I'm the first to admit I'm a weirdo. Fine; guilty as charged, I'm a weirdo. But eHarmony ads basically guarantee that I will be matched with a compatible weirdo.
"Aha!" says the naysayer, "Maybe you're so weird that there's no one compatible with you!"

Perhaps that's true, but it's pointless for this discussion nonetheless. You see, in my one-year, very expensive, recently expired membership at eHarmony, their vaunted, fabled, mythical, BS "matching" system ("29 dimensions" of total unmitigated B.S.) scraped up exactly 1,051 "matches" for me. Of those, I was interested enough in about 35 of them to initiate contact. I didn't continue any communication for more than 10 rounds, and 3 or 4 of those 35 matches closed me while we were talking.

Of the remaining 1,000 or so, I was probably closed out by about 150 before i saw them (didn't bother to look at them once closed), so maybe there was a "match" in there. but wouldn't a "compatible" match be one that neither party closes?

For those other 850 women, I read through every profile. Junk. There wasn't a woman in that ~850 who came near my idea of a girlfriend. Stilted, predictable blah — the usual nothingness in a hairball that would seem a joke if it weren't verified through experience as the sort of thing that actually comes from a  human (normal).

eHarmony's advertising is a lie. They have no system worth getting breathless over. Their "success" stories are flukes. Google  eHarmony a bit and you'll find I'm not alone in this assessment. quoting one complainer:  This site is the WORST. You jump through all these hoops and end up with a 62 y/o nurse's aide from 200 miles away. That was my 'soul mate'." ROFL

The weird thing is that eHarmony's personality test isn't that bad. Strange as I am, it squared my personality close enough to work with. What happened afterward is the disaster. I could write a algorithim to blow their current "matching" nonsense out of the water. Lotto ping-pong balls would work better. Their interface (recently "improved") is double-plus bad. Listening to the eHarmony ads and thinking it might be nice to check out? Don't. ...

Here is my advice: Take the $250 (roughly a one-year membership bilge), a stack of one-page descriptions with your pic, and go to the nearest city street corner. Stop whatever women look friendly, hand them a dollar, and ask them to share your page with a woman they think might seriously be interested in you. of course, if you're a woman reading this (ha!), flip the sexes.

Quite likely, you'll have better results with the street corner method, probably ending up dating one of the people you gave a dollar to. You'll get married, have kids, hate each other, get divorced, and end up on skid row. The benefit is that you'll do it to yourself much faster than eHarmony ever could.

Hey, Dr. Neil Clark Warren…. Eat me, you fruity-faced snake oil salesman  !!!. Come out and box me like a man. I want my money back  !!!....

Oh the dreaded words. Not sure what my deal is lately.  I have made tons of observations over the holidays, but none that I think are blog worthy. Hence the lack of entries. I do find sick irony in an FHP giving me a $200.00 speeding ticket and then telling me what a nice car I have. Thats just adding insult to injury.

I drove down to Sarasota last night and after visiting a friend I slept on the beach. Guess I am weird like that. But there is somethng quite freeing about sleeping in the outdoors. The waves crashing and the perfectly clear night sky allowed me to think about the year that was.

I thought about my Grandmother who I lost at the beginning of the year. I thought about Almost wrecking my truck on the way to the Daytona 500 yet still managing to fix the damage on the side of the freeway and make the race. I thought alot about the 8 months  I spent with someone perfectly wonderful, who was always there for me and yet I could not bring myself to open up to her. (Anyone that knows me knows I have a hard time shutting up so actually doing it for an extended period and keeping my emotions close to the vest isnt normal for me).

I thought about how as the year dragged on I kept making great strides at work. I  thought about the true meaning of friendship and how I put too much faith in a girl who really wasnt very sincere and didn't respect me much. How sometimes I am just a really poor judge of character. Then I thought about the new friendships I made and how great those have become. I thought about the 36 hour shift I worked the day after Christmas and into the weekend. How I helped my bosses good friend find some peace in helping him walk that scary road to overcoming a drug addiction. At the same time I reflected on the fact that no matter how much shit has been flug at me I seem to adapt. That at least it wasnt ME strung out on pills. I thought about having really good neighbors and how comforting it is knowing I can knock on their doors for any reason.
The cop that gave me my fine made an observation that I seemed kinda happy for someone who got nailed cold in a speed trap. I told him it could be worse.. he could be writing a report on a Fatal accident. Its amazing what perspective gives you, and what lack of perspective can take away....

Yup, another year in the books. By all accounts, not the greatest.....
But that's the beauty of a New year. Lots of great things coming. I get to spend time with friends and family when I go home for the Final Four. U2's new album hits the shelves in 7 weeks..so it's worth noting: "The past does not equal the future." Excuse me why I go locate my sunglasses...

Well I gotta say, this year has certainly kinda sucked. I was just talking to my boss the other day and we both were mentioning how it just doesn't feel much like Christmas. The economy has really thrown everyone a curve ball and people are hurting. Its hard to be joyous when the Spirit of this holiday just does not feel right.

I did not go home this year. I was not there to see Big Jack open his new leapfrog thing I bought him. I had a a philly cheese steak for Christmas dinner, and even then I had to be careful because my stomach condition is getting worse. That said, the rest of the country is snowed under and its damn cold back in Detroit.

Here I am in Tampa where it was a beautiful day, and I at least got to spend some time with my good friends and their 2 year old daughter.She didn't care about the weather, or the economy or anything else... she just wanted "uncle Dave" to play... so play we did. I've never had such a feast of plastic food in my life! But I figure if she can pretend its real, then I can pretend that she cooked it just for me.I got a really really nice shirt and a very cool calendar of prototype sports cars as gifts, and all in all it was a nice way to cap a so-so day.

 I called my family back home and they all loved their gifts...so at the end of the day..It's all good.Im still lucky, and I still have the best life a guy could want. Given the circumstances, it was a decent Christmas after all. Thats all I have.. I hope everyone reading this takes a second to remember everyone over in Iraq and those less fortunate and just say a prayer this evening. Im giving thanks for the best worst christmas ever!

Merry Christmas

One of the great things about life is as long as there is human life on this planet; there will be boundless acts of random stupidity to amuse and entertain.

I was trying to decide how and what I was going to enter into my blog this evening. I was having trouble coming up with a theme or subject matter, until my friend Chelsea and I decided discussing humor in everyday things. I dont know if I find this the following observations roll on the floor funny, but at the very least they demonstrate the need and justification for the darwin awards. These are some of the things my eyes have taken in in the last 2 days:

1) A man in Kansas modifies his Cadillac Escalade to Run purely on Canola oil and in the process get the engine to put down 850 HP and 1400 Lbs of Torque. He must have been absent in auto shop the day they went over actually getting that power to transfer to the wheels. In demonstrations he proceeds to snap 2 rear axles in a 24 hour period. Note to would be gear heads: if you have 1400 pounds of torque make sure you have a rear end that can handle the task of GETTING it to the wheels.

2) While waiting in line for a gallon of milk which should have been a 2 minute ordeal, I am forced to wait in line listening to this senior citizen spew her version of 'fuzzy Economics' to the cashier over a 2 dollar box of Altoids. She had coupons exceeding the purchase price of the Altoids. In her mind she should not only get the Altoids for free but she was due a refund for the difference. I think I could've forgiven her and written it off as a 'senior moment' until I saw get get into her 7 series BMW to leave... That pretty much summed everything up right there.

3) And finally in yet another illustration of how out of touch some of my friends are with reality... in these tough economic times, my friend Joyce had to proudly rave about her new stainless steel waste basket that she bought ON SALE for $100.00. And yet she STILL finds things to bitch about concerning how tight things are financially....um yeah ok.

Till next time...
Hit 'em with a hard left...

ANGLE THIS pt III Attack of the Avatars..........
NOTE: I originally posted this last month but someone asked me to repost it..so here ya go

Ok;....

So today I am at work and I received the most bizarre request in my 15 plus years of IT experience.....

I was asked to set up an "Avatar" for someone's instant messenger. After telling that person to kindly get the hell out of my office, I decided to look up the "formal" meaning of the word avatar...

For those of you that don't know what an avatar is, (and if you dont that means there is still hope for you) it's a stupid annoying little cartoon looking figure that is supposed to represent you online, be it chat, video games etc…. ....

Webster's dictionary defines an avatar as:   an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game).....

And therein lies the rub and reason for my tirade…The above definition implies that it is a "manipulated image" which, if you follow simple logic means it can't be human and it can't be alive. OR CAN IT?? (queue music here: DUHN DUN DUUHN)....

Now, I don't know too much about these avatars, but they are multiplying like crazy!! Lately I've seen these pesky little fuckers all over the place. They have them for Instant message, they have them for video games, and they have them for Cell phones, Children's DVD's, instruction videos.. even Blogs (and here I thought blogs were the last bastion of hope for world literacy. It encourages people to read and write…even if it is about nothing).....

C'MON BOY GO FOR A RIDE ?

The earliest re-collection I have of an avatar has to be about 10 years ago. My roommate at the time downloaded a program that put a virtual dog on her desktop. I remember thinking at the time... Perhaps she could be using this time for social activities with REAL PEOPLE ?.. (she was actually quite attractive)....

Anyway, one day she had to go down to Miami on business.  Before she left she made one request of me. Please feed her dog. To which my initial knee jerk response was, "what dog? we don't have a dog." After explaining herself to me (Like it really needed to be clarified) she demonstrated how I was to feed and walk the dog along the screen. It was my next question that caused her eyes to go deep black and stare me down like no other woman I ever have ever known… "Well what if I just shut off the PC?" I asked efficently. I swear I thought she was going to call the cyber PETA and Humane society on me. And with that, I was given my instructions and she left. I will never forget that look she gave me. She was that far gone. For her own good, I let the computer run ignoring the yelping noise coming from the desktop for 4 days until finally it stopped. I had killed her cyber dog. But in my head I saved her life (or at least her social life) and to me it was a fair trade.

I'M TOO SEXY FOR MY GRAPHICS CARD

Fast Forward 10 years later and these twisted little emaciated cartoon figures are everywhere. Virtual boy friends, virtual girl friends, virtual rockstars, virtual worlds with virtual eateries (If we get to the point of virtual cockroaches I'm pulling the plug) It's not enough to have a linear online presence anymore. No, now you have to do it in 3D with an avatar… and it's not enough just to have an avatar. Now your avatar has to have "style" complete with custom outfits and accessories. How ridiculous has it become? On Yahoo IM you can actually describe in detail what your "avatar" is wearing. It's as if there is a virtual Hugo Boss or Ralph Lauren announcing their new fall lineups as these avatars strut their stuff down a virtual catwalk…....

....

ITS ALL FUN AND GAMES TILL SOMEONE "BLUE SCREENS"

So what does the future hold for avatars? Well hell, since avatars are all thin and into the latest fashions, how long will it be until your sexy little avatar acquires an eating disorder? Virtual fondue and caviar, along with virtual rack of lamb = virtual run to the bathroom and jam your virtual finger down your virtual throat. Oh the virtual shame that could lead to!!!  Next thing you know your poor little avatar has a $4000.00 a day virtual coke habit and has to be virtually airlifted to a hospital after a virtual drug OD caused them to black out and wrap their virtual Ferrari around a tree…..(virtual of course).

Think it cant come to that ?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,451945,00.html....

....

My point is this folks… Are we as a society; really becoming THAT dependant on technology to do our day to day interacting with one another? Are we really that busy that we can't pick up a phone just to say hello, or take 10 minutes to walk our REAL dogs and say Hi to our REAL neighbors ? man take the time folks.. Cause once we're gone its game over ya know?  Unless my avatar learns how to communicate from the grave............

{sigh} ....

And my friends wonder why I am so disappointed in mankind…....

Ok so idiot me not realizing the subtle nuances in security had everything locked down on my site and blog so no one could contact me..so I thought I would pose the question all over again..

I see I get some views on my Blog entries almost everyday..so Who are you ?

Check out my previous posts and feel free to leave me some feeback.

Over the past month I have spouted off about the mess and injustice of what is going on in Detroit. It seemed that no matter what articles I found on the subject; nothing accurately captured what I was feeling. The quote below does.

"Those who caused this financial meltdown were allowed to walk away with $700 billion, with no oversight, many of them ultra-rich hedge fund players. Those who were the victims of their greed -- people who work on the factory line -- were blamed and were asked pay the price," she added. "I ... felt incredible anger at the hypocrisy."

-Jennifer Granholm
Governor of Michigan

Thats really all I have to say today.   I make no apologies for my passion about this issue.  My loyalties lay with my home state and My friends and family that still live there.

Having made the circuit to at least a half dozen parties over the last 2 weeks has made me once again realize how kick ass my life really is.

I have no debt other than a house payment that I can easily afford, and a good job (which in this economy is a major plus). I dont know what the deal is, but in the past 7 days I have had multiple women approach me and strike up conversations out of the blue, and a few that more less threw their number at me.. I seriously must be giving off the good vibe or something. I am getting compliments on wardrobe and appearance, even my boss mentioned I was coming up with some good ideas to tackle some complex issues at work. All in all its been awesome !! And if thats not enough... My Fanstasy team is in the Fantasy bowl whoo hoo!! Hello  $$ !!

As always, to all my friends and family... Thanks for always being the best! You inspire me to continue to never settle.

And to God, thanks for listening and bestowing these blessings on me !!!