Westward Ho: From TX to the OC

"They call Los Angeles the City of Angels. I didn't find it to be that exactly, but I'll allow as there are some nice folks there."
- The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

I am relocating to Orange County, California. This doesn't mean that I don't like Texas. It means I'm going where the work is. Think of me as a modern day Native American following the trail of Tetanka across the United States.

In preparation to for my migration, I watched precisely ten minutes of one episode of The OC. I liked what I saw: two super hot ladies that were not afraid to display their affection. Any local that inspired television producers to create a series about it must be rife with fodder for a displaced Texan seeking to get his own sitcom.

I will be living on a college campus. A truly inspired and under appreciated genius developed a Marriott on the campus of California State in Fullerton. I can't help feeling like Mitch Martin from Old School. But I won't be starting a fraternity from my Huntington Beach room at the Marriott, unless I run into Blue.

There is so much to do: West Coast Customs will be just down the street. Venice Beach is close too. I can pimp myself out in Dogtown with skate gear to prove that I've been there. I'll take extreme posing to a new level.

The Los Angeles area is a Mecca for professional sports: the Clippers, Lakers, Kings, Dodgers, and the Angels of Anaheim. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Are you kidding me? What sports marketing guru thought that was a good idea? They're the California Angels if you ask me.

This Texan will uncover the truth about California. Are there really vegetarians on every corner? Does the hip coffee shop clerk have the greatest hydroponics herb? Do all Californians like to surf? Do they really have the worst traffic in the solar system? But more importantly, do avocados grow on trees?

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This was originally posted on TheBackWord.com, a Texas-centric eZine that has gone the way of the jackalope.

Searching for My LaFawnduh

"Don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day." - Kip Dynamite

How does the saying go? "I'm single by choice?" Sure, and the Pope doesn't wear a funny hat? At some point your choice will be to seek out a significant other. The problem is that today's environment is filled with such a diverse population that one is challenged on how to find that special someone. Thanks to the technology boom online dating services have sprung up overnight like Internet weeds.

Online dating is a form of social networking that came to the fore as Internet access became prevalent in the middle to late 1990's. Typically reserved for the geek squad, online dating was little more than personal ads posted on cyberspace bulletin boards that lead to romantic encounters in virtual forums such as chat rooms or Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone. Now even the cool kids are doing it thanks to broader social acceptance and easy to use technology like instant messenger, blogs and improvements to staples like email and web page development.

Services like Match.com, Nerve.com, and eHarmony.com are replacing blind dates and random set-ups as the preferred method of semi-anonymous dating. Once thought to be the territory of uberdorks like Kip, an increasingly large number of folks have turned to the web to find their soul mate.

In 1996, one of my grad school compadres mentioned that his fiancée was coming to town for a visit. The usual barrage of questions ensued and was met with the usual types of responses. That is all questions but "How did you meet her?"

"I met her on the Internet," was the reply.

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in his face. Now, I am the one being laughed at for not having tried online dating.

The demand is so great that many web-based companies have added it to their menu of service offerings. An early example of this was Emode.com. Emode.com entered the Internet market offering Cosmo-type quizzes. You know the ones, "What Breed of Dog Are You?," "What Type of Woman/Man Will You Attract?," "Are You Extreme?," etc., etc. Using personality and aptitude data as a means to find compatible individuals was a logical next step.

At the re-branded Tickle.com site, former Emode users are encouraged to take as many of the myriad tests to facilitate matching. Evite.com, the leading on-line invitation service, has also added matching to its palette of services. Users are now able to create profiles that can be publicized via the invite list associated with an event. Further, upon logging in to the system, users are presented with profiles of other members who have been invited to the same events. Users can exchange anonymous messages through the services should a profile spark interest.

The lynchpin of the online networking world is your profile. Think of it as a resume for picking up. System users are invited to publicize as much about them as they like. Questions range from benign content, like a lists of favorite books and movies, to the absurd, like biographies of genitalia. Believe me the world does not need to know about your mole that looks like Abe Lincoln or the fact that you have seven toes. Though we would like to know if your tooth is real or not.

Sharing too much information and stretching the truth is very common in the online dating world. Henry Dittman, a veteran of online dating from LA, notes, "You can't trust those profiles, but mostly the lies are idealized versions of people, and you can tell a lot about a person based on the kind of person they aspire to be."


I will admit that I bent the truth to paint a better picture of myself. I guess some folks might believe that I actually am an Action Figure - sans Kung Fu grip. Oh well. After some input from experienced online daters, I had profiles up on Friendster.com, Match.com and MySpace.com in just a few hours.

Friendster is the web-based equivalent of meeting someone at a friend's party. You create your own social network by inviting friends to the service. These friends invite their friend's who invite their friends, etc. Searching for your soul mate is pretty easy and the system explains your connection to other users.

For example, Friendster.com told me, How you're connected: You <-> Laura <-> Sara"

Sara, a Bay Area California resident, was the first stranger I contacted via one of these online services. I emailed her through Friendster and asked for her take on online dating.

"I love browsing the 'inner world' of people's thoughts and hobbies and lives on Friendster. It's a fun way to connect with friends, for free, and to read profiles of strangers. As a dating arena, it's much less stressful than something like Match.com. In my sociological studies of both, Friendster definitely attracts some odd balls. But, Friendster is not known in the 'mainstream' and only the cool people are in the know."

Match is the almost the same as meeting someone in a bar without the luxury of small talk since the little things are probably already listed for you in the profile. True to Sara's assessment, Match.com subscribers' profiles seem to be a bit drier than the average Friendster or MySpace listing.

However, I have run across colleagues, acquaintances and exes on Match so discretion is not such a bad idea. The biggest difference between Match and other services is that Match generates income from service subscriptions, which means that you must pay to email the intriguing folks listed on the service. Some enterprising Match users list their email addresses in the body of their profiles.

Match does offer "winking," which is a non-customizable note to another user that you are interested, but according to the site, "Women respond better to email."

Of the three services I tried, MySpace.com is by far the most customizable tool in Cyber Space besides developing your own web page from scratch, hence the moniker. MySpace is a combination of GeoCities web-page communities of yesteryear and trendier online services, like Nerve.com.

MySpace also offers blogging capabilities and many other bells and whistles that will make the AV crowd smile. Beware, it seems that MySpace profiles tend to fail the truth test more often than not. Further, MySpace users seem to be in the friend collection business.

Dittman offers, "What's weird is that MySpace folks will have 2,000 'friends' and just email invites to everyone. I find that creepy."

Many users agree, including me. If I don't know you, you don't get an add, unless you're a band that I dig, like The Donnas or F-Units.

I am not sure that online dating is really my cup of tea and neither is Sara. "It's very easy to have casual, typed "conversation" and difficult to pick that up in person. So, [I keep] my "virtual" relationships, prior to meeting someone, to a minimum. Computers are not reality, period." Looks like I may need to fly out to California.

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This was originally posted on TheBackWord.com, a Texas-centric eZine that has gone the way of the jackalope.

Resolutions for Procrastinators

My turkey coma is wearing off just enough so that I noticed how fast this New Year is going and my traditional time for reflections and resolutions is long gone. I took my two minutes of annual reflection and realized that many of you may be in this similar situation. Here's a list of resolutions that you should feel free to peruse and pick one or more for yourself.

Go Camping!
Go camping in one of the 100 + state and/or 14 national parks in Texas. Cube dwelling sucks the soul out of you more quickly than you realize. You think you know. But, you don't know. Some quality time with Mother Nature will recharge your core. There is nothing like roughing it for a few days to increase your appreciation of the little things, like sand free toilet paper. Click here for more info!

Walk Around Your Town
Many Texans, particularly Houstonians, spend countless hours in their cars speeding to work and speeding home from work. The only walking that is done is between the car, home, and office. Try walking instead of driving next time you need to get a pint of ice cream and a pack of cigarettes from the nearby Stop 'N Rob a.k.a corner store. Who knows what you will encounter or discover along the way? Maybe you will get a glance at your feet for the first time in a long while.

Become Well-Read, Join a Book Club
My first assignment as an LSU freshman in Introduction to Fiction was to discuss our favorite literary work with the other folks in our groups. "What do you think of Atticus as a single parent?" "Do you think that Orwell's pigs could make chocolate souffle?" I had not read one of the books the others had during high school. I'm talking about the staple classics: To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, etc. Once I graduated and had time for leisure reading, I instituted the Jason Bargas Literary Program consisting of all the classics that I missed during high school. I recommend that you do the same; check the internet for good suggestions. Soon you will be almost as well-read as Edmund Dantes.

Debunk the " Insert Town of Your Choice Here Sucks!" Theory
The key to success when debunking any theory is to work with an expert in the field, i.e. a knowledgeable local. Locals really can not be considered knowledgeable if they have lived there for less than six months or have not lived there in ten years. My personal quest will be to discover if I can find someone not wearing one piece of black clothing during a trip to Deep Ellum.

Support Local Businesses
Don't get me wrong. I am guilty of spending an inordinate amount of time in the nearby Super Center. I can not explain the euphoria. I think it is due to the idea that I can buy 3-and-1 oil and gauze pads in the same place. However, I feel that it is my duty to support the locals. For example, I buy my magazines from the local guy down the street. I try to avoid chain restaurants except for Pei Wei and local chains like Barnaby's. You get the idea.

See More Local Music
Take off your headphones and step away from your Ashlee Simpson-blaring-iPod. Now scold yourself for having bad taste in music. Pick up a copy of the local free paper and scan the upcoming shows. You may be surprised at what you find. Pay attention for can't miss Texas artists like Terry Allen, Todd Snider (he used to live in Austin), The Diamond Smugglers and Jug O' Lightning.

Learn Spanish--ay, Español
Life in Texas, and many other places in these United States, will only get easier once you master the language. Not only will your new language serve you well, but you will also cease to be a monolingual gringo.



Watch Fandango
Get some buddies together at your place and check out this little piece of cinematic Americana. Marvel at Kevin Costner's mostly full head of hair. Dream of your post-graduation glory days. Now, shake off the onset of depression by road tripping across Texas. Don't forget Dom since he's not out there waiting for you. Feel free to skip the skydiving.




Smile more!






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This was originally posted on TheBackWord.com, a Texas-centric eZine that has gone the way of the jackalope.