movies really hasn’t changed much.

It’s been said that there are really only seven different kinds of stories, and every story you will ever read or see or hear about will fall into one of those categories. In that respect, it’s as if we are completely unaware of structure, and only pay attention to content.

In the end I decided not to buy a new mp3 player, as the one I have I really only use as an alarm clock, and to listen to when I exercise in the mornings. For some reason, I really don’t enjoy listening to music when I’m out walking around or riding on the train. I either like taking a book, or starting up a conversation with a random stranger. That always seems to be more interesting. At least to me, anyways.

Killer Whales and Submarine Layers of Pleasure

The other night I was watching a documentary on Killer Whales, or Orcas, on TV. I don’t remember what channel it was on. That happens sometimes when you are channel surfing. You’ll come across something like this that you think is really cool, and you want to come back and see this again, but you can’t remember where you found it. I think maybe it was Discovery, or maybe Animal Planet. I can’t think of any other channels that would show a documentary on Killer Whales.

I couldn’t help but remember the move from many years ago called “Orca.” This fisherman accidentally killed a mother Killer Whale’s baby, and the mother made it her life mission to hunt down the fisherman like she was some angry ex-mafia contract killer who had been wronged and was using her whale assassination skills on him.

One of my favorite lines from the movie was when the fisherman was starting to realize what was up, that he was being hunted by an angry mother whale, and he went and asked the priest if it was possible to commit a sin against and animal. The priest (of course and Irishman) responded:

“You can commit a sin against a blade of grass.”

Naturally, being a kid when I saw that, I made sure to inform my dad of the horror of sinning against blades of grass, so I could get out of mowing the lawn. It didn’t work.

The other day I was in a new sandwich shop downtown. It had the appearance of a chain submarine store (submarine sandwich, not the Red October kind) but I was pretty sure it was privately owned. The specialized in this giant subs that were filled with all kinds of meat, and these really good looking triple and quadruple decker club sandwiches. There were a lot of people, and it smelled really good. They made their own bread, and their oven wasn’t so big so they kept pulling out trays of freshly made bread, which of course made people want to buy more sandwiches. An effective marketing strategy to say the least.

While we were waiting, my friend started telling me some weird convoluted story that he read in some dieting book. He said that the secret to discovering any solid weight loss plan that will serve you for the rest your life is to understand how you layer your pleasure. Some people only focus on immediate pleasure, how good eating will make them feel in the next few minutes. These people are only satisfied in the short term, and are always looking for a sugary fix. These people generally live off fast food and ice cream. Then there are people that focus way out in the future, and are considered by most to be health nuts. They put their pleasure just out of reach, so the present is always a means to and end, and not an end it itself. These people are usually found in the oatmeal and granola area of the supermarket, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a Baskin Robbins.

The trick, he said, was to layer out your pleasure in even amounts between now and the future. You need enough pleasure now so you can enjoy what you are eating, but you don’t want so much that you will rob you of your future pleasure. Conversely, if you rob your present pleasure and put it all out there in the future, it will always be out there in the future, simply because the nature of the future is that it is never now. When you can effectively layer you pleasure between now and then, you will really be able to enjoy your food in a healthy, constructive way.

I got this huge pastrami sandwich, which was really good. The only drawback was that there were so many people there; we couldn’t find any place to sit, so we had to eat standing up. I’ll definitely be hitting that sandwich shop up several times in the future, when hopefully it won’t be so crowded.

I think my favorite part about Orca was the very beginning. They showed these swimmers that were in danger of getting eaten by some sharks. Then out of nowhere, a killer whale came and head butted (or nose butted) the shark and sent it flying out of the water. I guess it was to frame the movie to show that Orcas are really friendly, and won’t hunt you down unless you murder their children. The term “killer” whale is really a misnomer. I’ve heard from more than a few people who’ve been on Alaska cruises that they are one of the main draws. They look really beautiful when they are swimming together.

Perceptions can Trick or Treat You

When I was a kid, there lived a scary old woman on my block. The kids would get together and tell stories of why we thought she was so scary. Maybe it was because she was a secret witch, or maybe it was because she secretly captured children and ate them. Although we could never come to a consensus on why she was evil, we all unanimously agreed that she was evil.

All it took was a brief second of eye contact with her peeking out behind her living room curtains and we would have nightmares and create a million more reasons to be afraid of her.

One Halloween, one of the kids was chosen, on dare, to go and knock on her door. She always kept her house completely pitch black on Halloween night, and as far as anybody could tell, nobody had ever had the courage to do that before.

He went up to her door and timidly knocked. I think he was afraid to ring her doorbell for fear of electrocution or something. He knocked, waited, knocked again, and then ran. It took a while before we could pass by the house again, at least by ourselves. We were sure she was plotting some kind of evil and painful revenge on whatever kids had disturbed whatever she did in their in the dark on Halloween.

One of the cool things about Halloween is all the candy that we got. Most of it was normal, everyday candy you would see at the store, but there would always be one really cool neighbor that would get some kind candy that we’d never seen before. Candy that was made specifically for Halloween. Edible ears, fingers, spiders made out of chocolate. Stuff you’d expect to see in a Harry Potter movie.

One year there was this neighbor that gave out full sized candy bars. Not the small miniature sized ones, but full size snickers, and mars, and three musketeers bars. He must have spent a fortune on candy. It didn’t last long, though, as soon as the kids found out, he quickly ran out.

I was riding the train into town the other day, and this guy sitting next to me started talking about his business. I’m not sure how we got onto that subject, or what his business even was. The conversation just kind of ended up on this. So he was explaining that he had this old roommate, and his roommate was involved in a similar business, which somehow had something to do with his. And he said that he was helpful in the beginning, but then he moved on to bigger and better things, which left him all alone to figure these things out. One of the things that he said was to be sure to always pay attention to opportunities that are around you. And the trick to always finding new opportunities is to see them where others do not. Which means you need to always be able to look at things from a different perspective, and different angles. That way you’ll see this differently than others do, and be able to really get a lot of benefit from this.

My favorite candy of all time was those yellow, waxy candy corns. I never really saw them except during around Halloween. Even though waxy candy corn really doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween. I guess it’s just one of those things. Something that you know you really like and you can really look forward to enjoying this when you get the opportunity.

And one summer, something really interesting happened. The old woman had this cat. And apparently, she had never gotten around to getting it neutered, or spayed, or whatever they do to cats. And this cat had a bunch of kittens. This of course, was very interesting to all the kids, and when we saw this old woman outside taking care of the kittens, she suddenly stopped being a scary witch. She was really a nice old lady that was just scared of going outside. When the kittens came, she was forced to go outside and help take care of them, and the kids noticed them, and it became like a neighborhood project. A few of the kids even took some of the kittens home. She seemed to be a friendly grandmother type after that. She even invited some of the kids inside and let us see her old record player and records from the great depression era. It turned out to be a pretty cool experience.

Change Your Bait to Catch More Success and Wealth

I went out to eat the other day in an Ethiopian restaurant that is near my neighborhood. It is one of those things where you pass by on a regular basis, but you don’t seem to take the time to come inside and find out what might be interesting. When you stop and consider how many opportunities that are around you like this one, you can’t help but wonder how you can possibly fit them all into your life. Which is one of the reasons I finally decided to go in and check the place out.

The waitress was pretty friendly, and I guess the restaurant serves mostly Ethiopian expats, or second generation Ethiopians. Not like your average sushi restaurant on the corner of pretty much every mini mall, where you will see the normal lunch crowd that you see in any other restaurant. The wait staff seemed to recognize me as a first timer, and were appropriately friendly and welcoming to me. She asked me if I had ever eaten Ethiopian food before, and since I hadn’t I went by her recommendations.

Probably more interesting than the food was the waitress. She went through plenty of struggles to get where she is now. Most people who were in her shoes might have given up much earlier. But she kept pressing on, until she got an opportunity and seized it with all her skills and abilities.

When I was a kid I used to build these models. Sometimes cars, but mostly planes, specifically WWII planes. It didn’t matter from what country, any plane would do. One thing about the models is how they all came with detailed schematics. You could lose yourself in the minute details of each particular part your were working on, or you could look at the larger schematic, allowing you to take a broader look at things. Sometimes when you get a bigger picture of how things fit together, it’s much easier to fit the individual parts together.

I had an uncle once that I used to visit when I was a kid. He would take me fishing for catfish on this small lake. One of the reasons catfish are different from other fish is that when they bit into your bait, they don’t’ make a big deal. If you don’t check your line every so often, you could have a fish on there and not even know it. So they key is to always check what’s going on, and see if you have something, even though it doesn’t seem like it. Another thing he told me was how important it was to change your strategy if you weren’t getting what you wanted. Some people would show up to a lake, throw in a line, and then complain if the fish weren’t’ biting. Others would change their bait, change their position on the lake, and even change their fishing poles. Those guys would always go home with a basket full of catfish.

And probably the best model I ever made was of a Japanese Zero, the ones they used in the pacific war. The thing that made it so easy was that not only did they have an exploded view of the entire plane, but also they had an exploded view of each individual section. That gave you the capability of taking a step back and getting a bigger perspective on many different levels. That model came out looking really good.

So next time I go back to that Ethiopian restaurant, I’ll have a better idea of what to order for all those reasons mentioned above. And I know now exactly how friendly and welcoming those people will be.

Renew Your Subscription to Fascination

When I was in university, I really loved comic books. I would always be looking out for the next one to come out, and would always keep a couple with me wherever I went. I would always pull them out to read whenever I had a spare moment. I remember I had this one government class, the kind that talks about the different structures of different world governments. As the teacher would drone on and on, I would pull out a comic book and hold behind my textbook so it would appear that I was following along. I think I scraped by with a “C” in that class.

Like when I was a kid, maybe in third or fourth grade, I got my first library card. I grew up in a fairly small town, and we had one central library. We all went down to the library as a class, and signed up for our library card. We had already filled out a practice form at school, and then filled out the real form when we got to the library. After we all got our library cards, before they turned us loose, we got a lecture from the chief librarian. He told us about the dangers that would happen if we didn’t return our library books.

Big ugly, scary guys would come to our house and hunt us down. Armies of horrible trolls would hide under our beds and wait until we pulled out the library book in question. Giant Cyclops’ would swarm down from the heavens to wreak havoc if we kept a book past its due date.

After the lecture, we were turned loose to roam the shelves. I remember the total wonder and fascination I felt when I looked all the books that I could take home and enjoy. I remember thinking that I would never be bored again. Books are funny that way. I guess it’s not the books, but the fantastic journey they take your mind on. Like you can be reading this, and all of a sudden your daily worries and anxieties will completely disappear as you lose yourself in this. You are transported to magical new worlds that can enlighten and inspire and entertain you. And sometimes, if you find something that is really good, you can enjoy this again and again, knowing that you will find a new perspective every time you read this.

A couple of years ago when I was cleaning out an apartment I was moving out, I found an old library book, about Ben Franklin. As best as I could guess, I had checked it out for a history report I had to do. I don’t really remember ever writing the report, and I certainly don’t remember ever checking out that book, but there on the back, clear as day was the old library barcode. I guess I luckily escaped the parachuting cyborgs that apparently didn’t find me.

The coolest thing that’s been happening lately is all the comic books that have been turned into movies. This is a dream come true for somebody that has really enjoyed reading comic books growing up. When the first Spiderman came out, I was happy to see how successful it was, knowing they would likely make a few more. And with the success of that came all kinds of other comic book movies, which is fantastic.

Qualify Your Leads to Make Maximum Profit

I remember when I was a kid; I belonged to an explorer scout troop. It was similar to boy scouts, but all we did was go camping, and other outdoor activities. There were no merit badges or helping old ladies across the street.

Every summer we would go on these weeklong backpacking trips through the Sierra Mountain range in California. If you’ve never been to or seen the Sierra’s, they are a fantastic, almost untapped natural resource. Because it is incredibly hard and strenuous to get in, once you get in past the first few sets of mountains, you can see incredibly beautiful scenery that is completely void of any signs of humanity. Of course it is heavily protected by the Parks and Rangers, but the main reason it is devoid of humans is because it is so hard to get there.

One of my favorite parts was the fishing. The entire Sierra’s are dotted with small lakes, most of which have an abundance of rainbow trout. This kind of fishing is different form ocean fishing, either on a pier of off a boat. If you are fishing on a pier, especially a crowded pier, you don’t have a lot of options other than to bait your hook, throw a line in the water, and wait. A boat is similar, although you can pull up anchor and go someplace else, but that takes a while, and you have to have an experienced captain that knows all the good spots.

Lake fishing in the Sierras is completely different. Because the lakes are relatively small, you can walk around the entire lake in 30 minutes or so. Which means if you cast a lure out a few times along the way, you can get an idea in as little as an hour if the fish are biting in that particular lake or not. And if that particular lake is not biting, you can go to the next one over, and so on. And as a bonus, while you are fishing, you are surrounded by the most beautiful nature you’ve ever seen. Even if you don’t catch any fish, you will still enjoy yourself. I’ve always had fairly good luck; even on that day I lost several lures before catching the biggest fish I’d ever seen.

Before joining the explorer scouts, I was a member of the regular Boy Scout troop. And as a Boy Scout troop, we had to do several different kinds of fundraisers. Mostly selling stuff, sometimes magazine subscriptions, or services. Sometimes we would have a carwash, or get together with other organizations and sponsor walk-a-thons and other things. This would require going door to door to solicit donations, or sales, or get people to put their name down on a list.

The interesting thing about this is that we could always tell, within a few houses, which street was going to be good, and which street was going to be bad. After a while, we would choose a different street if the first five doors turned out to be a bust. Before we learned that trick, it was not so much fun to go up and down the street and get rejected time after time. Some people even seemed to get angry with us for trying to sell them something, or get them to participate in a community service fundraiser. This one lady was particularly troublesome.

One thing one of our Boy Scout leaders told us was the value of qualifying. He said that you always need to qualify your market before you invest yourself too much. He had a high level sales position, I’m not sure where, but he was always putting things in terms of sales and sales strategy. He said every market is a potential gold mind or a potential heartbreaker, so it pays to learn how to qualify your market before you invest too much time or energy. Some markets you can come back to later, and they will somehow have transformed from a stinker to a real winner, so it’s important never to write them off completely. Always throw out a line, so to speak, and see how they respond. As soon as they turn cold, pick up your stuff and move on.

After we applied his rules into our five houses only strategy, we were able to sell a lot more subscriptions. And that one lady, before would have been a real ego-deflating heart breaker, but because of our attitude, she was really just pretty funny. She started screaming at us as soon as she answered the door, and started saying that the government was after her and that we were spies for them and that we had better not leave any listening devices in her mailbox. We were thirteen years old at the time. As I recall, she was number four on that block, but we needed to stick to our rule, so we went on to the next house.

So after I had lost two lures, I decided to try my last one. I had a three lure per lake policy, as the weeds at the bottom of the shallow lakes liked to eat your lures. My friend would always tease me because sometimes Iost more lures than the fish I caught. One the last lure for that particular lake, I caught these huge brown trout. When you catch a fish like that surrounded by all the people free mountains and flower filled meadows, it really makes you feel good. And you like to feel good, don’t you?

Godzilla and Mind Programming

When I was a kid I used to really like watching old monster movies. There were one or two channels that would always show these old movies on Saturday afternoons, and I would always look forward to watching them. Most of them were “B” movies from the fifties and sixties, and had really interesting plots and story lines. Many of them were Japanese monster movies, and had an underlying metaphor of nuclear holocaust and the dangers that go along with it.

One of things that I find interesting, in retrospect, is that despite the seemingly “out here” story lines and the funny fact that their voices never matched their mouths, I still remember being completely drawn into these stories. As soon as they started, I couldn’t help but to completely lose myself in this and forget everything else. I don’t know if it was because I was a kid, and hadn’t really experienced a lot of special effects that most people expect when they see a science fiction movie, or just that being a kid allows for much more imagination and less critical attention to things that “don’t make any logical sense.”

I remember reading a study where the researchers were talking about different brainwaves in adults. Apparently, there are four different levels of brainwaves, beta, alpha, theta, and delta. Beta being the highest vibration, and delta being the lowest. Alpha is kind of a daydreaming state, the kind when you are in a meeting, and your boss is droning on about the latest sales figures, and you start thinking about that hot date you have this weekend, and suddenly your boss says “Peterson! Peterson! I’m talking to you!” and you say “Huh?”

Then there is theta, which is supposedly a really good brainwave state to be in, as it allows you to reprogram your subconscious, have amazing mental experiences, like shamanistic journeying and out of body experiences, and remote viewing and all kinds of other good stuff. Your imagination is best while it is in theta. It’s that stage just before you drift off into sleep that you are kind of conscious, but kind of just wandering around in la la land. If you’ve ever slipped into theta while falling asleep, and then slipped back out, you know what I’m talking about. You have a feeling of “who, what was I just thinking about?”

The brain is highly susceptible in the theta state. This is the best state to be in if your are undergoing hypnosis, because you can do things like learn to quit smoking, cut back on drinking, vastly improve your social skills, and remove any fears that you may have. And many studies indicate that children, up to about age 7 or 8, are almost always in the theta state.

Which explains why watching monster movies is so fascinating, even with cheesy special effects, obviously fake monsters, and voices that don’t match the actor’s lips. Of course, this is a double edge sword, both for kids and for parents. Anything you say to a kid, especially if it comes from an authority figure, will go straight in as unquestioned truth. Which is fantastic if you understand this and give kids empowering messages like, ” you can be anything you want to be,” or “there is no such thing as failure, you are always learning and getting better,” or “you are a worthy person who deserves success.” These can be wonderful messages to give to kids on a regular basis that will ensure they grow up to be happy self-sufficient individuals. Of course when you say things to them without thinking, or behave in ways that indicate any other that the above statements, that has a powerful effect as well.

The lowest form of brainwaves is delta, which is when you are deep asleep, even deeper than the dreaming state. Scientists believe that you only need less than an hour of delta sleep per night, and your good to go. Even if you sleep eight hours or more, and don’t get that delta state, you will still feel groggy all day, as if you only slept a few hours.

But my favorite was the Godzilla and Gamera movies. I even liked Gamara more than Godzilla, because I always believed Gamara to be a good guy, and Godzilla to be a bad guy. Gamara was always helping people out, while Godzilla was always walking all over Tokyo and generally causing mayhem.

Body Language Tips for Flirting and Attraction

If you’ve ever been in a social situation, and were interested in meeting someone, you know how difficult it can be to sort through all the mixed signals and various levels of communication. I recently saw the movie “He’s just not that into you,” as it was recently released in Japan. A very well written movie about how social signals can sometimes be misinterpreted and frequently misunderstood.

Luckily, there has been a plethora of books (some good, some not so good) written by “experts” regarding body language. And as you would expect, there are a large number of body language signals that you can use to improve your flirting and social intercourse that are consistent throughout all the books.

Of course, that either means that each author or authors is on to something, or they all copied from the same report. I will assume with the former, and proceed to share with you some of the basics. One side benefit from becoming comfortable with learning to read body language, and using it for flirting is you will also be building your self-esteem and self-confidence. There are few things that make you feel better than a successful flirtations endeavor. (And all the good stuff that goes along with it.)

Some of these might be revealing, and some you have likely already heard about, but it pays to be sure. Nothing is more embarrassing than mis reading a signal and making a fool out of yourself (If you’ve seen the aforementioned movie, there was a pretty funny scene after the party.)

The two most obvious is eye contact and a smile. Eye contact can be very difficult to maintain for some people, so if you person you are interested in doesn’t hold eye contact very long, that either means they aren’t interested, or are very shy.

If you are a guy, and you are flirting with girls, if she makes eye contact, smiles a little bit, and then looks down before looking away, that is a fantastic sign. Many times that is all you need to make an approach. Because many girls are shy, you will need to smile first. Eye contact, then slowly let your face smile, both with your lips and with your eyes. Then just relax and see how she responds.

Another good sign, one that takes a while to calibrate, is if when you smile, she smiles in response, and takes a deep breath. That means you are making her feel butterflies. Nice work!

Another one to notice is that if she is talking to somebody else, and she makes eye contact with you while she’s in the conversation. She likely won’t smile at you, because that would be impolite to the persons she is speaking with. What is a good sign in this situation is if while she is talking to him or her, she might turn her body so that it is facing you while she is facing him. If this happens, you can either go and introduce yourself to both of them, and join the conversation, or simply wait until a better opportunity.

Another great sign from girls is if she flashes her palm at you. If she smiles, quickly brushes her hair back while revealing her palm, then looks down and away, that is about as green a light as your going to get. She is basically screaming at you to make a move.

If you are a girl and are looking from signs from guys, pay attention to their voice and body movements. Guys will naturally try to look more “alpha” when an attractive woman is around. They do this buy speaking louder, and using wider gestures with their friends. If you want him to come and talk to you, send any of the signals mentioned above. A good way is to make eye contact, smile and turn your head briefly, looking around the room, but keep your chest pointed at him, but don’t be to obvious or come on too strong. For most guys, eye contact and brief, warm smile is all you really need.

If this is all new to you, don’t worry. There are plenty of books out there to help you lean this stuff. When I first found out the incredible depth of information that was being sent back and forth I was floored. For months I would just go and sit in public places and just watch the signals people were sending too each other. The level of and depth of communication among people is truly amazing.

After you get good at this, your flirting skills will skyrocket. You will never again wonder who to approach, or how to flirt the right way. And when you learn to project the right body language, you will almost guarantee that when you make that first approach, you will almost always be warmly accepted, for at least a friendly conversation. And that is a good feeling.

Brand Loyalty or Habitual Indecision?

I was waiting in line at the supermarket the other day. I was buying a jug of orange juice, the fresh squeezed kind. The guy in front of me was buying six or seven cans of concentrate. We noticed each other, and naturally got into a discussion about the differences between frozen orange juices and fresh squeezed. Because it was a Sunday afternoon when most people do their shopping, we had time to discuss the various differences.

The plusses to using concentrate is that it’s cheaper, you can buy several at once and store them in your freezer, so you don’t have to go to the store as often. Interestingly, the benefits of fresh squeezed, although seemingly numerous are almost impossible to pin down. The drawbacks are obvious. You have to go to the store more often, it’s more expensive, it doesn’t stay fresh as long (you can keep cans of concentrate in the freezer for up to a year) and it really doesn’t have any more vitamins that the frozen stuff.

I suppose when asked, most people who prefer fresh squeezed would say it tastes more “natural,” its healthier, its got some special magic from the sun inside each bottle. None of these are things that you can actually measure. So what exactly are you paying for? Of course the most obvious answer is that it tastes better. That is probably the best reason of all if you are buying food, that it tastes better, but is that how the marketing strategies of these orange juice companies make it out to be? Based only on flavor?

“Buy fresh squeezed, it tastes better.”

I never really thought about it. I remember when I was a kid, Pepsi had their famous “Take the Pepsi Challenge” campaign where they set up stands in front of supermarkets across the country, in an effort to “prove” using scientific studies that Pepsi does indeed “taste better” than coke. They had frequent updates in their commercials of how people overwhelmingly chose Pepsi over coke in a blind taste test. But for some reason, Coke remained, and still remains the soft drink leader. (The whole “New Coke” fiasco notwithstanding.)

I’m sure know somebody, or may be one of these soft drink zealots yourself, who will refuse to drink soda in a restaurant if they don’t have “your” brand. I have a friend who is adamantly against Pepsi. If we go out to lunch, and he orders a Coke, and is told they only have Pepsi, he’ll act as if he’s been personally insulted. It’s kind funny to watch. Personally, I can’t really tell the difference one-way or the other.

Brand loyalty is a strange phenomenon, one that I’ve never understood, although I am an avid driver of Toyota’s, and proud wearer of New Balance. Every car I’ve ever bought is a Toyota, and every pair of athletic shoes, of any sort, has been New Balance.

So as we talked in line about the differences between fresh squeezed orange juice and juice from concentrate, a funny thing happened. The checker in the line opened up her register. And even though both of us could have gotten much closer in line had we moved over one row, we decided to stay where we were. Like once you make a decision on something, you stay with that decision despite all the logic that dictates otherwise. I guess people really are creatures of habit.