Grigory Lukin.com

Not too long ago, I started wearing turtlenecks on a daily basis. Why? Because I love the way they feel, the fact that they’re warm but light enough for almost any kind of weather (with the possible exception of Nevada’s summers) and the fact that I won’t have to agonize over choosing a work-appropriate T-shirt in the morning. (Why yes, my mind is a strange place.)

Like many other things I do, my love affair with turtlenecks serves multiple purposes. One of them is an open-ended sociological experiment to see people’s reaction to an average guy wearing an unusual item of clothing. Sometimes I do the same thing with my suit: I do my best business casual impression, dress sharp and just spend the day walking around town or running errands: eating out, mailing a letter at the post office, etc. Sometimes I do the same thing, but dressed in my best 1990s attire: a canary-yellow sweatshirt, baggy jeans and a giant peace sign around my neck.

It’s quite amazing to see just how differently people react to the same person when he wears a different outfit. Preconceived notions and stereotypes kick in and take over their rational thinking, forming their first impression for them based on a split-second analysis of what they see – or what they think they see. As a social scientist of sorts, I love this phenomenon: it’s a great way to hack people’s minds or, at the very least, get them out of their routine and shake up their world, if only a little. Don’t believe me? Try putting on your most professional outfit and walking into McDonald’s. Or get a bunch of presidential dollar coins from the bank and use them to pay for small purchases. The expressions on people’s faces when you do that (or something equally out-of-the-box original) are priceless.

Anyway, on to the turtleneck experiment. For reasons I’m still trying to figure out, turtlenecks either never really caught on, or had a brief period of popularity, after which they were banished to thrift stores and dusty attics. I can’t think of the last time I saw a fellow turtleneck enthusiast in real life. I’m pretty sure most people would say the same thing. That might be why their faces get that unique “what’s going on?!” look when they see me walking around in a turtleneck. Over the past week, I’ve experienced a number of averted gazes from men, double-takes from women, stunned and awkward silence from Subway sandwich makers, and frozen smiles from buffet hostesses. (Then again, I’m pretty sure the latter have seen far stranger things in their line of work.) Some of the coworkers modified their behavior by either avoiding eye contact or staring in silence, as if trying to figure out what’s going on. Not a single person thus far actually asked me why I started wearing turtlenecks.

It’s quite funny if you think about it: people wouldn’t act any differently if I wore a regular sweater, but a turtleneck – the same sweater but with a longer neck – confuses them and changes the way they perceive me. Such a small change makes such a huge difference. If I were just a tad more evil, I’d figure out a way to hack people’s subconscious first impressions and use them to my advantage, but it just doesn’t seem worth the effort. Not for now, in any case.

Sometimes, when the weather outside isn’t up to my high standards (i.e., it’s colder than 75 degrees) and there isn’t a whole lot of excitement going on in my life, I like to take fast-forward through time by indulging in highly addictive, risk-free and very cheap activities. For the most part, I’m talking about old TV shows, video games and long books. Some would call it geeky, nerdy, anti-social, etc., but hey – they’re the ones who might crash their car on their way back home after a night at the bar. To each their own.

I remember when Fallout-3 came out in 2008 – I played it for 40 hours straight once I bought it, followed by about a month of nearly 24/7 gaming before I finally squeezed out every ounce of content. At the time, I was a freelancer decompressing from a particularly difficult (though very fun) gig and I could afford to hide from the world for an entire month. These days, I’m mostly looking for ways to occupy my 3-day weekends while it’s freezing outside. I think I finally got enough supplies to help me fast-forward through February – with any luck, there’ll be something worthwhile in March.

My current fast-forwarding arsenal:

• Dan Simmons’ Hyperion trilogy 
• The complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy anthology (which I haven’t read in at least seven years)
• ~20 liters of coke
• Final Fantasy XIII that I got almost for free at a Blockbuster liquidation sale
• Dead Rising-2 (ditto)

That should last me at least a few weeks… And yes, I’m well aware of the irony of doing all that indoor stuff just a few months after I moved to Vegas. In my defense, it’s pretty cold out here, which makes hanging out and people-watching on the Strip pretty difficult. Maybe in another month or two…

The first Facebook chat/interview was such a success that we’re doing it again tomorrow! Go to CBR’s Facebook page, post a college-related question on their wall, and you’ll be entered to win an iTunes gift card. Not only that, but I’ll also answer your question! *g*

The Q&A will be tomorrow, Tuesday, between 2-3pm Pacific Time (5-6pm Eastern). See you there!

I decided to give away my e-books for 24 hours (give or take), but if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve just finished reading them and decided to follow the link at the end. (Thanks for that, by the way.) If you liked the e-book(s), I’d really appreciate it if you left a quick review over here for the “Go to college without going broke” book and over here for Atheism-101. If you hated them, please leave a comment here or send me an email with your suggestions, and I’ll do my best to implement them. 

Thanks for stopping by!

This Tuesday, January 17, from 2-3pm Pacific time, I’ll be doing a live Q&A session on CollegeBookRenter.com’s facebook page to promote my “Go to college without going broke” e-book and help even more people save money. If there’s anything at all you want to know about making college more affordable and less stressful, head over yonder on Tuesday and I’ll do my best to help. Better yet, if you submit your question on Tuesday (just post it on CollegeBookRenter’s wall), you’ll be entered to win an iTunes gift card! If that’s not a win-win, I don’t know what is. See you all there!

When I get bored, I doodle… In Microsoft Paint. Haven’t seen anything like this on the Net before, so who knows – maybe it’ll become the next big thing. Or not. *le shrug*

Seeing as my “Go to college without going broke” book keep climbing up the ranks (it’s currently ranked #1,549 out of about a million Kindle books!), I figured I’d post this on the off chance anybody wants to hire me. I would love nothing more than to become a full-time contributor/blogger/columnist/whatever on the topic of personal finance, especially if it’s aimed at young people (students and recent graduates). Leave a comment on this post or go to my “contact” page if you’re interested. I also do birthday parties. *g*

The 3-day-long giveaway of my “Go to college without going broke” book worked even better than I’d expected: as of right now, it’s been downloaded 14,747 times – and no, that’s not a typo. I can’t even visualize that many people… When I wrote my first book, Atheism-101, I used to get anxiety attacks after I sold a few hundred copies. After all, scores of strangers around the world would get a glimpse of my mind, and my creation would live on forever in all those Kindles, smart phones, computers or whatever it is people use to read their books these days. In a way, it’s kind of like Tom Riddle’s diary in the second Harry Potter book: when you write a book, you create a hard copy of a certain part of your mind, a snapshot of yourself that will never change or grow older.

I find it funny now that I used to worry so much about “only” a few hundred sales. Now that my “Go to college” book has been downloaded almost fifteen thousand times, I’m not even sure what to think. I’m nonplussed. A bit nervous and quite impressed. This giveaway was a win-win idea: if the book sales didn’t take off after the giveaway’s end, I still would have helped thousands of people save millions of dollars on their college degrees. If, on the other hand, the book became a bestseller, I would have helped others and earned some money. Looks like it’s the latter: according to the most recent statistics, my book is ranked #2,315 in the Kindle store (out of about a million books out there) and it’s the 12th most popular personal finance book on the web. With any luck, it’ll go a bit higher, make its way into the top 10, and I’ll be able to add “bestselling personal finance author” to my long, long list of achievements.

Life is good…

A week or so ago, I enrolled my e-books in Amazon’s KDP Select program. Long story short, it allows Amazon Prime users to borrow my books for free and (supposedly) results in more sales. It also lets me give my books away for free for five days every three months. The logic is simple: give your books away for free, get higher sales ratings, more reviews, and so on, and after the giveaway ends, your book will start making you a lot more money. Also, fame and/or glory. Maybe. Who knows.

Aaaanyway, I decided to give away my “Go to college without going broke” book today and tomorrow just to see what would happen. I just woke up and logged it into my KDP menu to see what the sales are like and, well, let’s say it’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking my morning tea because HOLY COW, 614 DOWNLOADS!!!! The number grows every time I click “Refresh,” so it’s probably a safe bet that it will reach several thousand by tomorrow midnight. Just to give you a rough idea, my other book, “Atheism-101,” never sold more than 320 copies a month. And the truth is, whatever happens after the sale ends, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t care if “Go to college” will plunge back into the depths of Amazon’s ratings, with hardly any sales save for on occasional bored reader. Sure, the money would be great, but what matters the most is that 639 people (just got 25 new downloads in the past two minutes!) will have read my book and learned my money-saving secrets.

Even if only 10% of them actually follow up on my advice, that’s still 64 people that will end up saving time and money and beating the system. It’s such an odd feeling – knowing that right now, over 600 people are reading something I wrote months ago, essentially tapping into my mind and learning about the college shortcuts I’d come up with years ago. It’s an odd feeling – odd but not unpleasant. I wonder what will happen next. Right now, at 8:04am Pacific Time, there have been 681 downloads, and the book is currently ranked #3,195 Free in Kindle Store. Eight hours down, 40 more to go!

And to all those who found my site from the blurb at the end of the book – welcome! Leave a comment, say hello, and I hope all that atheism-related stuff doesn’t scare you away. *g* 

“A high percentage of people who wear their religion on their sleeve tend not to follow their religion’s teachings in everyday life.”

(I know, I know – I am very humble.) That happens all the time, all around us: people who are loud and vocal about their religion and who randomly bring up their faith in conversation often turn out to be hypocrites. Granted, there are those who are vocal about their religion and walk the walk – kudos to them, as long as they don’t oppress others in the name of their faith. The people I’m talking about range from petty, backstabbing coworkers who praise Jesus whenever they can and wear giant crucifixes, to famous politicians who play the faith card and claim to be holier than thou, all the while cheating on their wife (or husband!), embezzling funds, and doing all sorts of other decidedly un-Christian things.

It’s quite ironic that our society is far more willing to accept hypocritical loudmouth religious people (not just Christians, mind you – every religion has them), while bashing atheists who lead perfectly moral, law-abiding lives and whose only sin is their refusal to believe in God. Why does it have to be this way? Why is vocal hypocrisy accepted when quiet dissent is demonized? Is it merely because of the religion-based “us versus them” association and unwillingness to punish somebody from your own camp? Is it because this kind of hypocrisy is so ancient and ubiquitous that at this point it’s almost a way of life?

I don’t know, and I doubt anybody can come up with a definitive answer… What I do know is that earlier tonight a highly religious but otherwise average buddy of mine revealed his true colors and, well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t bother pointing out that what he did was just about as un-Christian as it gets. I doubt he would have understood, and if he had, he probably would have just ignored it and moved on…