SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part VI

"Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes" by Bobby Freeman

eNOUGH! aBOUT! the SHOES!!!

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXII

From a caption on a picture in this article on Cracked's website:

A few years later, as she was trying to sell it during a garage sale, a passing art teacher walked by and told her that it looked like a Jackson Pollock, to which Horton politely responded, "Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock?"

I the fuck am Jackson Pollock

FAMILY MATTERS...

      I don't like going to see my Mom anymore. This actually isn't a new sentiment...I've felt it for several years now. I don't hate my Mom nor my stepfather nor my brother and his fiancée. I just don't feel like I belong with them anymore.

      It probably doesn't help that Mom has been living for like the past seven years now in a house I've never lived in so going home isn't going home at all. There are trinkets from our time together in places I would have called home, but it's not the same. I can't get comfortable in that house ever. I feel like I'm visiting some relative's house where you're not allowed to touch anything or the food available is stuff you never eat (in the bad way). I'm also so out of the loop in this household that I'm clearly the square peg being stuck into a round hole. I'm not like them at all. It's so much more stifling. The stuff they find funny doesn't really do it for me anymore. It's not that it isn't amusing, but it's like the difference between Louis CK (who is brutal and swears a lot) and Brian Regan (who is family friendly). They're both very good comics, but if you're of the Louis CK type, it's gonna be an uncomfortable experience and believe me, every time I do pipe in...if there is a wrong thing for me to say, I said it. Or to put it another way, imagine being the one Democrat in a house full of Republicans (or vice-versa). What's the point of offering an opinion if it is either going to be ignored or "wrong"? And then you get shit for not talking...no way to win.

      Even my cats are mostly gone. Only one remains of the three we got when I was in high school. There are two new ones now...more unfamiliarity, but they're not my cats, they're Mom and stepfather's cats. Sometime's I feel like the only reason I go to see my Mom at all is to see that cat and she's already seventeen so how much longer will that anchor remain?

       Mom already wants a Christmas list and I really don't want to provide one. I just don't want to bother anymore. I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the chore it is to go visit. I want to just drift away from that side of the family. I'm better with my Dad's side or at least I feel more welcomed so it's not like I want to shun everyone. Mom's side is like walking on eggshells and Dad's side, if I say something stupid, I will be called out on it then and there rather than "taken aside" hours later and quietly scolded. On Mom's side, I feel like I am allowed to have my opinions provided they are the right ones. I feel like I should not speak at all when around them because offense is internalized on that side and held like a grudge. If I avoid a subject at a gathering on my Dad's side, it is out of respect because I know where everyone stands on issues and we all want to have a good time. On Mom's side, offenses are strewn about like landmines so I avoid subjects out of fear. Visiting my Mom is stressful. If I could leave her home in the same mood in which I had arrived, it would be a miracle.

      It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if I am cowardly by nature or if my upbringing is more to blame. It's probably no coincidence that my discomfort with my Mom began not too many years after moving in with my Dad. I do not hold myself blameless in these confrontations but I refuse to accept that I am totally the asshole. I do not feel comfortable around my Mom, my stepfather, and my brother and haven't for a long time. Nowhere else do I feel this. My Best Friend's grandparents made me feel more at home and theirs truly was the house where you couldn't touch anything. I am just out-of-place with them. I don't want to deal with it anymore...

IT WOULDN'T HURT IF THIS MADE SENSE...

      I got a negative shock this Thanksgiving morning before going to bed. My friend, Bronx, unceremoniously deleted me as her Facebook friend. I was hurt and still am hurt because it doesn't make any sense. We've been friends for three years. I've wanted to see her more often than the one time we actually did but always had to defer because she was always crying poverty. She had to keep putting off hanging out/visiting because she had no money. The fact that she's been unemployed for as long as I've known her and who knows how long prior (except for maybe an occasional babysitting per diem) factored heavily into this and not my reluctance to take a bus into Manhattan to meet up. Hell, I've even offered to pay for her to come down and visit me but she would always refuse to accept my money. The point of me mentioning this is because the only reason I got for her tossing me to the curb was, and I quote, "We never see each other so I thought that maaybe [sic] we should stop talking. I have been looking for work and want to make friends and not have penpals."

     I don't get it. I really don't. We used to have long phone calls together and I delighted in receiving the occasional holiday card (and me, sending her some as well). She's honestly one of my favorite people and a source of joy. I don't understand this sudden change of ideology in her. There was no warning. It's not like we fought constantly or I would sabotage her happiness or simply make excuses not to hang out. The last time I talked to her was around my birthday. My Mom and stepfather were taking me to the Bronx Zoo and I invited her to come along (a cost my mother would have borne as Bronx would have been my guest) but she declined so this isn't for want of effort on my part. It took two years to finally convince her to hang out one time in Manhattan together and here I get the impression that she feels like I've been the one to keep us from being "friends" rather than "penpals".

     I sent her a polite message asking her to reconsider her position. I have not yet heard back from her. I may never hear back from her. She'll be yet another person I have built up an extensive knowledge of that I no longer have any use for. This really does wonders for my depression. It makes me wonder why I bother getting to know people and care about what they have to tell me. It all turns to ash.

     This suddenly has me thinking of an outline for a fake religion I created for an important country on a world I made up in high school. I wrote it almost ten years ago and it's eerily analogously autobiographical. The rough theme is that the Creator starts in a void that has nothing in it. For a long time, he is happy but in boredom creates the universe. He later desires to have his creations appreciated and makes three attempts to satisfy this desire, each of which fail for different reasons. The Creator, in frustration, tries to undo creation but his creations rebel. The Creator wants everything back the way it was believing he was happier before he created anything. I'd go into detail, but it's not like I thought to have it copyrighted but I really identify with that idea. It's so dangerous to want, but nevertheless ever so tempting. My life has been only rarely happy since puberty...





      I just don't get why Bronx would do this. I want to understand but I strongly feel that I never will and for once, it's not actually my fault. This just really sucks. We don't even have any mutual friends so I have no one I can talk to about this who could talk to her on my behalf. This really...I don't...I...

ADDENDUM: May as well end on something funny, but true...

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMS1kZmJmZjk2ZGQ4ZWJiY2Yy

THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL...

      I had an unexpected Monday off on Thanksgiving week so I decided to take advantage of it and texted these two girls who had given me their phone numbers off Plenty of Fish and with whom I have been having texting correspondence and in one of the two cases, an actual phone call with about getting together that day so we could finally meet up and see if there might be something for us to build upon (now that is a difficult sentence!).

      I got no response from the one I've actually spoken to and two days later have still not gotten a text. The other one, the one who prefers texting, told me that while she was in fact off that day, that she just wanted a day to "relax". I wasn't asking to make a day out of it, just the old classic "meet for coffee" type thing but apparently an hour or two out of her day was asking too much. I didn't press the issue in that manner...or at all really, that negative thought was just in my head. She didn't text me yesterday either even though we had been communicating daily for a while now. Yes, I know it is near Thanksgiving and people are busy but still...this lack of "excitement" is bugging me a bit. You'd think they would want to meet and feel bad if they could not. So instead of having a full social day (and being awfully tired the next as a result), I only took out my Best Friend for her birthday.

      Like the title says, this does not bode well...and like I joked at work, the way things are going, I will be back waiting for Number Twelve to break up with her boyfriend in no time...

APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED...

      I hate when people say, "...and I apologize if I have offended anyone with my/by my/because of/etc. (blah blah blah)." The most insincere of all apologies.
   
      This article offers a fairly recent example of this kind of false contrition. The owner of a ride featured in the Broward County Fair named his rollercoaster "The Zyklon". Anyone with even a quarter of an education should be wincing uncomfortably after having read that. And while yes, "Zyklon" means "cyclone" in German and the owner of this ride was most probably trying to associate himself with more famous rollercoasters operating under the "Cyclone" banner, a simple Google search would have put the word in historical context very quickly (though surprisingly, a Norwegian death metal band called Zyklon ranked higher in the search than the more infamous "Zyklon B"). When confronted with this fact, Mr. Zaitshik offered his version of the insincere apology, "There's actually no ill will intended to anyone of the Jewish faith, and I apologize if the name has offended anybody." (full article here)

      Now, I actually believe him: I really do. I've come across enough people wholly ignorant of things that one would think would be widely known. And while I still blame him for not doing a basic Google search beforehand, I in no way believe he was deliberately intending a Holocaust reference for his fair ride. But that's not the problem...it's the "if".

      You don't make apologies unless you've not only done something wrong and are penitent about it and you certainly don't use the word "if" when doing so. Clearly you've offended people. There's no longer any "if" about it. The use of "anybody" isn't helping either now that I think about it. It's a bit clumsy, but how about this? "I did not intend a Holocaust reference when naming my rollercoaster The Zyklon. I have been informed of and have since learned about the historical context of the word and will change the name of the ride immediately. I apologize to those whom I have offended with my ignorance."

       Even just changing the word "if" to "that" in his original apology would have made all the difference.

      That being said, I still feel genuinely bad for this company. This is a real commercial and it came out shortly before AIDS made its public debut. I wonder if they renamed or simply went out of business?

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part V

"Come See About Me" by The Supremes

This one is a personal vendetta on MUZAK's FM-1. Although in recent years, FM-1 has stopped playing lite-FM suitable tracks from the 1960s, this was not the case in the beginning of my tenure in my place of employment. I swear EVERY night this song would play. It's a good song, but years of overplay make me never want to hear it played again. Though I will admit the intensity of this animosity has lessened, it has not returned to my good graces like "Smooth" by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas) has. Back in 1996, that song came onto the scene and was immediately a staple of several radio stations to the point of irritation. I got about a ten year break from the song and now love it again.

CAVEAT EMPTOR...

      I love these commercials going around on the radio and TV trying to convince people to part with their hard-earned cash to buy bullion gold, gold coins from back in the Gold Standard days, or just shares in companies that mine the commodity. The fast-talking narrator is all about the falling value of the dollar via inflation and how you need the "security" that comes with owning physical gold because a "day of reckoning" is coming because the Federal Reserve (or "government") is printing money ("Ben Franklins" according to one commercial I just heard) and has a license to do so.

      Not that I know where this security comes from seeing as how in all my years of cashiering, while I have had the occasional pre-1965 silver dime and quarter pass my way, never once has anyone paid me with an American Silver Eagle (1986-present), any of the various American Gold Eagles (1986-present), or Platinum Eagles (1997-present) either at face value (for which you would be an idiot) or at trade value (which as far as I know, my store would not even accept at a percentage of current bullion value).

       I understand the basic argument in that you convert your spendable cash into tradable gold which you can then later (and the commercials strongly imply at a profit) convert back into spendable cash by selling them to dealers. The commercials just annoy me because they prey on the ignorant and use their irrational fears to encourage them to part with their money. Gold is already high (at least from my perspective). It's trading in the $1700/tr.oz. range when ten years ago it was under $300/tr.oz. Not that this stops these commercials and print ads from speculating that gold will rise to $5000/tr.oz.

       According to an official inflation calculator, gold should only be about $360 per troy ounce today if gold were truly the indicator of the dollar's loss of value its supporters claim (calculation based on the official $20.67/tr.oz. price in 1933 in 2011 dollars). Back in 2001 thanks to countries dumping a lot of their physical gold holdings back in the late 1990s, this gold as an indicator of the dollar's loss of purchasing power temporarily matched actual inflation statistics perhaps giving (re)birth to this idea in modern times (with a little help from Y2K hysteria no doubt). So gold being at $1700/tr.oz. is not the result of inflation (or hyperinflation as these commercials warn is just on the horizon) but speculation and speculation fueled by irrational fears too. I feel bad for those people who will be holding on to their overpriced gold when the bubble finally bursts and it comes down to more reasonable levels.

       But then, I also won't feel bad because a fool and his money are soon parted as has been said and really, if you take the time to think about it, if holding physical gold were such an important thing to be doing right now, why is it this company is trying to sell it to you? Magnanimity? Why are they perfectly happy to take your dollars, those very same dollars the commercials and ads are claiming to be losing value and will soon be rendered nearly worthless as per their claims of hyperinflation to sell you their gold? Perhaps if you are the buyer, you think they are suckers to part with such valuable metal for mere paper and ink or perhaps they know something they know you don't...

HELPFUL TIP FOR THE LADIES

      This has happened to me twice in a row now. Hardly a trend, but no less annoying.

      What I am talking about is relationship statuses online...specifically Facebook since that is the hub website du jour of the internet. Don't be like Digby, who I know for a fact had three boyfriends over the past four years but never once changed her status from Single to In a Relationship with So&So. Sadly (and I say this for her), she could have avoided my numerous advances entirely had she been "In a Relationship with So&So". If a girl is taken, I'm not gonna hit on her (at least once I know). Now, maybe you don't want to change that little status marker for fear of the embarrassment that comes if and when it needs to be changed back to "Single", but there's a way around that.

      Number Twelve, while it listed "In a Relationship", made me question it because when I first friended her, she was listed as "Married" to one of her female best friends so when it switched to "In a Relationship", while a fair hint you might say, the fact that it had not indicated with whom and the fact that none of her friends "Liked" this change nor commented on it suggested to me that it might be a feint. I searched her pictures and saw nothing to indicate she actually had a boyfriend.

      This was also true of Digby. I know these boyfriends existed because I learned about them afterward through hearsay amongst her friends. But never once was a picture posted of her with one of these boys. And here is your helpful hint.

      Now, while I'm aware there are those guys who simply do not give a fuck and will proposition you anyway regardless of what you post, you can still relieve yourself of the headache of better mannered men by simply posting that you are "In a Relationship with So&So". The "with So&So" part is important as it puts a hope-killing fact right in your face. But there's a better way...a blunter way.

       What you do is, create a photo album with just one picture in it of you and your boyfriend. Label him as your boyfriend whether by name or by status. Secondly, call the album something very in-your-face like "I Have a Boyfriend So Leave Me The Fuck Alone". Simple. Elegant. Blunt.

       Now, if you're the type who posts a lot of picture albums, just remember to add a photo to it once-in-a-while to keep it up to date. You can leave the total photo count at one, but make sure it remains visible.

       Thank you.

      And yes, should I ever get a girlfriend, you can be damned sure I will enjoy posting just such an album myself for the sheer pleasing arrogance of it.

LONG TIME VEGAN SCHOOLS LIFELONG OMNIVORE, see comments section

      Over the years, I have had many fried foods and by fried, I mean breaded/battered filets in a layer of oil, not pan-frying or stir-frying. Fish filets, chicken breast filets, turkey breast filets, pork chops, even eggplant (filets?)...but never beef. I've wondered why that is. Is it just one of those things like where ketchup is a sensible condiment for french fries but not for mashed potatoes even though really, what's the difference? Or is there a real reason behind it?

       Tonight I will find out. I bought some beef filets (or their rough equivalent) and eggs...I haven't bought eggs for over a year...and fry them in oil. See how it turns out. Messy food preparation tonight, yay! I'll have to addendum this entry tomorrow.

ADDENDUM:  Turns out the beef I had bought was exactly the correct ones to buy for this experiment. As was brought to my attention in the comment section, the cuts were referred to as "chicken steaks." They came out rather well but I failed to season the beef before breading it so flavor-wise, they were a bit lacking. If I bother to make them again, I will have to marinate in teriyaki sauce or otherwise spice them a day before cooking. Oil frying is one of the last areas of cooking I have to perfect as I've been favoring baking and broiling over the years. I was worried they would be too tough and that would be the reason why I had not heard of fried beef. I guess instead, it's just regional cuisine.

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part IV

"Carnival" by Natalie Merchant

I genuinely liked this song and the other singles off the Tigerlily album when it was released but thanks to years of overplay on the radio and the MUZAK player at work, I'm tired of all of them. Not just "Carnival", but "Wonder" and "Jealousy", all songs which are perfectly worthy of merit but I'm done with them and the next song in the queue can't up soon enough. I think I was done with years ago. I don't even have the album anymore. A rare toss. Usually once I like a song, I always like it...but not always.

TERRA INCOGNITA ON THE HORIZON...

      The fourth incarnation of my online dating profiles seem to be the charm. I may finally be on course to securing successfully a date off these things. So far, OKCupid seems to be a place to meet new friends as I am up to two so far and Plenty of Fish seems the better place for finding a date. I don't know why that is.

      The timing was even good. I asked a girl out at work whom I am convinced is totally attracted to me. Although she accepted at first my invitation to "buy her dinner tomorrow after work", I think she misheard me and thought I had said, "get some dinner tomorrow after work." Hours later, she figured it out and told me that she had a boyfriend so I was sidelined. She still wants to be my friend, though. Though brief, I am going to classify her as the twelfth one and for want of a better alias, will refer to her as Number Twelve (or simply Twelve or whatever I feel like settling on).

      Her behavior though, is confusing. Maybe she just likes me as sees something in me that she really needs in terms of friendship or maybe I'm right and she not only is really attracted to me but has also optioned me in the even of her current relationship's end. After her shift ended on Saturday, she spent a half hour exclusively with me at my register (despite other choices remaining available...VERY unusual for me. In fact, that's the first time that has happened to be in nearly eleven years), even bagging customers groceries so we could talk. She is not wanting for friends: I know this. So I'm confused as to what is going on. It's potentially a poisonous mix, but I intend to be a good boy and be solely her friend. She set the rule and now only she can change it. However, because she is confusing me...I feel it in my Mind that she has been reclassified as a Secondary.

      To help my dear reader(s) out with my insanity, crushes come in four flavors: Primaries, Secondaries, Dormant, and Past. You can blame my Best Friend for this because simple answers were never enough for her. She long ago started me on a path of introspection. You get to suffer with the results. A Primary is an active crush and intense. A Secondary is more a passive crush that, while weaker in intensity, remains persistent. A Secondary can exist without a Primary but is usually overshadowed by one. Rabbit is an example of this. For over four years, she was never able to become a strong focus. A Dormant Crush is like an ember. The fire has gone out, but it still glows, fading as time goes on. The First One and Digby are examples of this. A Past Crush is a dead one. I have moved on completely in terms of longing. They will always be extremely attractive to me because that never changes, but...they're over. There are also Potentials,  those who could be crushes but are missing that certain something to push them over the edge be it predictability of presence (don't see them enough...I have one in mind right now), immediate knowledge of their unavailability (either they're introduced as a girlfriend/wife of so&so or make their disinterest in you known immediately - a prerejection if you will), inappropriate context (let's say, at a funeral for the sake of example), etc. The list of Potentials would be quite long but often I've never learned their names because I only saw them once (or a couple of times at random).

      If I sensed no attraction from Number Twelve, I would move on from her, but her confusing behavior is causing me to retreat into the shadows and watch...and wait...should the day ever come that I may be called upon. It could persist for years or new information could cause it to die quickly. For example...

      I have received attention from four women in the past week on Plenty of Fish. One is just looking for friends (I hope, because I am not feeling it otherwise). Another seemed interested but I guess I failed that audition because I have not heard from her in days now. Another week and I'll delete her from my phone. Then I got two this morning. It's exciting, especially since both seem accepting of my baggage (my place of employment and lack of car/driving). One is moving faster than the other. I just hope I don't have to choose...that it works out to one or the other or the other because the last time I had to choose, I chose badly and have suffered under the effects of that "curse" for thirteen years now.

     I am not in terra incognita yet, but I may very well be soon. This could be the first time in a while that I will really be putting my intelligence to the test...see if I can pull a relationship out of my ass with nothing to go on except suppositions, experiences with friends, exaggerations learned from television and movies, articles read, and anecdotes. Should be interesting...to say the least of it.

     And here I wrote in a fit of sadness quite a number of Facebook status updates that were wonderfully depressing. I guess I won't be sharing them with my FB friends now...keep an eye out for them here one day :-)

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXI

      What Would Tyler Durden Do posted this quick article today about parents being upset that (former?) porn star Sasha Grey reading to a group of elementary school students in Compton for a Read Across America campaign.

      While this upset by the parents annoys  me because I'm not a fan of scarlet-lettering people with their past life choices, especially when what they did then is not relevant to what they're doing now. I mean, if she were demonstrating fellatio techniques on a dildo to elementary school kids, aside from the fact that that would actually be illegal, I would fully understand the parents being upset. But as part of a program to encourage reading? Shut the fuck up! But I liked how the website's author described it better:

Those parents are idiots. Why shouldn’t a porn star read to kids? THAT MAKES READING SEEM COOL! If some hot girl who swallows had come to my school and told me she liked reading I can pretty much promise my spelling and punctuation wouldn’t be as shitty as they are today.

      Hard to argue with that :-)

SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part III

The latest entry in this what will undoubtedly become "Songs I Hate" list is "Bass Down Low". I heard it at work one night when the station was on the rap/hip-hop station "Concrete Beats". I think my real problem with this song is that it makes me feel old. This tune sounds like a headache: irritating and incessant but attentively addictive. Listen to it. Go ahead and see how long it takes for you to get "If you wanna get with me, there's one thing you've got to know. I like my beats fast and my bass down low" out of your head (Bass down low. B-B-B-Bass down low). It will remain for some time and infect your thoughts. Since it's only three one syllable words, it can easily be incorporated into anything you're doing. (Throw. It. Out. --- Turn. It. Off. --- Read. This. Book. --- etc.) It's an obnoxious, infectious beat. It's not a bad song per se. But I have work I need to be doing! Please...get out of my head. Go away!

And what's with songs these days "featuring" people and/or bands? Music these days has special guest stars like sitcoms. It's nothing new I know...it just seems more frequently done these days. I liked it when it was done quietly. You'd discover when reading the liner notes that Eric Clapton played guitar or Ringo Starr did drums for some of George Harrison's solo work. I'm sure it's a ploy to sell more digital downloads but seriously, is any Snoop Dog fan giving Katy Perry a chance because of his "featuring" in "California Gurls"? And likewise, how many Katy Perry fans are now checking out Snoop Dog's work because of his dissonant contribution to that passable pop song? (No Doubt's album "Rocksteady" was full of these featurings back in 2001) Just like I hate remixes because they're not the song the artist put out, put out your own shit. If you can't do it without "help", maybe you don't deserve to be on this level just yet.


"Bass Down Low" by DEV featuring the Cataracs

And yes, that girl is totally hot (at least in this video) and I was totally surprised she was white. I like how some of the girls in this video have that scared look on their face like they've been coerced into performing.

WHERE MAH INTROVIGGAZ AT?

      Now I've been doing the online dating thing for over three months now. I have yet to secure a date but that is not the point of tonight's entry. No, what I've been wondering about is something I've noticed fairly early on but dismissed as an anomaly but now, after three months find it inescapable: where are all the introverts?

      And by "introverts", I'm also including those people who simply don't like going out under the assumption that that is an introverted tendency even if they have no social anxiety. I simply have not found them. They are either a truly rare breed or they are elsewhere...or maybe hiding behind lies on their profiles.

      The vast majority of profiles I encounter are written by women who claim to either love travelling and going out and doing so or they profess their desire to do so the moment their financial circumstances permit. Occasionally I'll see a line or two about staying in to catch a movie but it's a one-liner amongst many a sentence devoted to dining out, bar/club hopping, trying new things/foods/cultures, activities both done and desired to be done, places travelled to and places where she desires to travel in the future, how their jobs take up much of their day and that they love it, working out at the gym 3-7 days a week, going for a jog/run, reading this and that novel (often obscure), going to live shows to watch indie music (surprisingly few girls admit to liking popular music as if that were some sort of badge of dishonor)...basically no time for down time because they are always doing something or interested in portraying themselves as the always-doing-something type. I don't even know where they'd find the time to date to begin with, especially all the ones who list such activities in addition to the fact that they are also a parent.

      They're all go-getters. Many have post-graduate degrees or are otherwise over-educated. And they all like dogs. I don't know where this single lady with cats idea came from because the two sites I'm on are full of dog owners. I like cats! I don't want a fucking dog. I don't hate dogs but that doesn't mean I want to own one. Yes, cat owners exist, but it's not the 50/50 split you would expect. Though I have no evidence besides circumstantial, I really do suspect that cat-owners are more laid-back by nature seeing as how owning a cat is more a passive ownership as compared to a dog which needs to be walked multiple times daily and trained. And it may just be me, but I find dog owners tend to be intolerant. Not a truism, just an observation. It's much easier to find a dog owner who hates cats than to find a cat owner who hates dogs. I'm sure some psychological studies have been done on this.

      But the thing is, I can understand why these types are on dating sites: they are too busy doing things to meet new people through normal channels or they're not home enough to be out and about around town. Their presence online makes sense to me. But that being said, where are the people who have trouble meeting new people because they're home whenever they can be? Because they'd rather watch television or read than share some drinks over a game at a bar? Because they don't envy the clubbing scene? Because they prefer doing (usually quiet) solitary activities at home? Or simply because they have few friends? They must exist and in great numbers so why aren't they a presence on the dating sites I'm on?

       I would think the rise of online dating would be a boon to social misfits and eccentrics who would now have a means for advertising their availability to the wider world out there. Yet, I know I have stumbled upon a few, but not nearly as many I would think should exist. Am I really so rare? Have I been spoiled by friends who are largely hang-out-at-home types. Is my level of income related to my not-going-out-muchness? If so, do relatively poor people not use dating sites? Still, if laziness is supposedly endemic in society...where are they? Too lazy to create profiles? I guess I'll just have to try and lure them out myself...

QUOTING QUOTABLES...

On this page of TVtropes, this dismissive description of the Shadows and Vorlons really made me laugh:

"Eh... you guys are making the mistake of actually seeing it as a war like we have over here... a better analogy would be a debate that turned into a fist fight... it just so happened that the debate was between Cthulhu and Space Angels, so the collateral damage was rather apocalyptic. The First Ones and Lorien being there made them stop and listen... which can do wonders in situations like this. Or even parents always having fights over how to raise the kid until the kid and his lawyer serves them emancipation papers."

Followed by: "I lov0e this explanation."

Okay, and this one too for its sheer asininery:

Was G'kar laughing or crying at the end of Acts of Sacrifice?
      ∙ Yes

(originally posted to That Other Journal on November 6, 2011)