You'd be surprised at the sheer number of dirty photos that appear on a Google Image search of "tickle fights." So I'm sticking with puppies.

I was talking the other day to a high school teacher about fights. She said that she’s broken up some fights between boys, but never between two girls. If girls get to the point where they’re hitting each other, they’re not going to stop if you try to intervene.

I’ve never gotten in a fight, and I think they’re pretty silly in general. Hormones, adrenaline, and fisticuffs don’t make for productive solutions.

I’m not sure what made me think of this, but I had a random idea that could make high schools–and the world–much better places. What if fighting were allowed in any environment at any time, but there’s only one way you could do it:

Tickle fights.

That’s right. If someone is really bothering you at school, instead of throwing a punch at them, you tickle them and they tickle you. People circle around you chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” while the two of you roll on the ground, screaming with laughter, tears rolling down your faces.

At the end of the tickle fight, you’d walk away feeling so much better. I think it’s really hard to laugh and not feel better afterwards. Whenever I’m having a bad day, I call one of my funniest friends and chat for a bit. I always feel uplifted afterwards.

Extrapolate tickle fights to tickle wars. What if the war in Iraq had been fought with tickles instead of guns? We’d be best friends with the insurgents by now! And eventually someone would tap out. There’s only so long you can last during an all-out tickle onslaught.

This idea makes me want David Fincher to film Fight Club 2: Tickle Fights. It would be amazing.

Daily Quickie: Check out my previous solution for obesity, energy, and unemployment.

I’m getting a little tired of love triangles in fiction.

I don’t mean to offend anyone. I probably have dozens of love triangles in my own stories and I don’t even realize it. My concern is that they seem to be everywhere now, not because they’re realistic or even make for good fiction, but simply because everyone else is doing it.

What triggered this? I just read a description for a new YA novel that seemed pretty cool…until I reached the paragraph about how the main female character would be faced with a choice between a bad boy with a kind heart and a good boy with unknown motives. Immediately I had no interest in reading the book.

There are many books–especially in YA (young adult) genre fiction–that include this same love triangle. Twilight. The Hunger Games. A dozen other novels I’ve read about but haven’t made it big yet.

Maybe part of it is that there always seems to be a bad boy and a good boy. First, is that realistic? Do all women have this choice when making a decision about love? I’d think the choice would be more between a boy (good or bad) and lots of boys. Or no boy at all. Not two boys with polar-opposite personalities.

Two, does this make for good fiction? Is the ideal dynamic for a novel to have one female character and two very different male characters? Is that really the most compelling choice a female character can make?

While we’re at it, why don’t we see more male-female-female love triangles? Are they somehow less compelling?

I’m trying to think of a point in my life when I struggled between two females. I can literally only think of one time, a random party where two girls were taking turns hitting on me (it was surreal but flattering). Every other time I’ve struggled with love, it’s been a choice between the woman I’m with and some hypothetical, unknown woman that I wonder if I should be with. Or between the woman I’m with and no one at all. Or many women.

Why do we keep seeing this device in fiction?

Daily Quickie: I reached 4,000 comments on my blog today (if you’re curious, the 4,000th comment is an amusing aside on my Puerto Rico post by someone named Al Lopez). I love for this blog to be a place for conversation, so I’m immensely happy that it’s garnered so many comments. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

Do I look like I'm unable to drive safely without your reminder?

How many times in your life has someone told you in parting, “Drive safe”? How many times have you said it (or the grammatically correct version, “Drive safely”)?

Okay, I get it. It’s just one of those things we say. It’s really no different than saying “goodbye.” So then why do we even say it? What is the point in telling someone to drive safe?

It bothers me because of course they’re going to drive safe. Do you really think they’re going to get into their car and intentionally swerve all over the road? They don’t need you to tell them which driving option they should choose: safe or reckless.

That’s my internal reaction when I hear someone say this. And again, I know they’re just being polite. But it’s one of those phrases that I think we could do without.

Daily Quickie: On that survey I recently distributed, there was a question about PowerPoint. I think this illustrates how other mediums are probably better than a slideshow (Star Wars fans, you’re going to like this. A lot).

No one would want this desk? Really?

…or a more boring title would be “Survey Results.”

Because that’s what today is all about.

I want to thank everyone who took my crazy little survey last week. 47 people filled it out, and the 23rd person (you know who you are) was randomly selected by random.org to receive my copy of Rework by Jason Fried.

I learned one thing right away by doing this survey: I should use Qualtrics for my next survey (the website I used for my Perfect Woman survey). It takes more time to make, but it lets people see how their results compare to everyone else at the end of the survey. There’s something each of us that (a) wants to feel like we got the “right” answer, validating our humanity, and (b) wants to be unique on some questions, validating our individuality. I took that away from all of you, and it won’t happen again.

The other thing I learned is that a free book isn’t enough to get people to forward a survey to their friends. I’m really, really interested in this. What would it have taken (and it may not have anything to do with the prize) for you to forward this survey to friends and coworkers?

The good news is that you’re all normal. Well, all but two of you (apparently almost everyone would use PowerPoint for a presentation). For many of the questions, there are no outliers, no strong results. Here are the most interesting answers that stood out:

• Not a single one of you said you’d wait until later in the year to see a friend who showed up in town without any warning whatsoever.
• 43% of you would feel more appreciated at work by receiving a heartfelt compliment than a cash bonus or an extra vacation day. Shows you how far a few words can go.
• 53% of you desire a strong connection between your effort and the resulting value added over autonomy or complexity. So if you’re a manager, keep an eye on this.
• Only one of you would like to have your office in a big, open space. I think that shows that we need privacy to be productive, and yet I think a lot of people may look at the photo on the left and think, “That would be a cool office to work in.”
• This was surprising to me–50% of you would rather reorganize your office on a slow day than plan a holiday party or be a part of a teambuilding activity. Either there are some messy offices out there, or people really don’t like ropes courses.
• 68% of you would trust online reviews over the advice of friends and family when it comes to buying a car. Entire social networks are built on the idea that we trust people we know more than strangers, so this was interesting.

Here are some other interesting results:

• 18% of you would never invest in a startup
• 70% of you describe your desk as “organized chaos”
• 67% of you would ask a potential employer how he/she motivates employees
• Only 28% of really enjoy public speaking, but only 22% of you are petrified of it
• 32% of you–more than I expected–are really indecisive when it comes deciding what to order at a restaurant
• 68% of you would rather a summer intern do a menial task than you or a freelancer.
• 40% of you have had some sort of work relationship

I know, it’s a lot of data. Does it mean anything? With a sample size that small, probably not. I’m much more interested in cross-calibrating the successful and unsuccessful “roles” that people indicated at the beginning of the survey with all of their answers. At this point I’m not quite sure how to do that without doing it manually, but I’ll figure it out.

1. Initiating a conversation with a woman who is a complete stranger.
2. Walking into a crowded room in which I know very few people.

Unfortunately for me, those two areas eliminate a number of venues for meeting women at my age. That’s why Match.com has actually seemed ideal for me during the two weeks I’ve been a paying member. Initiation is really easy, and there are no daunting hordes of women to penetrate (wait, that came out wrong).

However, Match.com and other online dating sites go against a number of rules of behavioral economics. In a continuation of my long-lost series about the psychology of sex, here are three of those rules:

1. The Malcolm Gladwell Rule of Spaghetti Sauce The MGRSS states that we don’t know what we want until we try it. He uses a lengthy but fascinating example of spaghetti sauce that you can watch here. A researcher created 45 different varieties of spaghetti sauce and did taste tests all across the country. He found that over 30% of people preferred their spaghetti sauce extra chunky. The spaghetti sauce companies had never known that before because they had simply been polling people without taste tests, asking them what they like. We think we know what we want, but we don’t really know until we try it. The principles of Match.com directly contradict this rule. On Match, you input a bunch of stats about yourself and the person you think is ideal for you. Height, interests, age, etc. But how do we really know that we want a woman who’s between 23 and 31 versus a 37 year old (I won’t dip on the low end there)? We don’t.
2. The Barry Schwartz Rule of Salad Dressing The BSRSD states that more choices makes us less happy. He talks about shopping for salad dressing–or really anything these days. You’re presented with a daunting number of choices. Eventually you choose one or two, but you’re left with an inherent dissatisfaction that you may not have chosen “the one,” the perfect salad dressing for you, simply because there are so many more out there. This is something I’ve struggled with in all of my relationships. What if there’s someone better out there? Is it reasonable for me to think that someday I’ll find someone (or realize I already know someone) who deactivates my wandering eye (lots of hyperlinks today, sorry)? Match hasn’t made this any easier. Every day there’s a cadre of new women who are matched just for me. Say there were only three women on Match.com. If one of them seemed right for me, I’d be really happy with that choice. But in the face of hundreds, thousands (actual number of winks to me so far: 56)? Much harder.
3. The Dan Ariely Rule of Open Doors The DAROD (the one cool acronym of the three) states that when we find something good, we endanger that goodness by continuing to consider other options. He did a study that involved a computer game with three doors. It’s more complex than I’ll describe here, but basically you can open a door and click “stay” or “leave.” If you leave, you can try another door. Whenever you enter a door or “stay,” you get a small amount of money. The trick is that one of the doors is better than the others. And it’s no secret. One simply pays more. And yet, given the option of the other doors, people continue to click away from the best door to see if the money improves in the other doors. They simply can’t help themselves. I can definitely see that happening with Match. I might find someone who is clearly the best for me, but it’s very hard to close those other doors. In doing so, I hurt my chances for happiness with the best of the bunch. I think the best I can do is be honest with myself and with the women I’m talking to.

So there you have it. Everything you need to know about how Match.com doesn’t work…and yet it’s working for me. Kind of. We’ll see how it goes.

Daily Quickie: I challenge anyone to draw a map of the US while intoxicated this weekend (and with no help from Google). I’m not encouraging intoxication; I’m merely saying if you happen to be drunk, draw a map of the US and send it to me. I’ll post it on the blog.

I  love the collective gasp of the crowd when the actor rounds the corner during a chase scene and is confronted by a giant alien – or really any other theatrical element that elicits a passionate enough reaction to draw out audible emotions.  The magic of theatre – cinematic or live – is the power to engulf our sense of reality and transport us to a world in which our petty problems do not exist.  A good movie benefits from a well developed plot, quality acting, and fancy special effects.  However, to leave me with ‘happy after movie glow,’ a performance must suspend my existence and, for an hour and a half, replace it with the characters’ world views.  I’ll admit creating that magic is a tall order, which is why I’ve asked Jamey to lend me his blog for a day.

I am curious to know if other people experience this same transcendence when they step into a theatre.  What do you think are the key elements that allow a movie (or a play) to so entirely replace your own state of mind?  Do you have a favorite movie that you believe achieves this goal particularly well?  More importantly (for those of us who are students with limited time) what is the one movie being released in the next 3 months that you think will provide the deepest immersion?

To make the game a little more fun, I’m offering two free AMC movie passes for the most convincing responses – one for the best movie overall, and one for the must-see movie of the next 3 months.

No, I take that back–think about the first time that I went to the store as an adult to buy pickles.

You approach the pickle aisle thinking that this will be easy. You’ll just get the kind of pickles you’ve enjoyed your whole life. The good kind. You don’t know their name, because really, how many pickle varieties could there be?

Then you get to the aisle and find tons of pickles. Way more than you had foreseen.

You scan the varieties of pickles, trying to figure out which one is the kind that you’ve eaten in small doses your entire life. Remember, this is your first pickle purchase as an adult. This means that if you want to, you can go home and eat the entire jar of pickles. Mom isn’t going to tell you to put those pickles down.

Finally your eyes settle on a promising canister. “Bread and Butter Pickles,” it reads. I love bread, you think. And I love butter. Bread and butter pickles must be amazing!

So you buy the biggest jar they’ve got. You rush home, pull out a pickle, and take a huge bite out of it.

What the hell? you think. This pickle sucks!

It’s true. Bread and butter pickles are pretty disgusting. The pickle you were searching for is a dill pickle. “Dill” simply isn’t as enticing as “bread and butter.” It’s like when the Vikings named the tiny wonderful island “Iceland” and the big terrible island “Greenland” to get people to go to the bad one so they could have the good one to themselves. Same theory here.

There’s gotta be a better name than “dill” to steer first-time pickle buyers to the right variety. What’s better than bread and butter? Not much. Any suggestions?

Daily Quickie: If you haven’t taken the full survey from yesterday, please take 3 minutes of your time. I guarantee that you’ve never been asked at least half these questions.

It’s the kind of book that is easy to read but is so dense that almost every other line is quotable. Here are a few of my favorite lines from the first 50 pages of the book:

• “Why is expansion always the goal? What’s the attraction of big besides ego?” I’ve always wondered this. I read about a new startup  boasting of its staff of 50 employees (and growing), and I wonder, why am I supposed to be impressed by the size of you staff? Shouldn’t I be more impressed if you can be just as successful with fewer people?
• “Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”
• “A strong stand is how you attract superfans. And they spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.”
• “Lots of things get better as they get shorter. Directors cut scenes to make a great movie. Musicians drop good tracks to make a great album.” Fried even exemplified this point by sharing that he cut the length of Rework from 57,000 words to a lean, hard-hitting 27,000.

I’m done with the book, and I’d love to share it with you. But I’m hoping you can help me out as well. I’d like to ask you to take a short, 3-minute survey about your work self. These are fun questions (all multiple choice) like what your desk looks like and how you make decisions about buying a car.

I’m hoping to collect a critical mass of data that at the very least will reveal some interesting things about the roles in which we’re most successful at work. At the very most, it will help me launch a new job search algorithm that could potentially aid a lot of people.

If you fill out the survey or if you refer the survey to someone who takes it before Sunday, August 29, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win my copy of Rework. I’ll even sign it for you (“Jamey read this!”) Thanks so much for your help.

Daily Quickie: Speaking of acting on amazing ideas, my friend’s food truck restaurant website just launched. It’s based in Austin. Check out The Peached Tortilla here. Very slick, if you ask me.

60 years ago, a man walking down the street with a woman might have encountered a puddle on the path. Back then, the man would be required to remove his coat, lay it across the puddle, and watch as the woman trampled all over it. For a single stretch of a few feet, the man’s coat would be rendered useless for the rest of the evening and he would incur the cost of dry cleaning it later. I suspect that men simply avoided dates following rainy days back then to avoid this inconvenience.

Compare this to the modern equivalent. A man and a woman are on a date, and they encounter a puddle. In 2010, all the man is required to do is point out the quickest route around the puddle. That’s it! It’s so much easier.

Thank you, women of 2010, for lowering your standards. You’ve saved us millions in dry-cleaning bills.

Daily Quickie: I’ve been watching the AMC show Rubicon this summer. After watching last week’s episode, I’ve decided that it’s brilliant.

In the movies (and presumably in real life), guys send drinks over to women at restaurants and bars. The waiter shows up at the ladies’ table, puts down the drinks, and points across the room at the guys. If the ladies are interested, they let the guys know it’s okay to come over to talk to them.

I think this happens in real life. I’ve never done it or seen it, but surely it’s not a movies-only thing.

So here’s my idea. Instead of sending over the standard social currency of an alcoholic beverage, send over something completely unexpected. Something like:

• A glass of milk.
• A Shirley Temple.
• A glass of water with lime.

The idea would be that the girls would get a laugh out of the preposterous idea that some guy just sent them a glass of milk. I mean, who does that?

I figure, worse-case scenario, the women are insulted because they think that I think they’re underage. They refuse the drinks and I feel like a scoundrel.

Best case scenario, the women laugh–showing that they have a good sense of humor–wave me over to their table, and we hit it off.

I’m more interested in trying this simply to see what happens than to pick up women. I’m too old for that sort of tomfoolery. What do you think? Could it work? How would you respond?