Image courtesy of ~Dezz~

There are many benefits to being a regular at any given establishment. Better service, discount pricing, the ability to skip lines. It’s like being a preferred airline customer. There’s only one problem: It takes too damn long to become a regular. Rachel, Ross, and the rest of the Friends gang were regulars at Central Perk, but they were habitually late to work at least once a week over the course of 10 YEARS! George Wendt was a regular at Cheers, but he only patronized ONE bar for 11 seasons. It doesn’t have to take this long. Read on for my fast tracked guide to becoming a regular in just 3 visits.

We’ve all been there. You’re waiting in line at a coffee shop – a long line. A new customer walks in who’s immediately recognized by one of the baristas. “The usual?” asks the barista. The new customer nods his head and says “Thanks Franco,” or whatever trendy name the barista has. His order gets expedited and he’s out the door before you’re even at the pastry display case.

Wouldn’t it be great to be a regular?

Time savings aside, how badass does it look when you’re on a first name basis with the proprietors of every place you take a date?

I like being a regular, but I don’t like ONLY going to the same handful of places over and over – which is the usual way to become a regular. That gets boring, and there are way too many cool new places to discover in San Francisco. I’ve used the following guidelines to become a regular at dozens of trendy spot around the city in just 3 visits. Now it’s your turn.

(I’ll use the coffee shop experience to illustrate my points)

Visit #1

1. Your first visit should be during off-peak hours. You need to interact a bit with the people working there, and if they’re super busy you can’t make this happen. So don’t try this at a coffee shop at 8:30am. Capice?

2. Get an opinion. Wait in line like a normal customer – don’t worry, you won’t be for long. When you get to the counter, ask the barista if you’re drink of choice is any good there. Ex: “Morning! How’s your americano?” Obviously they’ll say its good – that’s their job. Order the drink. DO NOT ask them what THEIR drink of choice is. If they recommend a drink you don’t like, you’ll look like a jerk for not ordering their suggestion. That’s a bad foot to put forward.

2. Say thanks. Pick up your drink, taste it. Tell them your [insert drink of choice] rocks. Chances are it probably does. Thank them for the recommendation. People in the service industry don’t get sincerely thanked enough. It’ll make an impression.

3. Introduce yourself. You’ve struck up a short rapport at this point, so follow up with an introduction. Ask them their name, tell them yours, then shake their hand. Tell them you’ll be back for more delicious drinks, then take off.

Visit #2

1. Revisit within a week. If at all possible, try to go at the same time as before to increase your chances of getting the same barista. If the same person isn’t working, don’t fret.

2. Use his/her name when you order. “Morning Franco!” This reinforces that THEY know YOU, just in case they forgot (they meet a lot of people during the course of a week). If Franco isn’t working, ask the current barista where he is / when he’s working next. Don’t be creepy.

3. Drop the ‘Usual Bomb’. This is the most important part! The second visit is all about reinforcing your status as a regular. Order like this: “Morning Franco! I’ll have my usual Americano.” You just MADE yourself a regular! If Franco isn’t there, still drop ‘usual’ into your order. The current barista will just think he/she is a bit out of the loop and assume that really is your usual order.

There’s an interesting cognitive disconnect that takes place here. Namely, that by providing just the slightest shred of evidence to your vocal assertion (that you are a regular), the other person accepts it as fact. Politicians do this kind of thing all the time. It’s not manipulative, it’s charismatic.

4. Say thanks again.

Visit #3

You’re now established as a regular. Enjoy never waiting in line again.

Continuation

Make sure you continue to reinforce your status by using ‘usual’ in your order. It also helps if you’re extra recognizable in some capacity. Wear the same yellow hat, purple hoodie, or red bandana (my favorite). This will help you stand out among the hustle and bustle when it gets busy.

Want to take it further? Check out this rundown of 121 Persuasive Techniques and see how many we used in this article.

You should follow me on Twitter here.

Image courtesy of RedJar

Last summer, my younger brother Tim and I tried to devise a way to eat healthfully for $10 a week. We didn’t quite make it, but a year later I’ve figured out a nutritious way to eat for 20 dollars a week, without cutting coupons are going on radically extreme diets.

Tim was staying on my couch for the summer , didn’t have a job yet, and was trying to get by in San Francisco on a tight budget.  I was trying to save more money for a business venture I was shoestringing. I had more superfluous bills than he did – Netflix, iPhone data plan, the occasional Blue Bottle Americano on my way to work, etc. – but even if I whittled all those down I’d only be saving about $60 a month. Many ‘fix your budget’ gurus might argue with me, but that extra $60 a month didn’t really seem worth the degradation in quality of life. We both discovered, however, that we were spending a hell of a lot of money on food – we weren’t even eating out that much. Back then I was averaging about $250 a month in GROCERIES. Again, not including eating out, just groceries.

We struggled towards the $10 a week goal until Tim went back to school. I kept at it after he left, and slowly worked my way down. I got down to spending only $50 a week, and then to $40. I hit a sustainable $35 a week ($140 a month) late 2009 and kept it up until recently when I was able to get my weekly food budget down to $20 a week. $80 a month? I pay more for my cell phone plan!

This plan might not work for everyone. I have resources at my disposal in San Francisco that might not be available to everyone (Trader Joe’s and many, many produce markets to choose from), but the basic guidelines should at least help you slash your grocery bill: buy from produce markets, cook and buy in bulk, quality meat is expensive. This method of food prep also eliminates a lot of cook and clean-up time as well.

Here’s How I Do It:

Chipotle Vegetarian Black Bean Chili – I make a huge pot of this on Sunday and eat it for lunch and dinner throughout the week. The recipe below easily makes about 12-14 hearty servings.

1. 2 lbs Black Beans ( I buy these dry, in 4lb bags because it ends up being cheaper ) $2.89
2. 7 oz can of Chipotle Peppers in adobo sauce. ( These have so much flavor you really don’t need to add any more spices) $1.75
3. 28 oz can of Diced Tomatoes. ( Could probably go cheaper, and healthier, with fresh tomatos, but this is so fast ) $1.99
4. 2 Carrots, chopped. ( 57 cents a pound ) $0.22
5. 2 Red Bell Peppers, chopped. ( red are usually the cheapest – 35 cents a pound – and contribute the most flavor ) $1.40
6. One large onion, chopped. $0.79
7. 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped. $0.15

Rinse the beans, throw them in a big pot, and add 12 cups of water. Bring to boil and let cook while you chop and prep the other ingredients. Throw everything else in the pot and reduce to medium low heat. Stir occasionally until beans get soft, about 2 hours.

This won’t win any chili cook-offs, and purists will argue that it’s not ACTUALLY chili, but it’s pretty damn good for the price. A double serving of this (about a cup and a half) is only about 200 calories, has almost no fat, very little sodium, 30g of fiber, and 18g of protein. Not bad!

Total: $9.19

Steel Cut Oatmeal and Blueberries – I eat this for breakfast everyday. Prepare the oatmeal according to directions on the packaging, and then add frozen blueberries just before it’s done cooking. This can all be made in one giant batch and then refrigerated so it’s ready to go in the morning before work, or you can prepare it fresh, if you like.

1. John McCann Steel Cut Oatmeal. $5.95 at Trader Joe’s
2. Bag of Frozen Blueberries. $1.99 at Trader Joe’s

Total: $7.94

That leaves a little over $2 remaining. I usually buy two single servings of greek yogurt ($0.79) for after-weight-training snacks.

Grand Total: $18.71

Hell, you could even treat yourself to a cup of coffee with what’s left!

Hope this helps!

-Dan

Hit me up on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dpwalsh

**The following is a guest post by Angelica Nava, an innovator, and social media marketer in San Francisco. Enjoy!**

I find myself in constant geo-location check-in / social media competition with a certain Dan W, @dpwalsh, and danw, depending on your social vehicle of choice. In the spirit of friendly rivalry, I decided to massively friend people on Yelp because, shame of all shames, he outnumbers me by an embarrassingly large number (even though, I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I’m Elite). I logged onto Yelp…and froze. Where to start? I tentatively clicked on someone’s profile from the front page, and started to read. Nope, this person seemed to frequent the Marina a little too often for my taste. I clicked another. This person seemed to barely give any real thought to his reviews; I couldn’t support THAT. My experiment ended with my issuing a single (and I like to think coveted) invitation. The experience got me thinking–how can Yelp become more of a social resource? I have an idea to start:

Better Utilize Check-Ins

I think (and correct me, Jeremy S, if I’m wrong) that you can only see your friends’ check-ins, and only when you happen to land on the page of a place in which they’ve already checked in. (see screenshot)

What I’d Like To See

I’d like to be able to go to a business’ page and see something like a rolling list of ALL recent check-ins, or a list of people with the most check-ins, or check-ins from the past 24 hours, whatever. Not only can I see if my friends have checked in recently, the point of all this geo-location business, but I can also find people I might want to make my friends–”Hmm, Person X has 5 check-ins at the 24th Street Philz this week; maybe I’ll friend him.” In this way, Yelp could facilitate meaningful interaction. When I friend someone, I rarely go with the default “Your reviews are great; let’s be friends!”, so, for example, I could say, “Hey, I’m at Philz all the time too. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime!” Potentially a tad creepy? Yeah, I guess so. But a.) Who wouldn’t want their very own stalker? (KIDDING. Only if they’re attractive. STILL KIDDING.), and b.) If you don’t want it; don’t opt in. Don’t check in in the first place. The positives outweigh the negatives here. Imagine you’re new to a city. How better to meet people and make friends than by frequenting the same places? Yelp creates an automatic bridge when you already have something in common. Think of the other possibilities too! Need a gym buddy? Check out who else is checking in as often and at the same time. And the dating possibilities, oh my goodness! “Oh, you’re here too? So WEIRD that we keep running into each other! Kismet?”

Yelp is obviously the go-to source for reviews, but people often have few friends, or the few that they have rarely reflect real-life friends. My idea could (picture me bowing my head in modesty) revolutionize this: on Facebook, you friend people you already know. On Yelp…you could friend people you WANT to know.

What do you all think? Take it to the comments, people.

**Angelica is a first-time guest writer on Dan’s blog. She can be found in the aforementioned Philz, or wearing Dan’s clothes around the Mission. Friend her on Yelp: angelicaln.yelp.com**

Image courtesy of Fanboy30

Some of you may recall my affinity for scavenger hunts. Others may even recall my short foray into the scavenger hunt business. Regardless of how well your grey matter is operating, when I learned about the new iPhone app, Stickybits, I knew I could make something fun out of it.

The premise behind Stickybits is that you can use the free application to scan barcodes and then attach information to these scans via the Stickybits server. The possibilities are far and wide, so I’ll probably write another post about it sometime in the future. For now, let’s get down to scavenger hunt business.

This hunt features books and magazines exclusively. These barcodes will be consistent throughout the country, so that means that everyone can play. Yay!

One quick note  though, booksellers sometimes place their own barcodes over the publishers barcode. Make sure you scan the PUBLISHER’S barcode.

How to Play

1. Download the Stickybits app to either your iPhone or Android device.
2. Figure out the first clue below.
3. Find the appropriate book and then scan its barcode.
4. Look for the bits attached by me (DPWalsh) and find clues to the next barcode to scan.

It’s a pretty quick hunt, and if you do it all in a bookstore it shouldn’t take more than 15-30 minutes.

Hit me  up on twitter if you need a hint   Twitter.com/dpwalsh

First Clue

Have fun!

These three represent my initial foray into working with acrylics of different viscosities. The backgrounds are chaotic, and the diagonal lines represent humanity’s habitual attempt to measure, define, and otherwise remove the mysteries of nature. The central forms are nature’s way of otherwise overcoming all of these attempts. A reminder that yeah, it’s nice to know where lighting comes from, but isn’t it more awe-inspiring when you don’t?

Pardon the photos, they’re a bit washed out from the wonderful weather we’ve been having in San Francisco as of late. I’ll upload better shots when I get them.

Image courtesy Videogamer22

I read an article yesterday on TechCrunch entitled Foursquare Starts To Enforce The Rules, Cracks Down On Fake Check-Ins. It really bothered me. So much so, that after about 45 mins of my ranting about it (and location aware mobile apps in general) to friends, someone suggested I blog about it.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

I could go on and on about this, so I’m going to try really hard to keep this focused on my main gripe: a well designed game shouldn’t have to “CRACK DOWN” on players.

Background Info (Skip if you know all about FourSquare).

Let me take it back a sec. For those who don’t know, FourSquare is a mobile app (iPhone, Android, etc) that lets users – or “players” – check in via phone when they arrive at a location (bars, museums, restaurants, etc.). Players are rewarded with badges when they hit certain check in goals – like the Local Badge for checking in at the same place three times in one week. There’s a social element on top of this that means your friends who are also playing can see where you check in, which creates the potential for ad hoc meetups if you both realize you’re downtown, etc.

Sounds kind of fun right? To increase the fun (and create a revenue stream) FourSquare awards the title of “Mayor” to the player who checks in the most at a given location. This title sometimes comes with perks like free beer or half off pizza, so it’s worth competing for, and its in the venue’s best interest to create cool deals so that players vie for the coveted mayorship. The app does a pretty good job of locating players via GPS, but it’s kind of loose, allowowing players to check in at places when they’re not actually there. The system is so loose in fact, that if I really wanted to I could check in anywhere in New York City as I sit in my apartment in San Francisco. You see the potential for cheating?

The Problem

The problem is that as FourSquare continues to become a vehicle for sponsorship (Starbucks now sponsors a Barista Badge) they become increasingly accountable to these venues and corporations to ensure the accuracy of check ins. No one wants to reward a cheater with free Venti Lattes, right?

FourSquare continues to make changes to its “cheater code” to improve the system’s accuracy but it makes me wonder if it’s not the technical exploits of the game that are at fault. Could the problem be conceptual? Maybe even psychological? The game rewards players for checking in as much as possible – but then penalizes this same behavior if it’s done in excess or beyond “the rules”. That’s like sending Monopoly players to jail for buying all the best properties too quickly.

The Solution

If the current system rewards quantity of check ins, and this is encouraging cheating, maybe it’s time to move to a system that rewards quality of check ins. Instead of rewarding mayorships to players for the number of times they check in, they should reward players for the amount of time spent checked in at a venue.

Of course this comes with it’s own opportunity for exploitation, but at least the system would encourage quality check ins and limit users from claiming mayorships all over town by cheating.

Bottom Line

Players will take whatever action is incentivized to the extreme. Understand this, and instead of imposing restrictions, make sure players are encouraged to perform the correct kind of behavior.

What do you think? Flaws in the proposed system? Ever fallen victim to the “cheater code” when you weren’t cheating (I have)? Let me know what you think.

I’m writing this post at what used to be one of my favorite wifi coffee shops in San Francisco. I won’t name the spot, because while I don’t foresee myself continuing to patronize it, I do hope for its continued success.

I’m quite oppinionated when it comes to offering wifi at coffee shops. In a nutshell, if you want my patronage, you damn well better have free wifi. I don’t often spend my Saturday mornings at Starbucks or Peet’s for this particular reason. While both companies offer free wifi sometimes, I’d rather they just not have any at all versus trying to make me pay for on our via t-mobile or some other third party. It makes me feel taken advantage of.

The coffee shop I’m sitting in right now actually does have free wifi, and this is one of the reason it used to be my favorite (they also make a fantastic tuna salad sandwich with gold fish crackers on the side!). So what’s changed?

These signs were at every table:

These signs aren’t unreasonable, and are actually pretty courteous. So what’s the problem? Well, for the shop, the problem is that people were abusing the wifi, taking up seats for hours at a time, and not buying much. But the bigger problem is that this place used to be packed with “Wi-Fi Folks” on the weekends, and right now, there’s only two patrons in the shop. I’m the only one with a laptop.

As polite as these signs are, they’ve basically told the bulk population of weekend customers that they’re not welcome. I almost didn’t even want to take my laptop out of my bag and become one of these trouble makers (despite the fact that I will purchase at least 3 americanos, said tuna sandwich, and possibly a slice of pie).

I feel bad. This place used to bustle. I’d get here as early as possible and still have to jockey for a seat. Now, I can have my pick. Good for me, not for them. I feel worse though, because I don’t know how else they should have broached this issue with their customers. Free wifi, in my opinion, is one of the best ways local coffee shops can compete with the chains. What are they supposed to do when this kind of generosity is no longer economically viable?

Has anyone out there had a similar experience? Patrons, wifi coffee shop owners, I’d love to hear your take on this.

Image courtesy of James Jordan

Success never comes in one fell swoop. It requires sustained and persistent effort over a given period of time. This notion is easy to forget. It’s common to look at success and, unable to work backwards, assume that it somehow happened overnight. Perhaps this is due to lack of imagination, perhaps it’s less taxing on our grey matter to think about it like this. Who knows.

What I do know is that I consistently accomplished more in 2008 than I did in 2009. I have a hunch The Stack is to blame. Rather, the lack of stack.

I made a calendar in 2008, which I called The Stack, the sole purpose of which was to mark of days that I pursued “success”. The definition of success was flexible and included things like half-marathon training, painting, language learning, entrepreneurial activities, etc. Self improvement. I didn’t have to be “successful” in order to mark off a day, I just had to pursue success. Failure counted as well.

I hung the calendar in my room which allowed me to size up my collective efforts with a quick glance. It was great motivation, and also a useful barometer for me. By January 1st, 2009 I had marked off 83% of 2008. That’s over 300 days!

For some reason, I neglected to make a new stack calendar for 2009 and I think I suffered for it. I made my 2010 stack the other day, and thought I’d share it with anyone who’s interested. Feel free to pass it along, change it, make your own, whatever. And make sure to let me know if it was useful to you!

Download the stack!

the_stack_2010

Ah, the mighty Turducken. What a fine beast. The boning of all three birds is complete and it's ready to be stitched up. From top to bottom: wild rice stuffing, chicken, andouille sausage stuffing, duck, cornbread stuffing, turkey.

And sew it begins! Get it? "sew"? My stepdad and I regulating this bird. Doesn't their new kitchen look great?

It's really a two person job. One has to pull the darn thing together like the jaws of death, the other gets to stitch up the corpse with twine. I got to stitch. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein.

Almost done...

All stitched up and ready for the oven. It looks like it's about ready to pounce!

Up close on the stitching. Tasty eh?

A roast beast Dr. Seuss would be proud of. It took 17 hours in the oven to cook it all the way through.

Besides the two turkey legs and wings, it's entirely boneless. Case in point, we sliced right through the middle. This bad boy was 41 lbs of pure food.

Aaaaaand my plate. Can you blame me for going back for thirds?

And right about then is when I passed out on the couch. I hope you enjoyed the gastronomical journey as much as I enjoyed eating it!

Happy 2010!

Image courtesy of Haags Uitburo

I have a lot of varied interests: art, memory, cooking, judo, typography, rock climbing, genetics, design, tea, sleep, quantum physics… the list goes on. I’ve decided it would be a good idea to focus on a given topic for 30 days, and then formalize/synthesize everything I’ve learned into a thesis paper. I think having the goal will help motivate me, and forcing myself to collect all the disparate info will help me retain it.

Obviously anything interesting I learn will be posted up here so ya’ll can enjoy the fruits of my mania.

My November topic will be Creativity. What is it? What are the biological components of creativity. How is it measured? Can it be increased? All these questions! I also really want to perform a study on the affects of caffeine on creativity. Anyone else smell a craigslist ad for volunteers?

If you’ve got any nagging questions regarding creativity, sound off in the comments and I’ll see what I can do about finding some answers.

I’ll continue to post on other topics, but stay tuned at the end of the month for a report on everything I’ve learned!

-Dan-