5 "at a Urinal" Etiquettes

Okay, here’s the deal I was at a pub last night and after a couple of beers I needed to relieve myself. There are a couple of things that you as a guy should know to consider as Urinal Etiquette. Here they are.

1. Ask permission to use the urinal: Now obliviously you wouldn't to ask permission if there is a free urinal. However, if there is a queue and you really need to go bad don't muck in, ask the person in front of for permission to use the urinal before he does. It helps to hold your crotch and stick together when asking :-). Just don't make look like your trying to seduce him.
2. Don't spit or throw stuff in a urinal: I have seen some people spit guuueey green flem into urinals. I have also seen guys ash of their cigarette butts. This makes taking a piss real uncomfortable and if there is enough shit clogging the drain then there is a good chance that you will have a pool of piss with the cigarette butt Olympics going on.
3. Don't talk or sing to yourself or try making small talk with the guy next to you. No wants to hear you say " Come on Jack you can do it. Just relax" or Sweet Home Alabama when you’re going at it. Even worse "Hey man, I prefer wearing boxers to briefs. What about you?” Eeahh...
4. Don't peer into your neighbors (you know what). Last thing you want to be caught doing is looking over and checking out the guy next to you going at it. This will really piss him off (no pun indented). Unless you’re at a gay bar, then you would have probably made a new "Friend".
5. Flush the urinal: ensure that after you done you flush. Some urinals are automatic and will flush after you move; some flush in intervals and some need you to flush. So flush.

That’s what I think. As always would like to know what you think.

5 Donts on Chewing Gum

Probably some of the most annoying things people do; they do is while chewing gum. It is one of those things that actually requires some sort of formal education i.e.

Dave: "Hi Mike, are you chewing gum?"
Mike: "Well yes I am."
Dave: "Are you certified?"
Mike: "Yeah, I just graduated yesterday."
Dave: "Ah cool, welcome to being an educated, certified gum chewer."

Never have I felt so strongly to having a formal education course than now and that too for chewing gum. Since there aren't any of these education courses around I have decided to do something about educating gum chewers. Here are my 5 dont's on chewing gum.

1) Don't chew gum as a fashion statement: Chewing gum was cool back in the days like the late 70's and throughout the 80's. It was fashion. It was what guys with the Grease look would chew on while chatting up chicks. Not anymore amigo. If you think chewing gum is cool as a fashion find a time machine and get out of this decade. Chewing gum now is primarily done to either freshen your breath after a meal, smoke, drink or maybe sometime as a stress killer.

2) It’s better to buy gum pellets than gum strips: This has a simple reasoning behind it. Gum strips, after they have been chewed are fatter and larger than gum pellets. This increases the tendency to chew with your mouth open.

3) Don't chew with your mouth open: is what your mama would have told you a million times while growing up. Similar applies to chewing gum. No one wants to hear the sound of fish splashing around in your mouth.

4) Don't try blowing bubbles for your gum this will make you look spastic and in all cases is again not classy. It you think it’s cool, then you know what you should be lookin for.

5) Don’t dispose of your gum by spitting it on the ground or sticking it under a table. That will end up being inconvenient for someone else. The best way to dispose of gum is to either

1. spit it out into the gum wrapper
2. spit it into a tissue papper
3. if the above options are not available find a trash can, spit the gum in your palm and then throw your gum in the trash. Don't spit directly into the trash can. This is just not civilized.

So there you have it my 5 donts on chewing gum.

5 Social Networking Dont's

Social Networking is today what emails were a decade ago. Emails were regarded as the new instant communication tool of the 20th Century, and it was!! Now Social Networking has replaced emails allowing for people to share their interest, pics or gossip with others instantly. With the rise of Blackberry and Iphone and other new mobile devices that allow for internet access Social Networking is no longer confined to a laptop and WIFI.
However with every technology advancement there is a learning on protecting your Digital Identity. 10 years ago it was Virus in emails, email bombs, phishing emails. These still do exist but we are more aware about them and hence avoid them. Now there is the same threat with social networking. We now have to learn for this.

Below are 5 dont's when using social networking sites.

1) Never give out your personal details: Adding birthday details, address of residence or maybe listing you cell number may make you a victim of identity theft. Even giving such information to a virtual friend, you have known for 3 years, could get you into trouble.

2) Never save your passwords on your browser: Now this is a rule of thumb. Simply because you will never know when there is a new virus that extracts these passwords form the browser memory. This again will give hackers access to your online and offline identity.

3) If you have doubt about a user; report them. Don't pass it off as saying "Ahh, maybe he’s a weird guy." Let the administrators make that call.

4) Future careers depend on your digital personality: Numerous articles and surveys have come out, in the past couple of years, about how employers look-up on facebook potential recruits and vice versa. Ensure your online profile is reflective of how you would want to be perceived in the real world.

5) Lastly ensure that the company that runs a social networking site doesn't store your user information after you have opted to cancel your account with them. This was one of the main Issues of Facebook some time ago.

These, I think, are some important points to keep in mind while networking online. If in case you want to follow me on twitter look for @JumpingJulious and would be happy to follow you.

5 Dos for Targeted Email Marketing

I'm tired of Spam. I, like millions of you, get spammed the hell out off and if it weren't for the awesomeness of spam filters I would not use emails. So keeping on the topic of Spamming I decided to write this to inform companies, organization or person who want to communicate to the rest of the world about their products, services, blogs or websites.

Here are my 5 Do’s for Targeted Email Marketing.

Here's a scenario. John is an Educationalist and very often visits an online books store, for ease sake we'll call it Onlinebooks (no ref to the already existing webpage), to view the latest newest books that have released under his Category of interest “Education”.


1) Ask permission: It is very very important to have users permission to talk to them or update them on any new news, products or services that you may have. This can be done either:

1. At the time of Sign up. Where users have the option to choose if they want to be communicated too or not.
2. At the time of Purchase. This is when users proceeds to checkout ask them if they would like to contacted the next time a new product release is available. In the case of the above scenario, Onlinebooks would ask John if he would like to receive alerts when a new book is added to the education category or a new book has released from the same author whose book he purchased.

This will ensure that Onlinebooks has John's permission to talk to him. In addition, always ensure that users have the ability to stop receiving communication from you cause if they start flagging you as spam then your email addresses get blacklisted which could be bad.

2) Collect information of interest from your customer: Here it’s important to understand what product or service, you offer, interests you customer.

1. At the time of registration ask your users for their interest.

2. During the checkout process ensure track all purchases. This information can then be used to understand customer’s interest. In this case the website may need store cookies on the user’s machine. Ensure that this is disclosed to the user.

With this step Onlinebooks will ensure that John constantly receives only relevant information.


3) Analyze time return purchases of customer: This means track to see how often your customers comes back to purchase from you again. Example John, on an average, takes a month to complete a book.
This would ensure that on at the every month relevant communication is sent to John on the topics you've identified that may interest him.

4) Profile you customers: "Nice to put a face to a name" is commonly is used when meeting some after having many non-personal meetings. In the online world the chances of that happening are slim. Hence you would need to profile your users. This is why many companies today have a profile section for users to fill and update.
Applying the above scenario this would be very important information for Onlinebooks because John's wife's just delivered a baby boy. Now John's a father and would obviously like to read up on fatherhood. Onlinebook can then use this information to start selling baby books to John in addition to his regular education books. Hence creating another stream of revenue. Off course you may need to keep reminding your customers to update their profile.

5) Constant periodic communication: Don't bombard your customer with information every day and at the same time don’t not communicate with your customer for a long time. Ensure there is a period when communication is sent like once every 15days, once a month etc. Going a step ahead and letting your customers choose the time frame for communication will be a huge positive. However don't forget to include all the new releases or updates in this communication between the last communication and new one.

I hope this has been helpful. Please feel free to speak your mind on the comments section.

5 points to consider before buying a Car

I know alot of you really know what you want when buying a car or some kind of transportation. However, there are alot of people, inspite of knowing what they want and considering it good judgment, have buyer’s remorse in the second month. Listed below, in no particular order, are five points that I would consider you should think about.

1) Purpose: What is the purpose of buying your vehicle? Is it to move your Family of 5 to church every Sunday, is it meant for those nice long drives to the country side for just the 2 of you, Do you want to go off-roading with it? These are some questions that you would really need to consider. The purpose is very very important. If it’s a city car for 2 people then consider a smaller hatchback that is fuel efficient since parking would be easier and filling up would cheaper.

2) Budget: Again a very important question that must be answered before you start looking. What’s my budget? Here’s why. When you set a budget before going out and looking for a car then you can shortlist all the cars that fit in your budget. However if you don’t have a budget then there is nothing that confines you and that is when you overspend.
Another point to remember here is that if you are planning to take an auto loan to finance your purchase then you would need to research various banks auto loan packages to find the most comfortable one for you.

3) Aftersales: Automotive companies business plans are not based on New sales i.e. the real revenue maker for automotive companies are not in the sales of new cars. The revenue is in the aftersales. Hence these companies make 70% of their revenue selling you car parts; car dealers make money selling you Service contracts etc.
You need to consider the cost of ownership of the car and not the cost of buying a car. The cost of ownership includes

• Cost of regular service checkups. Some dealers sell yearly service contracts that cover these costs.
• Cost of spares: if something breaks is it in your budget / financial capability to replace it.
• Insurance: for premium cars such as Maybach, BMW etc the premium on these is high as compared to a Toyota or Honda or a Fusion. Again consider what you can afford.
• Cost of Gas: Now a year ago when a barrel of Oil was at 146$ there was a sudden trend shift towards Hybrids. When buying a car take into to consideration what it the price of gas were to be remain at 146$ for a year could afford a Hummer H2 then?

4) Safety: If you live in a place where there is no traffic sense and no speed limit restrictions then safety maybe something that you would need to consider. Sitting in a Volvo is definitely safer than sitting a Toyota Corolla.

5) Re-sale: Re-sale value is an important way to figure out, approximately, how much money you could make if you plan to sell your car sometime in the future. It’s good to leave the re-sale research till when you have selected atleast 3 makes of cars that you would consider. Good ways to research, check local classified listings to see if the same makes are being sold and the asking price, Head down to the local used car dealership and research online too.

Hope these help you in your search for the ideal and most suitable car. If there are other points that you would like to add please feel to comment.