Lessons Learning

Wisdom from the land of the online dating sites:

• Photos:
• Ok, I'm superficial. Fine, I can handle that. I need pictures, plural. (and eHarmony, I really don't want to pay you for the pleasure. grrr...)
  
• I know, I'm a camera geek, but surely you can see that the quality of the picture you uploaded is bad, right?
  
• Half face covered in shadow
• 16 pixels total
• blurry because the camera didn't focus or blurry because you blurred it?
• Red eyes? ix-nay on the demonic irlfriend-gay
• Dark hair? Dark clothes? Dark background? bad photo? Ah! Floating HEAD!
  
• Where are you? Disneyword? Cute. Paris? Cool. The bathroom? Awkward. Also, is that a rifle in the background?
• Why are you clutching lovingly at the guy there? If that's a brother or friend or something, a note would be nice.
  
• related - Disturbing crops. Who or what did you crop out of that photo. Are you leaning on a photogenically ugly wall or Bin Laden?
  
• I know that you are trying to show that you are active and all, but if you are in mortal danger in each of your photos, perhaps you ain't for me.
• Cute picture of you at the bar with friends? cool, shows you are sociable and what you do for fun.
• Several photos of you completely sloshed and slightly drooling? Not so cool. Shows you are sociable and what you do for fun.
• Glamor shots. Ok, this may be just me, but a woman who can dress up or down for anything is very attractive. A woman who wears an inch and a half of pancake, chisel-proof hair, tilts her head at a 45 degree angle and looks back over her head with a runaway bride look in her eyes - not so much.
• Cleavage. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of cleavage, and there's nothing wrong with showing it in your pictures, but c'mon cameraman, the eyes are up here. If the photo is focused on your boobs, and I can see more than your plastic surgeon could, I'm going to assume that's all you have to offer.
• Animals. Again, I get it. You love animals. I do too. But if there are significantly more pictures of your beloved Bingo then of you, I'm curious if there's room in your world for anyone else.

I'm learning more and more every day :)

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

I've discovered that I follow through on things more when I make them slightly more public, so I'm going to try to do that a little more here on the blog, and maybe I'll be able to actually have a social life this year - believe in miracles, friends and neighbors.

This spring I promised myself that I would, so I've been surfing the dating sites almost all day today. Ach, depressing. So far the results are... limited and confusing - much like my love life in general, I suppose.

I actually like the eHarmony system quite a lot, but either I'm a bigger freak than I assumed (quite possible), or everyone who wasn't hyper-Christian already left eHarmony after all the bad press they got. I think I ended up with two results within my state. And I like in a big state. And I think dating someone in Germany or Turkey would be cool, but perhaps not right now - The first date at a coffee shop might be... expensive.

The other two I've tried so far are Match.com (which I've heard has had some quality successes :P) and Chemistry.com. Match.com looks good - plenty of people - but a little overwhelming, and I'm not sure how well they match up with me. Anyway, that's where I've spent the most time today, and I might have screwed up the questionnaire on Chemistry, because their summary of my personality is a bit odd. Either that or I don't know myself as well as I thought. Also possible.

Also, dang! These things ain't cheap! Free versions for me for now.

Smoooth. Real Smooooth

• Two Japanese young women get on a very crowded bus and end up standing next to that guy. You know that guy. The overly-friendly, overly-loud guy who never really says anything horribly offensive, but makes everyone on the bus uncomfortable anyway. The women don't have a very good command of English, but the guy is trying his best to tell women number one how much he really loves her. Welcome to the US.
• (sidenote) After the women get off (he kisses their hands), a couple of sk8r bois (with boards) take their place in front of the guy. Said bois are quite young. That guy proceeds to tell a, um... rather blue joke and then explain that marijuana is ok, they'd better not do crack, 'cause he did that for seventeen years and it just about killed him.
  
• After the bois leave he announces that he is going to learn Japanese next so he can talk to all the sexy Japanese women. Then he announces his departure and lets everyone know that he'll be riding again next week, same time same bus. Good to know.
  
• In the grocery store, there's a older very skeezy looking guy following around a cute young stocker who looks to be taking him to some other aisle. The only part of the conversation I catch is the guy saying "... You don't know what that means? That means 'beautiful little one.' That's what you are." This followed by an exasperated sigh and a quickened pace from the stocker.
• Elsewhere in the grocery store, geeky-looking but large and imposing man has stunning women backed up against the diet sodas. She: arms folded across chest glancing from him to her shopping cart a few times. Him: one hand casually leaning against the display next to her, the other gesturing as he talks. As I pass by, she starts suddenly and, interrupting him, says that it was nice to meet him and starts to push away her cart, stopping only briefly to half-heartedly shake his proffered hand. As she moves away with a quickness, he makes no effort to hide the fact that he's staring right at her butt.

Gah. What a day for love. Does cupid have a hangover or something?

Best Typo Ever.

This is related to the sections before and after, but basically elf-sufficient in its argument.

Well, most of my arguments are rather founded on the mythical...

I'm glad I caught it before submitting it to this week's seminar group, but I've half a mind (I know) to keep it in there.

elf-sufficient. That's almost as good as significant otter.

Riding the Gift Horse

So, I did a favor for a lecturer-friend o' mine. It really wasn't anything big. She is running off to somewhere fun with her significant otter (I actually misspelled that, but I'm keeping it that way because I love the idea of having a significant otter.), and I helped her format some business cards and loaned her my thumbdrive so she could go get them printed out somewhere.

When I went to check my mailbox in the office today, I found a very sweet thank you note and two and a half pounds of coffee. So nice! So kind!

So sad that I don't drink coffee. :(