So with the anouncement that McKee Baking Company (maker of Little Debbie) would be picking up Drake’s, they soon set up a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Drakes which started off stating:
“We are very busy at McKee Foods working to bring your favorite Drake’s products back exactly how you remember them.”
To many people’s questions: “Our plans have not yet been announced, but stay tuned!”
So they make routine posts for fans to comment on, and share old photos and even videos of ads, and even a $5000 sweepstakes framed around them needing to find the missing duck mascot in order to get the cakes back out there.
This could be the best thing to happen to Drake’s, or it’s death!
Andrew Lederer “Drake’s Cakes: I Am That Yankee Doodle Boy”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-j-lederer/drakes-cakes-i-am-that-ya_b_2891399.html on the article’s blog asked why I thought ownership by Little Debbie would be just as “head-to-head thwarting” than ownership by Hostess.
I guess it is, to some extent, but not nearly as long of a competition. Drake’s was strictly northeast (except for Florida), and Little Debbie was the South, and didn’t come to the northeast (at least not NYC, where Drake’s was centered) until ’85. They did sort of fill in for each other, and when I discovered Little Debbie for the first time in VA the year before that, I did kind of think of it as being like the Drake’s of the South. (For one thing, it being the only kosher line back then).
So it seems Drake’s and Little Debbie could go together well, potentially making great partners (with the unique tasting products). I’ve thought that for a long time, before there was any thought there would be a Hostess/Drake’s conglomerate, and that it would fall, and Drake’s would be picked up by McKee.
But then it seems this purchase, of a small regional brand by a larger national one, puts it in a vulnerable position. It is expendable.
Hostess is being bought by a company that owns several different kinds of product lines (most notably, Pabst beer). So Hostess will now be its representative in the bakery field. The new owners have simply to hire new people at the existing bakeries that are not being sold, and production is now be said to resume this summer.
Flowers was a long time baking giant, that didn’t have much of an identity of its own; with most of its cakes being knockoffs of Hostess (Twinkies/”Bingles”; cupcakes, Sno-Balls, etc.), and no consistent brand (tried Beebo for a couple of decades, now going with BlueBird, and don’t forget all the third party labels over the years).
So Tastykake, with it’s own large selection of unique products, can naturally be promoted (and spread) as the new Flowers flagship, motivating that company to use it to expand into new areas.
Little Debbie is almost strictly cakes (plus the Sunbelt snacks), which are also pretty unique, and has already spread nationally, so it doesn’t need Drake’s. It could at any time decide they are unprofitable and discontinue them. This is pretty much what Hostess did in Florida for a time (’05, when I was down there for a couple of days, and swung by the Merita thrift shop), though it was also making some headway spreading them in spots elsewhere around the country.
It (to me), is sort of an eerie parallel to the fates of Hanna-Barbera vs Filmation. Hanna Barbera had a lot of its own property, and was eventually picked up by media giant Turner, who filled its cable networks with the old cartoons, and this was later picked up by Warner Brothers, who added it to its own family. The studio itself was eventually integrated into the new Cartoon Network and WB Animation studios, and its franchises (especially Scooby) live on.
Filmation fell into the hands of a big global cosmetic company which only wanted the already produced property, and promptly shut it down (even while a new season of programs was in production). I kept thinking to myself, why couldn’t they get a better buyer, like HB? (Recently getting the producer’s biography, I read that he did try to buy it back himself, but couldn’t).
It’s like in both cases, the leading #1 brand gets the better deal, and the unique, yet less popular, and struggling #2 man is left more vulnerable.
As it is, Little Debbie only plans to distribute Drake’s in the original core market, of the northeast. All of the places Hostess had expanded it to will apparently be left out, at least for now. I don’t even think Florida, where kosher consumers brought it to decades ago, will be included. The sweepstakes was only open to the 11 states from PA/MD to Maine. (Not even DC or VA, whose northern part was where its old distribution reached, and they will now be baked there).
People from all around the country (where they had expanded) are asking for them! People in other places who remembered them from the northeast, also are asking for them. With Little Debbie cake racks already set up nationally, it shouldn’t be hard to add a few Drake’s to them.
Also of note, is product parallels between the two companies. Little Debbie already has its own version of three key Drake’s products: the Swiss Rolls (Yodels), the newer Cocoa Cremes (Ring Dings), and Devil Cremes (Devil Dogs. From my travels, they seemed to only be in the northeast, to go up against Devil Dogs).
The swiss rolls seemed to have been there all along. They have their own distinctive super-sweet taste, and the non-glossy icing that usually flakes off of the cake, often becoming stuck to the wrapper when it’s hot. They are NOTHING like Yodels, aside from the shape. (Yodel icing is more glossy, and the cake has a more rich, solid taste, but not as “heavy” as Hostess and other brands’ devil’s food. That’s what made Drake’s so distinctive).
The Devil Cremes seem to have evolved from the old Devil Twins. Similar LD “super sweet” taste, and even drier. Again, nothing like Devil Dogs, except for the look (and they were actually a bit flatter as well, though the pictures on the boxes now make them look identical to the slightly fluffier Devil Dogs).
The tastes of both pairs of cakes are so unique and different from each other, I like both, and would not want to see any of them be replaced by the other.
The Cocoa Cremes taste more like Hostess Ding Dongs than Ring Dings. (They do not even taste like LD’s swiss rolls, even though it is the same devil’s food-creme-icing makeup. The icing is also more like Ding Dongs). Nothing unique or historical about them at all; they could just replace those with Ring Dings, as far as I’m concerned.
The first concern to Drakes’ fans, naturally, is them simply packaging these same products as Drake’s. The FB page assures us McKee have “the classic Drake’s recipes and have no plans to change them”. (And also addressing the kosher approval, which some asked about. Little Debbies around here have kosher symbols on them, so this should be no problem at all).
The one other thing I wish they would buy would be the Wayne, NJ bakery, which would be good to not possibly stretch the capacity of the northern Virginia bakery McKee plans to move the operation to; but also, as I learned with Twinkies years ago, the water in different places can make the products taste different. (Back when Twinkies still had their old grainy sugary taste up here in NY, the ones in VA tasted totally bland, and I was told it was the water. Someone in Florida mentioned the Ring Dings down there, probably by then being made at the NC Hostess plant, having the creme taste and freeze totally different than the ones he grew up with up north).
It’s probably moving everything from there to Virginia that is taking it so long to get production started again. (I’ve heard December).
Hostess will get its bakeries back, and Tastykake will keep its bakery, but basically, Drake’s is being uprooted to new and foreign territory as far as production (but not covering any new ground as far as distribution!)
I just hope this works out!
I wonder whether Drake’s will be completely integrated with Little Debbie sales in the northeast, or be separate compliments to each other (like Tastykake under new owner Flowers, though still carrying some of its products like the red velvet cupcakes and Dreamies, which are the third party Bingles or fake Twinkies, shared by the Mrs Freshley label).
If separate, I’d love to see some of the Little Debbie products added to the Drake’s brand.
So you would have the core Drake’s products:
Devil Dogs
Funny Bones
Yankee Doodles
Sunny Doodles
Ring Dings
Yodels
Coffee Cake Jr
Fruit Pies
Then, you could add:
•Banana Twins
•Zebra Cakes (two smaller ones in a pack like in the family pack boxes. So it would in a way be sort of like vanilla Ring Dings).
•Boston Creme Rolls
•Banana Pudding Rolls
•Apple Danish
•Cloud Cakes (consider banana, strawberry, chocolate creme versions like old Drake’s “Shortcakes”)
•Apple Delights
Perhaps some of the other cookies
Perhaps also Fancy Cakes, Frosted Fudge Cakes
Donuts (individual packs, family pack boxes, not bags)
To differentiate products between both brands:
•Devil Cremes – Change back into Devil Twins to avoid confusion with Devil Dogs
•Swiss Rolls – Change into other other size “rolls” to avoid confusion with Yodels
•Cocoa Cremes – Replace with Ring Dings or change shape
The idea would create more balance in Drake’s, since they are heavy on the chocolate side.
Another old Drake’s product I’d love to see come back is the Swiss Roll, which to them was different from the one LD calls “swiss roll” (which again is more like a Yodel). It was one large roll with a lot of creme, but without any frosting. (At times, there were two smaller ones). So there would be a conflict in names with that one.
For now, according to the products they are showing on the images on the page, and asking which is our favorite, and which we will get first when they come back, it looks like it will only be Devil Dogs, Yodels, Ring Dings and Coffee Cakes (and it’s the 8 or 10 pack boxes they are showing. Didn’t think about whether they will only be boxes or individual packs or not).
In a post on the FB page asking for our fond memories of Drake’s:
Swiss Rolls
Shortcakes, which tasted like Sunny Doodles. Particularly strawberry and banana creme.
Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles when they weren’t freshly baked. Nothing else like that cool, smooth chocolate taste/texture.
Not really a “fond” memory, but looking for Drakes all over Norfolk, during college, not realizing they were not national. However, this was when I first discovered Little Debbie (right before it came up north), and it too was a nice unique set of cakes.
But the fond part of that was waiting until I got back home, and then going to the nearest bodega and filling up a little brown paper bag with all my favorites; usually one of each: Devil Dogs, Yankee and Sunny Doodles, Yodels, swiss rolls and banana and strawberry shortcakes.
On the way home for that Thanksgiving break, getting off the plane (first time flying, too), and finding the bus to the subway (The old Victor Moore Arcade in Jackson Heights), and grabbing the first bunch of Drakes in a newsstand there. (Then playing Do Run Run and probably also Jr Pacman in the game arcade heading down to the subway).
To answer today’s post, when they do come back, I had already planned: Devil Dogs and Yodels (and was assuming Yankee and Sunny Doodles would be there as well). I’ll be breaking my practical wheat and sugar fast, but of course I’ll have to try the new ones when they come back! (To see if they’re making good on restoring them “as we remember them”. Plan to try the new Twinkies and perhaps Suzy Q’s and maybe cupcakes, when they return).
I today shot and posted a couple of my old artifacts:
Here’s a rarity. A Pound Cake box from the mid-80′s. I had thought that perhaps they were trying to compete with Entenmann’s and others with the fancy script logo, but considering Drake’s began with a pound cake, perhaps this is the original one!
Also, in digging this out, I forgot about Borden’s letter code, where Drake’s was “G” (you can barely make this out in the address), and IIRC, Wise chips was “R”.
Forgot that they once did have pudding pies, let alone these being in my collection. (I had been saying it would be nice for the revived Drake’s to inherit the chocolate pie from Little Debbie, since I didn’t remember them ever having their own pudding, like Hostess and the others. Don’t see how I could forget the banana, even; one of my favorite sweets flavors).
The logo is the last one before the final/current one, and was from the late 80′s/early 90′s.
All seemed quiet on the Mario front, but today, on my FB wall, a trailer video on Super Mario 3D World; the newest 3D platformer for the Wii U, announced last week and planned for release in December. (I was still waiting for a proposed “downloadable content” (DLC) addon to SM3DLand!)
The big new powerup now is CAT Mario! (And the game’s logo shows a cat tail sticking out, replacing the raccoon tail!). It’s gained from a bell mushroom knocked out of blocks.
Cat Mario can climb walls, and climb to the top of the flagpole if he jumped onto it further down.
It will now be the first four player (like SMBW and SMBWU) 3D game, and it goes back to the old SMB2 lineup of Mario, Luigi, the Princess and Toad (but a blue-spotted one instead of red).
Some people are happy to see it’s not the same “the princess is kidnapped” theme. But like SMB3 (where she was free and sent messages throughout the game), she can still be kidnapped in the last world.
Other features:
•A purple boss who’s some sort of king (wearing a crown), leading some to wonder if Bowser is the boss. (Probably just a new underboss. The game still has Bowser flags at the checkpoints).
•Clear pipes (some of them having coins running through them)
•Some sort of clear blocks that are invisible until you point to them with the remote
•Throwable snowballs
•Snowman Pokeys
•A little orange dinosaur you ride through water surface on
•Some sort of little ice buggy rides with goombas (don’t know if this might be a separate mini game or something)
•And all the typical “NSMB age” and 3D Mario features, plus all-new characters.
Will this be what finally leads me to get the Wii U? (Then, I would want to catch up with last winter’s NSMBWU, as well. Or maybe not, as it is so much like NSMBW, though I did want a chance to see if I could beat the final castle, which doesn’t look that hard). Oh well, trying it out it at Nintendo World will make for a nice addition to my Christmas season visits to the Rockefeller Center area!
My wife long ago noted that I don’t kiss up to people, and for some reason I had a hard time explaining why. But recently reading that expectations are what cause almost all of our pain, this gave me a way to articulate it.
I don’t kiss up to others (in authority) because it creates an expectation of some reward, and I’ll tend to be impatient, and then terribly let down if it doesn’t work. Plus, I know I’m not good at charming people like that, and also feel it’s “using” people in an ulterior fashion, and would be found out and rebuffed anyway. (Inferior extraverted Feeling). Even if that wasn’t a problem, people will screw you even if it seems you have won their favor.
This I learned about myself from my parents, when being put on some kind of punishment (especially “No TV!), and having to please them to get off of it or have it shortened, and being impatient and eagerly waiting, but told not yet. I came to hate having to depend on someone else’s “good graces” like that.
In terms of temperament, while the Supine [INP] naturally aims to please, the Choleric [NT] wants to be brought under nobody’s control like that. (I originally wrote this for a type discussion regarding ESTJ’s, who had mixed results regarding this practice. They are part “Choleric” also: the EST; yet the “cooperative” SJ {Melancholic} part may or may not go for that, depending on the situation).
In a discussion on the “CapitalismInstitute” meme “Redistribution if not Fairness, it’s Theft”, one person points out that the only redistribution for the past 30 years has been to the top 1%. This leads to a debate between him and the person who shared it on Obama wanting “to steal it from the people who EARNED it and give it to those who are too lazy to work for it”, (and how a union worker could support conservative ideology) or whether a CEO does enough work in an hour to earn what his employees make in a year (or whether this is just the “crock” of the “liberal-biased media”).
I then pointed out that all the money isn’t going to people who “refuse to work”, which is a diversionary rhetoric, and that it’s not “liberal media” we get this from, because they’ve actually been really slow to respond to a lot of this stuff.
Another person mentions the global economy’s effect on public sector unions, and said we need to distinguish crony capitalists from those like Steve Jobs who play by the rules and design new products customers can’t want to buy.
He says another major problem is the feds rules constantly changing or generating uncertainty causing businesses to hold back from expanding and hoard cash, and concludes that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton created pro-growth economic policies that helped the average guy a lot more than Obama, who is more interested in wealth redistribution.
So I point out:
I still think that the parameters of how much people are “rewarded” for creating popular things (which conservatives attribute to “the market”, as if this were a conscious entity in itself) are set in part by a lot of string-pulling (hence the gap increasing). We see this in sports and entertainment, where their compensation has shot up phenomenally in the past century as well. But they are unionized workers rather than CEO’s, so I’ve noticed that conservatives will actually lump them in as “takers”, occasionally (but the focus continues to be the poor on “welfare”). Still the dynamic is the same. They have something people want, and use that as leverage to make boundless demands. And the costs pass down. Then [the new point I was introducing in my statements on politics], conservatives begin talking about “zero sum games”, which they deny. But that actually goes both ways. If nonworking poor are getting all this money, and then going and blowing it all (as that “Grasshopper” analogy suggests) on gold chains, cars, electronics, etc. all of that money is going right back into the economy. They are not the ones SITTING on it, or taking it out of the country.
So you admit people with wealth “hoard” it, but blame government policies, particularly Obama (Conservatives never put Clinton in the same category as Reagan; until Obama, he was seen as the virtual Antichrist and the antithesis of Reagan).
But that’s an excuse. As the Zeitgeist films point out, they have created an illusion of scarcity, and thus are the ones playing off of a “zero sum game”, which people are trying to blame on the poor, instead of them.
So if Obama is just trying to “redistribute” (and this is what Clinton was accused of also), then that is simply to counter the redistribution already going on tn the OTHER direction. So maybe the way he’s going about it is wrong. But what else can he do? We’ve tried giving the powerful more, and it always end up with the same thing: them hoarding, and the poor and the government being blamed (even under Reagan this went on).
Another meme had Thomas Sewell’s statement “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money”.
But that hinges on what you consider “earning”. The premise is that the widening income gap is from corporatists pulling strings, influencing and then gaining special benefits from the government themselves, in addition to jacking up price, lowering quality and cutting jobs here for cheaper labor elsewhere. So the debate is how true that is, and whether taxing is the solution. But it stands that the people being defended here are no less human and prone to dishonest gain than anyone else, including the poor.
Another meme lumped Michelle Obama’s statement about being proud of the country for the first time, with Rev. Wright’s curse on America, and a couple of other things, the point being how the Obama’s “hate” America; and I pointed out “Michelle went from not being proud to being proud, yet staunch “patriots” like Rush go the opposite direction, and conservative Christian preachers have long ushered curses on America during every national tragedy!”
It’s like patriotism is conditional on the nation going the way you want!
Just this morning, someone posted this excellent meme:
If you think that’s some sort of exaggeration, look at this (from Capitalisminstitute):
They are really preparing for a civil war against the government!
It’s not a matter of saying no one should ever overthrow a tyrannical government; but rather what they’re interpreting as tyrannical, and why (again, refusing to look at all sides regarding who holds the power). Remember, this group is representing capitalism. Why do capitalists, as much as their leaders are profiting (despite the state of the economy), claiming they are under tyranny? What else do they want?
A couple of days ago:
Philip Yancey put up this article on past race relations: Jackie’s Giant Bat:
http://www.philipyancey.com/archives/3765/comment-page-1#comment-9189
where he gives some of his experience (as he does in many of his books), and I wrote out a response int he comments:
This is a great confession, and something that’s been needed for a long time. For generations the problem was ignore (while secretly opposing racial progress), and now, many diehard conservatives insist all of that doesn’t matter, and that the “anti-God” liberals are wrongly playing a “race card” on them, so that blacks can get “freebies”, and politicians get their votes. All of this rhetoric you can hear loudly, today.
Considering that many of these people are still alive, and it becomes clear that all the rabid hatred against Obama is more then mere “disagreement” as they insist (Christians used to say that one must respect and pray for our leaders; now it’s “he’s not my president”!), and that the “contemporary music debate” among old-liners in the Church (including BJU and others) is more than a concern for “holiness”.
Also, that the rejection of psychology by these same people is more than a concern for “Biblical means of counseling”; for it explains a lot of their behavior; particularly the fierce denial, and fingerpointing at others as trying to dominate and destroy them (projection).
Listening to all the anti-Obama rhetoric, cloaked under patriotism made me realize that the main problem is that people are trying so hard to defend the “honor” of the nation, and to do that, they can’t admit any of this stuff. They have to prove it was justified, and then then, not really that bad (“it improved their lives over tribal existence; you should be thankful” I was told on a Christian board once). Yet here you are coming from that background on the dominant side, confirming it was bad and worse.
So they have to not only justify or sweep under the rug these things, but also for a second barrel, continue to prove that blacks are the cause of all our financial, moral and cultural problems, and the ultimate judgment is that they just want to leech off of everyone instead of just improving their families and work ethic “like everyone else did”. So they compound the old racism with new racist sentiment.
The primary fundamental of the faith, what it’s all founded upon, is that the way to deal with sin and guilt is to confess and forsake it (Prov. 28:13) [meant to tie this in with Christ being the one who bore our sin, hence, we're not suppose to be denying our own, as if it wasn't borne by Him, and then having to project it onto others], but the people who preach this the most; defend it against all “compromise” and unbelief, etc. just won’t do it themselves for that issue. They don’t seem to have a clue, that this is what is required of them (not the stuff they assume others are trying to get from them). They’d rather focus on other people’s sins, such as sex-related stuff or liberal policies.
So we really need more from within our ranks to call this stuff out.
—
In a Church where very few had really addressed this issue (most just shied away from it, until it fell more int he background, and now seem to feel it has become irrelevant with the passing of time), Yancey has really called the Church out on this more than anyone else (and offered his own statement “Today I feel shame, remorse, and also repentance”).
Another notable person is Michael Horton, who does so in a less extensive, but also less soft-spoken fashion than Yancey), in books such as Beyond Culture Wars, and particularly in light of the conservative Church’s traditionally moralistic stance against the rest of society, especially in such politicized issues as abortion. Like he had pointed out that the whole conservative evangelical agenda is not about the evangel, but rather all “about a culture. It’s about preserving traditional values of, for and by, a certain segment of society” (p35), and that “in the 1950′s, during the civil rights movement, most evangelical leaders remained silent” and “We have never repented of that silence as a body”, and that all of this is what in the 60′s and 70′s led “the children of Christian parents to rebel along with everyone else” (p.198-9). “We have turned the one true God of history and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ into a tribal deity of the American experience— we who are supposed to be the guardians of absolute truth” (p117). He also points out “Nationalism is a form of collective narcissism, as the psychologist Karl Menninger seems to indicate: ‘The sin of pride appears most conspicuously in group pride—tribalism, nationalism, jingoism, racism’. While this tendency toward self-infatuation has been apart of human nature ever since the Fall, we see it expressed very blatantly in our own day” (p.134).Other good statements: “How can we avoid creating the impression that our opposition to [issues involving homosexuals] is really based on moral absolutes and not on bigotry when we are proven bigots where the issue has nothing to do with an immoral lifestyle?” (p. 34) “But the problem in our day is that we are not this counterculture the New Testament describes. We are extensions of the cultural, social, economic and racial divisions already present in the city of man.” (p. 167)
Around the same time, on a Facebook post, a lot of good points:
And as much as people today object a “race card” being played on them, why was there apparently such an online uproar over an interracial family in a commercial?
I remember over 20 years ago, my soon to be wife explaining to me why the hero and heroine of “the Bodyguard” could not be shown as an intimate couple in the movie. I had thought society had become liberated enough to completely accept interracial relationships, but apparently not in movies. I could not for the life of me figure out the rationale for that. Come to find, 21 years later, in the age of internet feedback, it is still so offensive to people!
The hypothesis is that the factors of temperament are the root of personality through neurological elements, rather than the cognitive processes, which themselves are believed to have a neurological basis.
It’s all about a person’s stimulatability.
We can make 1 a need for more stimulation, and 0 a need for less stimulation.
There are two dimensions of stimulatability.
How much one is willing to actively move to gain stimuli (e), and how much he wants to passively receive it from others (w).
If we divide this into the areas of surface social skills (I), leadership and responsibilities (C), and closer personal relationships (A), we will have a six digit binary code.
xxxxxx (x=variable)
The values of each digit represent:
ewewew
IICCAA
For the 16 types, we only need the first four digits.
The way it translates into the type factors:
eI = extraversion (1)/introversion (0)
wI = informing (1)/directing (0)
eC = pragmatic (1)/cooperative (0)
wC = motive (1)/structure (0)
ISTJ 0000xx
INFJ 0001xx
INTJ 0010xx
ISTP 0011xx
ISFJ 0100xx
INFP 0101xx
INTP 0110xx
ISFP 0111xx
ESTJ 1000xx
ENFJ 1001xx
ENTJ 1010xx
ESTP 1011xx
ESFJ 1100xx
ENFP 1101xx
ENTP 1110xx
ESFP 1111xx
Temperaments, Interaction Styles
SJ xx00xx
NF xx01xx
NT xx10xx
SP xx11xx
Chart the Course 00xxxx
Behind the Scenes 01xxxx
In Charge 10xxxx
Get Things Going 11xxxx
We now can also map the cognitive functions to this neurological binary, through their common effects on type:
(Also, Y and Z will indicate that the values must be different from each other, and it can be either way: Y=0, Z=1 or Y=1, Z=0).
Se xx11xx (dominant: 1x11xx)
Si xx00xx (dominant: 0x00xx)
Ne x1YZxx (dominant: 11YZxx)
Ni x0YZxx (dominant: 00YZxx)
Te x0x0xx (dominant: 10x0xx)
Ti xY1Zxx (dominant: 1Y1Zxx)
Fe xY0Zxx (dominant: 1xYoZxx)
Fi x1x1xx (dominant: 01x1xx)
My full type binary code: 011001
This is also useful in outlining Leo Ryan’s partial ICA combinations:
The Rock: 000000
The Hollow Man: 101010
Full Blown Neurotic/High Expectations: 010101
Ball of Fire: 111011
Let’s Have a Party/Party Time/Flower Child: 110011
Dictator/Controller: 001000
Foot Stomping Dependent: 000100
Affectionate Homebody: 00xx11
Table Hopper: 11xx00
Have your cake and eat it too: 10xx01
The Patsy: xx1xx1
This would be basically the same as what is normally used in FIRO: 0=”l”[low]; 1=”h” [high]
We could also extend it to the moderate scores, with “M”, and for APS, to distinguish between the neighboring Phlegmatic blends, 4=m; 5=M.
Thus, Phlegmatic-Melancholy-SanguinePhlegmatic, would be MM001M.
Looking at it this way, there would be six “switches” in the brain so to speak, determining our personality; with the first four determining our cognitive preferences.
(It would also further explain why the preferred functions– the first two determining type –must always be Ji/Pe or Pi/Je alternations. Try to pair two e’s or i’s; or P with P or J with J, and you will get a conflict in one or two digits).
While I was able to produce codes for the eight function-attitudes, the four original functions by themselves (S, N, T, F) were a bit more difficult. S/N have a definite pattern, but it’s T/F that required much more thought.
S: –XX– (xx00xx—SJ/Si, xx11xx—SP/Se)
N: –XY– (xx01xx—N+F, xx10xx—N+T)
Again, of the two middle digits; the first is cooperative(0)/pragmatic(1), (which I associated with “expressed control”). The second is Structure(0)/Motive(1), (which would fit “wanted Control”).
I think there might be something to this in the brain. The expressive/responsive factors I am using may be connected with stimulatability to the outside world, and thus may have to do with particular regions of the brain. So I could see where having the two areas governing our conative skills with similar levels of stimulatability might make us focus more on concrete or tangible reality, while having them different might make us focus away from the tangible, onto the abstract or conceptual. Don’t know exactly how, but I can’t help notice that the congruence of one would figure in a person preferring to see what’s there, and incongruence would lead one to focus on what is not there.
T and F were harder to define
(Omitting the first digit, which is I/E):
T: 000 (STJ), 010 (NTJ), 011 (STP), 110 (NTP)
F: 001 (NFJ), 100 (SFJ), 101 (NFP), 111 (SFP)
It’s hard to see a common thread in those numbers.
Trying different things, what I found is from looking at the “pure” tendencies of the preference:
T: directive (0–), pragmatic (-1-), structure-focused (–0).
F: informative (1–) , cooperative (-0-), motive focused (–1).
The T/F preference will be determined whenever two or three of these digits are matched.
What made it hard is that I was looking at patterns of 0 and 1, with T leaning towards 0′s representing “low wanted” or “task-focus”, and F leaning towards 1′s representing “high wanted” or “people-focus”.
However, T/F also figure in expressed Control, but in a reversed fashion. T will tend towards pragmatism (1), and F towards cooperativeness (0).
From there, I could finally see the pattern, of two out of three determining the preference.
The “purest” T in this respect would be NTJ (010), directive, pragmatic and structure focused.
STJ (000), is directive, cooperative and structure focused. STP (011) is directive, pragmatic and motive focused. NTP (110) is informative, pragmatic and structure focused.
So you look at something like 001, which has these two 0′s together, but one of those 0′s represents cooperativeness, and the other directiveness, and the single one represents motive focus. So there’s only one match to the ideal T leaning, so this falls on the F side (NFJ).
The most “pure” F in this respect is NFP (101), informative, cooperative, motive. SFP (111) is informative, pragmatic, motive. SFJ (100) is informative, cooperative, structure,
It also works for J/P (which I discovered first, from noticing the patterns in the 1′s and 0′s):
J: 000 (STJ), 001 (NFJ), 010 (NTJ), 100 (SFJ)
P: 011 (STP), 101 (NFP), 110 (NTP), 111 (SFP)
The J’s clearly favor the 0′s, and the P’s, the 1′s. This I looked for in T/F, but it fit J/P instead. J/P are similar to T/F, in the wanted scales, with J favoring 0, and P favoring 1. Yet in cooperative/pragmatic, they are opposite of T/F, with J favoring 0 (cooperative) and P favoring 1 (pragmatic). That actually matches the other two digits, hence, it is more obvious.
So it’s the same principle: two or three out of three.
STJ (000: directive, cooperative, structure) is the “purest” J in this respect. SFJ (100: informative, cooperative, structure); NFJ (001: directive, cooperative, motive); NTJ (010: directive, pragmatic, structure)
SFP (111: informative, pragmatic, motive) is the purest P. NFP (101: informative, cooperative, motive); NTP (110: informative, pragmatic, structure); STP (011: directive, pragmatic, motive).
So again, the point is that if these digits might represent points in the brain (through their stimulatability), then this might show where functional preference might be formed in neurology.
Consolidating the further updates to both the sugar and carbs substitutes series
http://erictb.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/a-chronology-of-sugar-substitutes
http://erictb.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/the-next-step-carbs-and-triglycerides
here.
To recap, for the foreseeable future, I’m going with an alternation between erythritol/stevia mixes (or Truvia with more erythritol added) for easier to sweeten drinks like tea with milk and lemonade, erythritol by itself in drinks that already have stevia (Zevia) and xylitol for harder to sweeten caffeine without milk (iced tea and Zevia cola).
Trying to hang on to some packs of Xylosweet, because they’re good to have if I need a sweetener on the go (like if I’m taking a can of Zevia to work, or getting tea with milk outside).
The next thing I will try soon is my own bottle of liquid stevia, so see how well it goes in lemonade and iced tea, and in mixtures with erythritol.
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So I got the latest blood report now, and total cholesterol (172), LDL (78) and A1C (6.3) are all in the good range, so it’s only triglycerides which are still high, at 281, but this is a big drop. It still needs to be cut almost in half, and I would like to cut the carbs (now mainly rice) at least in half, but once again, it is very difficult.
Also to cut a rather big food bill (high in part from trying to eat healthy), I’ve been suggesting just meat and salad or other vegetables most of the time. Problem is, the starches are the cheapest of the foods (hence, why they became such a prominent fixture in our diet, basically a “filler”), so it’s not saving a lot to reduce them. (Wonder if this was done intentionally to get us hooked, as Wheat Belly alludes to). The meat is the most expensive, and I could conceivably give that up and go on vegetables alone, as I essentially did in the Air Force, but it seems I need the protein now, especially with a job that takes a lot of energy.
Finally got the Santa Cruz lemon juice, along with Grateful Harvest Organic “Lemon Shot”, which is one of those things sold in a plastic lemon. This was at the Park Av.S store (Health 4 U), and a different brand than the one I saw at Whole Foods (Volcano Lemon Burst) .
The Santa Cruz had more of that “pine wax” taste than either the Lakewood or 365, while the Lemon Shot is the one that smells just like a real lemon! It’s totally clear, and I had trouble getting enough taste by itself for lemonade, but just a squirt is nearly perfect for the iced tea, with two teaspoons of erythritol, and a half spoon of Truvia. (The tea with the other juices was tasting really watery, and adding more juice made taste more like the juice than like tea, and I was beginning to wonder if the sweeteners were the problem).
So now, I’m finishing out the lemon juice for glasses of lemonade (adding water, and a half spoon or so of Truvia is good enough; not going to waste the erythritol or xylitol trying to improve the taste).
My wife also got me some Twinings Cold Brew peach tea, which of course, I don’t need the lemon for.
