Wanted: Advice Columnist. Common sense a must.

A while ago I came across the list below - "9 Mind Tricks to Get What You Want" - and haven't had time to eviscerate it until now.

There's a subtle tactic to make things go your way in your career, love life, and social world —one that has nothing to do with effort or luck. It's called priming. Research shows that by exposing people to specific words, body language and symbols, they can be affected in a way that benefits you without their even realizing what's going on. Here's how to use subliminal moves to get an edge.

1. To seem like a team player at work ...
Put up a picture of your dog (or even a friend's pup) in your workspace. When people look at shots of a pet dog, they not only tend to presume you're loyal, but they may also act more loyal toward you. But don't paper your cube with canines. Research shows that too many personal shots make others perceive you as a less professional worker.

Actually, when I see a picture of someone's pet, I assume two things: 1) no kids (which is cool if you are single and want to announce that), or 2) you're one of THOSE PEOPLE. The "animals are babies, too" people. You know who you are. The rest of us are nice to your face, because you are typically nice people, but if the revolution occurs and there's only so much room on the lifeboat, your fucking dog is shit out of luck.

2. To appear more powerful in the office hierarchy ...
Wear a chic all-black outfit to work, and don't smile as often as you're inclined. You'll be seen as assertive and directed. Studies have found that people in black uniforms (like sports teams) are viewed as more dominant figures, while the act of keeping a neutral face is associated with higher status and power in a work environment.

I assume they're just someone who can't let go of being Goth, or they truly love their daily dandruff production to be perfectly evident to everyone.

A completely neutral face only raises questions regarding botox or constipation. Or the fact that a good shagging is overdue.

And really, being "seen as assertive and directed" usually means everyone thinks you're an asshole. The best bosses and upper management folks I've worked with (and who ran the best/most successful organizations) had the air of actually being decent and nice.

Maybe this stuff floats on the East Coast, but out here in flyover country, it's a red flag. You'll soon notice that watercooler/hallway conversations breakup as you approach.

3. To bond with the boss ...
Offer to get her a hot cup of coffee — even if you're not her assistant — and chat her up as she's drinking it. A recent study showed that just by holding the high-temp liquid, she'll implicitly assume you're an emotionally warm person — someone very likable. Just don't hand her an iced latte or you could trigger a frosty reception.

And she'll assume you're her bitch forever after. Next it'll be a trip to the dry cleaners.

Here's another bright idea: bring her a cherry popsicle. Once she starts eating it, pull out a video camera and ask if you can tape it to put it on youtube.

4. To have "the talk" without making your partner flip out ...
Take him to a restaurant that has soft feminine colors and furniture with few angular lines. Researchers think that simply being in this kind of an environment can influence a person to behave in a more feminine way in terms of communicating. That means that he'll be more likely to be open and disclose his true feelings to you.

Apparently, "the talk" is female code for something. To me, it could either be the breakup talk, or the "let's take this to the next level" talk.

If it's the breakup talk, just do it over the phone. It works for everyone. You don't have to be around him afterwards. He can cry, or yell, or smash shit, or pump the fist in the air (presuming you dropped him before he could drop you), or continue to screw tonight's conquest, or drink himself silly, and not have to wait until the public agony is over.

If it's the "next level" thingy:

Most guys don't wanna have that conversation in public, either. If they don't want "the next level," then they're not about to drop that bomb in front of anyone else (see above). He will not be honest with you - until the phone rings later (see above). We also avoid farting in an elevator. They're kinda in the same courtesy grouping.

If he DOES want to go to the next level, again, he definitely doesn't want to be in public. He will probably want to be able to get affectionate, get all puppy-dog faced without witnesses, and so on. A private walk in the park, a night in watching a DVD, or just after or before the goodnight kiss is a good time for this "talk."

However, any stage of coital activity (pre, present, post) is best avoided for this talk. Before ... uh, consummation ... a guy is kinda distracted. You might as well ask what is favorite color is while he's skydiving. Afterwards, the theta waves for sleep are already coursing through his brain, and he'll agree to about anything. This is when to get him to commit to going to a chick flick, or to request the purchase of a nice, inexpensive gift - and NOT for anything like "could you clear out a drawer for me?"

5. To make your crush fall for you on a dinner date ...
Subtly touch the back of his hand as you're reaching across the table for bread. It's a proven way to win someone's affection: Libraries and car dealerships have higher customer-satisfaction ratings when workers imperceptibly touch their clients. Touch activates the human desire to bond.

Hand contact is nice, but to guys it's just that: nice. We've had plenty of girls who later popped "I just like you for a friend" on us touch our hands. It means nothing to us. Until you've gotten close enough that we can smell you, we make no large assumptions about your intentions.

When a salesperson touches me, however, it's just creepy. Don't do it.

6. To seem more alluring when you meet a guy ...
Talk about a beach vacation you took using sensual terms (e.g., “The sun felt so fabulously warm against my skin”) to paint a mental picture about the climate. According to psychologists, this seductive I-feel-like-I'm-there speech will make him associate your personality with the lush sensations you're describing.

Meanwhile, in his brain, he'll be wondering things like:
- Is the Packer's game on tonight?
- I wonder what her boobs look like...
- The shrimp? No. Fish breath. Spaghetti? No. I can never eat that gracefully in public. A steak, I guess.
- Was it a nude beach? Call me next time you go!
- What the hell is that floating in my water glass?
- Etc.

Be yourself and talk about yourself the way you would normally do. If you talk like this, he might think you're a loon.

7. To impress a guy's parents the first time you meet them ...
Casually praise someone whom you're certain his mom or dad holds in high esteem, such as a political figure, author, or celebrity. Experts say that as you talk about their hero in a positive light, your targets start to think about all the qualities they admire in that person. And because they're looking at you, they'll subconsciously link you with that person's positive traits.

When they talk to him later, they'll say, "She's kind of a suck-up, isn't she?"

Parents have all their radar out when meeting the SO of their child. Every little gram of evidence is examined for any possible interpretation or clues. You might as well be yourself, because the odds are against you at first, anyway. That way, if it works out, you don't have to remember any BS that you laid out in the beginning.

8. To make a friend out of an acquaintance ...
Start mirroring her behavioral tics, like touching your hair when she touches hers. We like to see ourselves in other people. Researchers at New York University found that when you're sitting across from someone who's unconsciously shaking his foot, if you start moving yours in a similar but unobtrusive way, then the person feels more positive toward you.

This one's proven, sadly.

However, whenever I notice someone's doing it, I start scratching my nose in that way that makes it unclear if it's a pick or a scratch. I grimace. I gesture wildly, etc., just to see how far they'll go.

9. Your slob roomie to clean up after herself more often ...
Spray a bit of liquid all-purpose cleaner in the air right before she enters the skanky spot in question. A Dutch study recently proved that the faint smell of a cleaning product will spur people to start picking up the area around them. You can also prime her by squirting a little fluid in the bathroom sink before she goes in to use it.

Sure. More likely she'll say, "Have you cleaned up? Cool. I hate cleaning." And now you've fallen into the trap of being the primary cleaner.

The best way to win this war is to put a lock on your bedroom door (to keep it clean), and out-slob her in the rest of the place. Most everyone has a threshold, and once you cross it, they'll usually start cleaning and keep it up. Pubes in the sink are a good tactic. If you can manage to take a really smelly dump right before they come home, that's more of a trigger than a spritz of Mr. Clean.

If they are of that small percent that never gets grossed out, you've discovered you need a new roommate.


I hope that I've spread a little sunshine for ya'll, here.

A gem from a gem

I, for one, was bummed when Roger Ebert appeared to be destined for eternity. Now that he's narrowly escaped that fate, his writing - which was always stellar - just got that much better.

He talks about that here on his fantastic blog, which if you've not read, you're missing out.

Anyway, the last sentence in this excerpt made me literally LOL, so I had to share it with ya.

Kevin Smith [snip] believes [snip] that it's funny to shock people with four-letter words and enough additional vulgarisms to fill out a crossword puzzle.

This is sort of endearing. It gives his potty-mouth routines a certain freshness; we've heard these words over and over again, but never so many of them so closely jammed together. If you bleeped this movie for broadcast TV, it would sound like a conga line of Iron Men going through a metal detector.

(My emPHASis added.)

The source.

Plethora

Hey, MTV has put up nearly every video they've ever played on a Youtube-like site. Check it out, mang.

They don't have the best video EVER, which is Donald Fagen's New Frontier, but it's a start.

And let me take a moment to remind you, you have the power to turn any of these into a portable song, if you are OK with the audio quality (and the possibility is might be a scootch illegal). The audio on all the MTV vids thus far has been good as far as I can tell.

Oh, and Bruce has a free Halloween song for ya. Go down to "A Night With The Jersey Devil": Free Audio Download".

Happy Halloween everone!

Say what?

This starts with a seemingly "liberal" bent, but it ends up just right.



Thanks Sleemoth.

A picture is worth...

...you know the rest.

A Couple Shakers

Head shakers that is.

Don't you just wanna slap this [insert favorite adjective here]?

I work with someone who does that self-righteous face-pinch combined with the head-nod when she feels she's made a point. She probably thinks I agree with her because I find it so annoying, all I can do is smile when she does it.

This whip-head is offended by the mere fact that Obama is running for president, so has put up a sign on his parking lot that Obama supporters can't park there.


Just 8 days to go and it'll all be over except for Bush trying to come up with a reason to institute martial law. Save for that, it's Goodnight Bush.

---

Last minute addition! Ron Howard does a political commercial:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

It's amazing to me that Andy Griffith is still alive.

Fetid disco ball lying on a used-condom-covered floor

Curious about the terms that Roissy and pick-up* artists like him use, I attempted to read The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. I just couldn't get through it.

*I use the hyphen because to me "pickup" is a vehicle with a big space in the back that condemns you to forever helping anyone when they are moving.

For starters, the topic is just so one-dimensional. It's like watching those fishing shows or golf; fishing and, presumably, golf are of interest only if you're doing them yourself.

Worse yet, the writing was abysmal. Especially compared to Roissy or Tucker Max (the author of the other pick-up tome I read - though I didn't know that's what it was before I started reading it).

So let's just segue into I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max. While the writing was much better, and overall much, much funnier, it still was about picking up loose chicks in cheesy bars. You can read one of the best, nastiest, I-can't-believe-that-happened one here (possibly NSFW, my work's web cop software blocks it).

TLD: And, btw, when I explored the site for this post, I was surprised to learn that a lot of his conquests actually allow their pictures to be posted. Heck, one even let him post a picture of her gargantuan dumps (again, prolly NSFW). The mind boggles.)

While initially there are laughs, it begins to get repetitive ("...then, we had mind-bending sex!"), and it ultimately ends badly. To wit: Max, in the last story in the book, has one girl over who tells him that she has to abort the baby she knows is his because she has a type of cancer where the treatment will kill the baby anyway, when another girl shows up for a booty call. He leaves the pregnant one on the couch to go screw the recent arrival, and then goes back to the one on the couch after Ms. Recent passes out. The tawdryness of it just makes you want to hug your kids and stare at a sunset to get the karmic taste out of your soul.

My conclusion about all this pick-up artist stuff is that it proves the old adage, "Mother told me, yes she told me, I'd meet girls like you." The pick-up universe is all about sluts looking for sluts. (Oooo, harsh and judgmental, I know.) And they usually find each other, and boinking occurs. I regret wasting that valuable reading time to arrive at something I already knew.

A Player would maintain (and often do in what I've read) that they can pick up any girl using the techniques, not just sluts. Then again, they all talk about IOI, or "indicator of interest" which means she's into you, so go forth and conquer - which means there are times when you don't get them, and move on, which begs the question, how many women are put off by these guys in the first place? What's the ratio of girls that wouldn't give these guys the time of day compared to the ones looking for Mr. Right Now, etc.?

Roissy mentions that small-town girls are usually more impervious to the game and are usually more wholesome. From my small-town experience, I'd say that's sorta true; we have our sluts too, but yeah, most of the girls have some standards. I know that my player buddies back in my hometown pretty much all screwed the same circle of girls. After we non-players (I think this "beta male" nonsense is just that) figured that out, we tended to avoid those girls.

Overall, though, as mentioned, this lifestyle appears to end badly. Like Curt Cobain's punk value system, it's not sustainable throughout time and reality. Much of the game depends on physical attractiveness, and save for the Paul Newmans and Susan Sarandons of the world, aging just takes its toll. Looks aside, the emotions eventually get chronic rugburn, too. Further, as one Disney ride will explain to you over and over, it's a small world after all; your reputation eventually precedes you.

Sad to say, but every single one of the gamers I've known has ended up going through hell relationship-wise. They can't hold onto anyone for very long, and even if they appear to be doing so, it's hard to leave all those game habits behind, and so they eternally itch for the new conquest - just one more piece of strange (if you will).

It leaves me with the image of the player lying in the dark, disco ball down and condoms strewn, with the strains of "Is That All There Is?" echoing ghostly through their mind.

I've gotta stop reading rock bios.

I recently said some snarky stuff about Lindsey Buckingham, so when I accidentally happed across a tell-all penned by Buckingham's girlfriend during the famous years, Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, I thought I'd have the perfect peek into his (and their) life(ves). (And, I'd have the big groups/people covered, U2, Led Zep, the Eagles, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell (hell most of the CA rock scene) and now Fleetwood Mac.)

Wow. What a bastard. He may be a musical genius, but what a prick. He physically abused her several times, grabbing her hair while she was standing next to his car in the driveway and driving away, dragging her a few feet in the process, leaving strangle marks on her neck, and punching her so hard her that face bounced off the opposite car window.

So, as with the Eagles, knowing some of the crap behavior behind the scenes has tainted the music for me. Such as: I used to think "Second Hand News" was about mixing together breaking up and masturbation metaphors, I now wonder if it's also about smacking your girlfriend around a little bit.

One interesting note, though. Since this was written by Buckingham's girlfriend, Carol Ann Harris, you can imagine the perspective she had on Stevie Nicks (Buckingham's recent ex at the time). It was like reading a high school confidential, with all the eye-rolling hen pecking you'd expect. Meh.

I don't think so

I luuurved Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and so was stoked when he released Anathem recently. Before I laid down the semolians (as there are so few to spread around anymore), I thought I'd get it through the library and see if it was worth it.

Hell, I couldn't get past the first page of the story. I made it through the intro, which informs you that a great deal of the words in the book are going to be made up. Even worse, they're going to be very close to words you kinda know, but the meaning will be different enough that you have to know it.

Just try reading the front flap.

So I looked at the last page to see how long it was and decided that a book of over eight hundred of pages of made up words was not for me.

From what I've read of the Amazon.com reviews, that's a very common sentiment from those who have tried.


And I think this is a function of age. Were I younger, I'd give it a go. But at this age, I just don't have enough time or ambition for this kind of silliness.

At least we get to laugh and not cry over this one...

A retarded man in Europe who was converted to Radical Batshit Islam blew himself up in a toilet because he couldn't get the stall unlocked. His face now looks like a Dick Tracy character.

Above all, remember this

As you go to vote in a couple weeks, check out "In the Real World" for Number 1 on this list and keep it in mind:
6 Horrible Lessons Hollywood Loves to Teach Kids

Let me vouch for this one. I've learned it in spades.

We had a group of assholes leave our business a while ago (to go somewhere else and torture them), and the change it made was dramatic.

Matter of fact, hunt down this great PBS/National Geographic special that was on recently. Basically, all the alpha male/asshole members of the tribe died because they ate tainted food (which they got first, of course) and the nicer males were left, which changed the dynamic of the group. So, from that point forward, when jerk males from other tribes would come by and try to dominate, this tribe wouldn't have it, so the new males would chill out and adapt. They all ended up healthier and lived longer, better lives.

The official site:
http://killerstress.stanford.edu/

An article:
http://www.pbs.org/stress/

You can watch part of it here:
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1310/video/watchonline.htm

Honest R&B Song

This vid is slightly NSFW (just the lyrics - if your place of workship is not uptight about youtube and you have headphones, you might be good).



If you want a copy of the song itself, they kindly provided one.

Found this on Attu (whose site is NSFW, ever).

9 Ways You'll $ave in the New Depression!

Hilarious article in Village Voice that can be read as satire or stone cold truth.

Shreddage

I think Prince's Superbowl appearance showed the world, again, what a talent he is, particularly on the guitar.

Well, I was researching something for my daughter about drummers, and happed across this fun blog post about the "7 Unexpected Moments of Guitar Awesomeness."

Here's an excerpt:

Is there any proof that Prince's molten-hot solo on that hall of fame induction night's all-star jam performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" had anything to do with him being snubbed from that list? No. But come on now, this is Prince. He doesn't just show up for no reason. Until it came time to destroy the stage with that solo, most people didn't even know Prince was onstage at all. On this night, Prince was on a mission.

Which leads into this performance. Hold on till Prince shows up.

Dear Lord that little dude can shred.

How star wars changed the world


Click or "save as" for full size

- For those like me who like to geek out.

I didn't know Fincher worked as a cameraman and director with Lucas on both Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Explains a lot.

Ya wonder...

Went to a class lately for work (updating the skills, etc.), and have two observations that are neither here nor there, but, well sometimes randomness isn't random.

One of the women in the class is from either India or the Middle East; couldn't quite determine which because she didn't talk much.

What was odd about her is that she put her name sticker (which we were all required to wear) directly on the tip of her right breast. When she did it the first day, I thought it might have been an oversight or cultural cluelessness, and maybe she hadn't seen that most people put them over their heart.

But she did it again the next day.

So my only question: Was she trying to get guys to look right at her boobs on purpose? Trolling for a BF/GF? (As I also noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.)


The other person was such a stereotype that when I saw her my first thought was, "Gad, she looks like an ad for "Burning Man." Sure enough, when she hoisted her coffee for a sip later, it was a Burning Man travel mug. (Though, counter to the type, she WAS wearing a wedding ring.)


And that's all I have to say about that.

Half Useful

With much trepidation, and with a smidge of gleeful anticipation of a car wreck, I opened How Fiction Works by James Wood.

As feared, a lot of it is academic hazmat, grokable by the initiated few who know what the loaded words mean and who can plow through syntax as impacted as a gay man's colon after a pride parade party.

Here are a few of the howlers (imvho):

"Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life." - pp. 65.

The word "bullshit" rang so loudly through my head when I read that, I feared if you were sitting close enough you'd have heard it emanate from my ears.

On page 102, after grousing about a woman who complained about lecherous old men in movies grossing her out, he says:

"In other words, artists should not ask us to try to understand characters we cannot approve of - or not until after they have firmly and unequivocally condemned them. The idea that we might be able to feel that 'ick factor' and simultaneously see life through the eyes of the two aging and lecherous men, and that moving out of ourselves into realms beyond our daily experience might be a moral and sympathetic education of it's own kind.

"A glace at the thousands of foolish 'reader reviews' on Amazon.com, with their complaints about 'dislikeable characters,' confirms a contagion of moralizing niceness."

Uh, no it doesn't. It means the author failed in appropriately setting the character in the story so they achieve their purpose. We don't have to approve of them or even condemn them. Hannibal Lector, anyone? But if a character we would dislike in real life is not framed or handled correctly, we have the double reaction of not liking the character and really disliking the author because he couldn't rise to the occasion.

I especially bristle at the "contagion of moralizing niceness" crack. Again, it's infantilizing the reader and not laying the blame where it should be, with the author.

When he tips his hand as an atheist and critiques the Biblical stories of David and Jesus Christ (page 143) as fiction, it only serves to disqualify a large portion of his judgment and assumptions. I don't really care that he views the reports of Christ as fiction, but he should have the good taste not to use them as examples of narrative fiction. So many of these kinds of atheist just don't grasp that it is discourteous the equivalent of "so's your mother." Not to mention the fact that translations of writings that old aren't the best examples for a book dealing with how modern fiction works. The farthest he should go back is Cervantes, methinks.


That said, there was some good stuff, too.

His definition of "free indirect style" as used in the omniscient viewpoint is transcendent. I cannot attempt to paraphrase or even provide excerpts, as they cover too much ground and are stated about as well as can be (though with the occasional dipping in academic hazmat, as indicated at the start of this post). This is the one section - "Narrating", pp. 3-28 - you should read yourself, somehow - library, Amazon "look inside", standing in a book store, etc.

I also liked his coinage of an idea I've (tiresomely) trotted out at parties, in that most philosophies - particularly utopian philosophies - never face the reality of human evil. They start with the implicit assumption that everyone will be nice and play along if conditions are good enough. Even with all the examples of human evil there are, they still think Hitler would've just stayed a house painter if the circumstances of his life had been more conducive. Anyway, Wood says: "The philosopher Bernard Williams was exercised by the inadequacy of moral philosophy. He found much of it, descending from Kant, essentially wrote the messiness of the self out of philosophical discussion. Philosophy, he thought, tended to view conflicts as conflicts of beliefs that could be easily solved, rather than conflicts of desires that are not so easily solved." - pp. 176.

Hear, hear!

I like his grousing about cliches, too:
"We have all read many novels in which the machinery of convention is so rusted that nothing moves. Why, we say to ourselves, do people have to speak in quotation marks? Why do they speak in scenes of dialogue? Why so much 'conflict'? Why do people come in and out of rooms, or put down drinks, or play with their food while they are thinking of something? Why do they always have affairs? Why is there always an aged Holocaust survivor somewhere in these books? And please, whatever you do, don't introduce incest..." - pp. 225.

...or the OGC (obligatory gay character), or the hip-just-because-s/he's-from-NY, or conversely s/he's-a-hick-because-s/he's-from-flyover-country, or .... (you get the drift)

I liked the final paragraph, too. I'm tired of typing today, so here's a graphic of it:



Cheers.

It is to laugh

MPC1 wants model kits - the plastic kind where you put the pieces together - for her birthday (and I don't let her read this as I consider it an adult blog), so it's safe to discuss it here.

So, while looking through Amazon, I find this review of one model kit [my emphasis added].

This product is not at all as described. According to the product description, it's 8.8 inches long and 3 inches wide. In reality it's 6 inches long and less than half an inch wide. It also comes in one million little pieces that you have to assemble. The educational pamphlet describing each sub is quite good, but not enough to make up for how disappointing the toy is. We will be returning this item.

It's amazing that some folks can walk around unattended.

I would've LOVED to have seen the look on this guy's face when he opened the box, though.

Prophecy and Serendipity

Over fourteen years ago, I posted this article on how generations in America tend to cycle through four types with common characteristics (posted on my old vanity site which I keep up because the Christianity FAQ that I wrote with my late great Pastor's help still tops the Google result list).

Through completely separate, unrelated, and kinda spooky circumstances, I ended up picking this book up at the library because the title intrigued me: The Fourth Turning by Str William, Neil Howe. It's a later book by the same guys who are the subject of that article I link to above.

In The Fourth Turning they expand their theory and show how it actually stands up going back as far as the fourteen-hundreds, and then they predict the future using the same theory.

Here's the table that divides generations into their "Saeculums" and where they fit into the cycles of generations types (which make a little more sense if you read that article above, first).


It amazes me how well this theory holds together and throughout the ages.

But what blew my socks and part of my boxers off was the predictions of how we will be ushered into what they call the Fourth Turning, or the coming "crisis," saeculum. Keep in mind this was published in 1997:



Can I get an "Amen"?! Can I get a "Holy Shit"!?!?!

Three of those have come to pass (more or less), and M. Blowhard has been tracking rumblings about State secession. Toss in one pandemic and they've got full house.

Anyway, the future is not as dire as the label "crisis saeculum" might sound. It's just a convenient way to quantify and contrast it against the others.

The book actually has a lot of great advice on how to weather said "crisis saeculum" and what the benefits and outcomes are likely to be. There is hope.

If you're interested, but don't want to read the whole thing (it is long), particularly if you don't need to be convinced the theory of the book is correct, you can just read the intro stuff until you get the basic gist (section 1, "Winter Comes Again" at least), skip to section 4, "Cycles of History", and then read sections 10 and 11, "A Forth Turning Prophecy" and "Preparing for the Fourth Turning" respectively.

Needs no further explanation

Except this: While looking for something else in my blog folder, I happed across this which I'd forgotten to post until now.

I found this in Newsweek, and apparently they're still buying into the "irony is dead" meme from 9/11.

And this, from a card my brother sent me: