Top 10 Things I Learned in Vegas Last Weekend

10. Pulnik is Big Q's special imaginary friend.

9. That Little Midget Can Pass Out.

8. The best sushi restaurant in Vegas is Ichiza in China Town.

7. Cab drivers hate making off-strip trips.

6. Penguins think the water in the Bellagio pool is too cold.

5. Never let Pedro mix your drinks if you're trying to analyze your draft picks.

4. All future Vegas trips will include a trip to the spa just before heading to the airport to fly home.

3. Everyone is your friend at the craps table when you roll eight or more points in a row before crapping out.

2. You shouldn't feel bad that the High Roller lost close to 10 LARGE when you crapped out.

1. You should feel bad when you lose LARGE when you crap yourself out.

Crazy About Chronology

I can hear what you're thinking.

"Where have you been?"

"I guess he's given up on this whole blogging thing."

"He's finally realized that we don't really care what you're doing. We just read your blog while we're: a) waiting for our pedicure; b) stuck in the bathroom; c) waiting for the latest posting from Dooce."

Well, you're wrong. Yep. I've been right here. Living. Obsessing. Working. Partying. Things have been going along as planned, or not so planned, but life has been happening, and I've been trying to hold on to my wits as the adventure continues.

A series of events lead to me not keeping up with my blogging effort. The holidays came and went. Events came and went. And, work started heating up. The point is that I didn't make the time to keep up with my chronicle of events. And, I have an issue.

Truth be told, I have issues, but only one is central to my current ramble and that is my mild level of OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Jack Nicholson's character had to wash his hands all the time in As Good As It Gets. I am compelled to blog in chronological order.

Blogs, like any journal, are essentially a collection of your thoughts in the form of posts that are inspired by happenings in your life. You wouldn't write a biography with flashbacks, would you? I wouldn't think so because of the reactions and interpretations of future events are built on and influenced by the context of previous events and experiences. Well, the same goes for my blog.

Some folks feel the need to arrange all of the labels on the canned goods so that they face the exact same direction when you look in the pantry. Others are driven to journal in chronological order. I have to do both.

Unfortunately I am not always inspired to write a blog entry for Event A before I'm inspired to write a post for Event B. So I wait. And, I wait some more. The inspiration to write about Event A is trapped at the back of an airport security line filled with old men and young mothers traveling with quintuplets and five laptops. Meanwhile life has progressed to Event L, but nothing makes it out on to the tubes.

This posting order concern may seem insignificant, but I am mildly convinced that my lack of posting (a.k.a. journaling) has lead to a backlog of stress in my very cramped noggin. The solution to this quandary hit me in the shower from whence most of my decent ideas come.

I'll write the posts whenever I feel like it. But, the posting date will match the chronology of the actual occurrence. Big deal you say. Yep. You're right. It is to me, and I'm the boss. The crazy boss.

In any case, you may notice that the front page of my blog may not change for long periods. That may indicate that I've fallen off the face of a mountain or that may indicate that I am writing about events that pre-date the front page contents.

Fret not. The events probably that weren't interesting or I would have written about them before now. Alternatively, you fretters can subscribe to the RSS feed which will alert you to new conent no matter what the official posting date is, unless it was in 1991 because that pre-dates Al Gore's Internets.

Now you know I'm nuts, but it was worth it so that you could keep up with my mental flossings.

Ciao ciao.

Yelp Review of the Day

I signed up for Yelp - like I needed to join another social networking site. The difference is that Yelp's content consists of local business reviews written by members. Today my review of my dentist was selected by the review of the day. Here's a snippet:

Dr. Stephen Vaughn at Contemporary Dental ROCKS my teeth off. I actually look forward to going to the dentist now and it's not just because the hygienist, Julia, is hot.

Check out Yelp in Houston, New Orleans & Austin.

It's Not Easy Being Green

New Yorker Wrapping Paper, originally uploaded by JaseMan.

Most folks assume that I'm just another run of the mill consumer who throws caution to the wind and his recyclables right into a land fill. Suck it. You're wrong.

For a few years now, I have combined a small recycling effort with my disdain for the manufactured industries surrounding the holidays - specifically the wrapping paper industry. Do you honestly expect me to pay hard-earned cash for wrapping paper just so giftees can rip it apart and throw it away? Are you out of your tree?!

This year folks will once again be receiving items wrapped in deconstructed magazine pages taken from New Yorker and Harper's and maybe a Wired or two. Just to be clear - I'm not being cheap. I'm protesting Hallmark industries.

Any money saved gets passed on to friends and family as kickass presents. Suck on that, Mr & Mrs. Hallmark Set.

Bag Man I Am

LifeHacker was soliciting reader pictures for a feature on "go bags" aka laptop bag for work, man purses for everyday metroing and/or any other time you carry a bag. I took the photo during a field trip weekend to Los Pedros with the intention of submitting it but missed the deadline. Oops.

You should read click on the photo and read the notes in Flickr if you've got some minutes to kill. It will give you more insight into my level of OCD when it comes to gear.

I take solace in the fact that I am not alone.

You're Never Too Old to Dork Out

Red Death
Originally uploaded by JaseMan

The guys from the Houston Crew and I used to play Risk on Detox Day (usually synonymous with Sunday) back when we all lived at Melrose Place Pin Oak Estates. As you would expect, those days are long gone thanks to diverging paths through life. I can't say that I was sad to quit playing since Gar always kicked our asses from Kamchatka to Peru earning himself the moniker Red Death.

The guys and I are dorking out once again thanks to the power of the InterWeb. And, as usual, Red Death is taking no prisoners. It's getting ridiculous. I'm not sure the WebOrNet is big enough for his gianormous ego and the five of us suckers who continue to square off against him.

Can we just talk about how good I am for a second?

I would like each of you to write down one thing you admire about my Risk abilities. This might help you reflect on your own deficiencies and enable you to improve your respective chances of winning.

- Red Death

+++++

Lock it up.

JB

+++++

No you lock it up!

Seriously, do you guys think my dominance is more comparable to Wooden's UCLA teams or Bill Russell's Celtics? I didn't include Michael Jordan's Bull's because they only won 6 titles.

JB, you should write about this in your blog.

+++++

I'm just surprised you haven't started referring to yourself in the 3rd person. Sounds like that's coming soon.

BT

Saturday night's alright, but Friday night works just as well

Good Times
Originally uploaded by JaseMan

"Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in"
- Saturday Night's Alright by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

Hear ye! Hear ye! You can get plenty of action on Friday nights as well if you play your cards right. I nearly got more than I bargained for last Friday at a friend's "friendly" poker game.

The email stated that the poker tournament would start around 8PM and would be winner-take-all. The game didn't start until 9ish and was morphed into two tables of winner-take-all at each table. No big deal. The crew was composed of a bunch of rookies and organizing the tournament would have been pretty difficult.

I should have seen the warning signs. One guy, we'll call him Cheech, started giving me shit about being a ringer just because I suggested an effective way to divvy up the chips. Clearly he's never seen me in action. I'm far from Phil Ivey, but Cheech didn't let it drop. I stayed put.

To top it off, I got dealt pocket sixes on the first hand. I limped and let the rookies dictate things pre-flop. I picked up a six on the flop and another on the turn. Nice. Solid bets, callable bets yielded some decent change on that pot, but I probably also didn't do myself any favors with Cheech.

Fast forwarding to 2AM finds me roughly even on the night after a bad beat and some lucky suck-outs from the rookie contingent. Cheech pushes his neatly arranged chips toward the guy nearest the chip/money tray and says, "Cash me out for $20. I have to take my pregnant wife home."

"Sorry, but you can't do that. It's winner-take-all," I said calmly as I didn't want to make a federal case out of this, but rules are rules. Plus, Cheech was good buddies with the host. Honestly, I didn't care, but I wanted him to know that he was breaking the rules.

"C'mon, man. It's 20 bucks, and my wife is pregnant."

"I've got no problem with it if you don't care about the rules."

It should be noted that the host and other friends of Cheech were telling him the same things as me. Rather than get pissed at himself for being a drunk idiot, he got pissed at me.

"Fine. I'm all in," says Cheech pushing his stack into the pot. He was first to act so the pot was $21.50 due the blinds. The next two players called and folded respectively.

A quick check of my hole cards revealed 6S 9S. Great - a horrible hand, but I called since I was embroiled in the confrontation. I put my cards down and pushed in my stack in one fluid motion proclaiming my all-in-ness. As I look up, I notice Cheech's beady eyes drilling holes through the back of my skull.

"What? Is there a TV back there?" I inquired.

Cheech made got up and took of his visor. Yeah. He was wearing a visor. Anyway, I guess he was trying to intimidate me by dragging his very solid, but less than intimidating, 5'7" 180 pound self out of the chair.

I guess he hadn't heard the story about Toups' roommate pointing a gun at me after our poker game, in which the roommate had participated, woke up his girlfriend. Oh, how I miss college.

Cheech didn't have a gun, but did look like he could break me. However, I am not one to get out meatheaded. I attempted to defuse the situation by calling him stupid. Fortunately for both of us, the host and posse intervened by re-focusing Cheech on the fact that we were playing out the hand and that he could kill me later if he saw fit.

The two guys behind me had folded and called leaving four of us in on the pot which now totaled about $40. All four of us flipped our cards. Cheech showed pocket sevens. The other guys had some sort of face cards with shitty kicker, and I had my suited sex trick.

The flop came up. The only card I could see was a seven. The jackass hit a set on the flop. I started laughing my ass off. Cheech yelled something like, "Shit! Now I can't leave." Wrong.

The pregnant lady had gotten up off of the couch during our little ruckus and had been watching the entire ordeal.
She must have given him some sort of sign that only he could see or whistled some sort of siren song. In any case, it was clear that they were leaving.

The host tried to pay Cheech his 40 bones, but the elation of winning must have snapped him out of his stupid ass trance. He declined the cash and apologized to everyone at the table - including me.

He felt like an idiot. He probably felt like a bigger idiot since now he was leaving $40 on the table instead of $20.
But at least his pregnant wife wasn't about to killing him or send him out for ice cream in the middle of the night.

Here's to you, Cheech. It was a rough night for all of his. I just hope you bring your weakass game to a poker table near me soon. Daddy needs some new shrubs at the crib.

Please adjust the fame clock to 14:59:52

Blogging New Orleans used one of my photos. WOO HOO!

In fact, a bit more digging revealed that they've used a few of my photos before.

+ NOLApic: Time To Run on 2007-07-10
+ NOLApic: Dome from I-10, pre-first home game on 2007-01-13
+ NOLApic: Half the Stash for Mardi Gras on 2007-01-06
+ NOLApic: Bead Mosaic limo on 2006-11-30

Just paid for my great great grandchild's baby rattle

Sorry. What I meant to say was that I just pre-ordered the Harry Potter box set. All seven novels in hardback in some fancy box. Of course I don't plan on opening it when it comes so that it'll be worth tens of dollars 80 years from now. It'll just collect dust on the shelf next to my comic book collection which is slated to pay for the future mini-me's first trip to El Rey.

I feel like the Andy in 40 Year Old Virgin, but I'm not either. Excuse me while I go box up my Aquaman action figure and wait for Catherine Keener to come home.

Never showered? Here's a plan.

Project Plan for Showering
Originally uploaded by JaseMan

Certain things are given when one lives in the tropics of the Gulf Coast. There are two seasons: football and hunting. The food is great. People are nicer. And, you'll sweat your ass off.

Let's focus on the last pernt. Sweating to death isn't that big a deal if you have access to plumbing or a wallpaper's bucket (see Hurricane Continuity Plan for more on this). As such, I have become a bit of a shower addict.

I love to shower. I shower twice daily and sometimes more if I start to smell like a curry buffet.

I'm in Dallas this week for training on our internal project management methodologies and tools. One of the exercises was creating a work plan for showering.

My team and I created a moderately detailed plan on the activity. Fret not, you only need to allocate 30 minutes for this - unless you have "collaborators."

Coffee Shop Analysis

Coffee Shop Analysis
Originally uploaded by JaseMan

It seems that my brain cycles are being used more and more for introspection and thinking about thoughts that need thinking about. These thoughts that need thinking vary from day to day, hour to hour and moment to moment; the variations caused by chaotic happenings of everyday life. One form of introspection and thought thinking involves the chaos of ladies.

Perhaps the biggest questions we face presents themselves in the form of finding a mate/partner/spouse/cool person to hang out with for a while. How do you pick the right one? Did you already meet the right one and not know it? Does your friendgirl/friendguy think you're the one, but you don't know it? If so, how does one ask the F.G. what's what without freaking them out? These are all bullshit questions.

The question you need to be asking yourself is, "What am I looking for in an S.O.?

I've been trying to figure out the answer to that question for a while now. I'm guessing that you other single kids out there are still trying to figure it out as well. The answer is much more involved that a brunette with big boobs and a nice ass. No, the answer is not a brunette with big boobs, a nice ass and brains, but that's pretty good start.

The truth is that the answer will vary from person to person and potential S.O. to potential S.O. That makes my head hurt. Why do things have to be so complex? Why can't The One just appear with a big flashing police light above her head? That'd make things tons easier.

One day about five years ago - October 12, 2005 to be exact - my friendgirl Debbie and I let loose our brain cells in the direction of the question during breakfast at Coffee Shop in Union Square. We didn't plan on it. All I did was order grits - kinda like this:

"Hi, can I get you something to drink?" asked the hot waitress in wife beater and jeans.

"Yeah. Coffee and a water. And, do you have grits? I don't see them on the menu."

"Nope. No grits. But, there is a place across town that does. Are you from the South? I'm from Tennessee."

"I'm from Baton Rouge."

"Cool," she said before leaving to fetch the coffee.

"Damn. She's hot," said my inner monologue to Debbie.

"What makes her so hot?" asked Debbie.

And, voila! Coffee Shop Analysis was born on the back of a dinner napkin. Debbie and I spent the next hour discussing the qualities that factor into the criteria against which a potential S.O. is evaluated prior to said potential S.O. being pursued as the S.O. You may not know that you're doing it, but you are. It's a fact. If you don't believe me, you can look it up.

Here are the criteria that our Coffee Shop Analysis yielded:

+ Cultural Awareness

The ability to discern differences between populations of folks as well as the ability to not stick your foot in your mouth when interacting with folks who don't look just like you.

+ Financial Stability

You don't have to be rich, but please don't be so leveraged on your credit cards that we can't buy a packet of Kool-Aid and the sugar to go with it.

+ Intelligence

Ya ain't gots to be in MENSA, but it would help if you could string more than five coherent thoughts together in a conversation.

+ Maintenance

Do you have to be dolled up to the nines every time we go out or can you hold your own in a t-shirt and some flips?

+ Personality

You need to be interesting and have a sense of humor.

+ Physical Beauty

No Shrekettes allowed, but I haven't seen a Shrekette since I got lost in the Sonora Caverns.

+ Psycho Factor

This area includes codependence as well as general mental health. You must be able to function on your own at least part of the time. And, you'd better not jump my case if all the canned goods labels don't face in the same direction.

+ Spontaneity

You cool with driving all the way to Austin on a whim to get BBQ for lunch on a Monday? No? Please exit stage right.

Together these criteria are called the Partner Quality Continuum. Each of the criteria are scored from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best. Clearly folks would love to find someone who's a ten in each area, but you've got a better chance of seeing God than having that happen. Debbie and I decided that the best approach was to rank the criteria in order of importance and go from there. I'd share our rankings with you, but then I'd have legions of chicks lined up outside The Ranch.

Can't have that. It might piss off the neighbors.

A Day of Research Proves Taco Bell Analysis Still Valid

Once upon a time, prior to the crazy gravy train job that I just finished, I was an uber efficient, ass kicking picture of productivity in my own mind. I could get things done without flinching. I'd not yet met a Gantt chart that I couldn't tame. I could multi-task. I could work 18 hours after having only slept on the train back to the CT after a wild night out in Manhattan. Some days I could even eat peanut butter on saltines and whistle. I was that good. I was sought out by peers for tips on being productive. Then came the my unstructured work assignment.

The position was everything I wanted. I could work from anywhere on the planet connected to the InterWeb. Work could be done at any hour of the day as long as deadlines were met. And, I was my own boss. Uh oh.

The warning bells sounded, "Alarm! Alarm! Alarm! Alarm! Alarm!" but they were drowned out by the hippity hop on my iPod. Procrastination loves lack of structure; it quickly took over my life like it once did in high school. I needed to find my way back to the path of efficiency and effectiveness that I once owned like a Schumacher owned Formula Un.

Today my closeted OCD reached an undeniable level. I could procrastinate no longer...right after I set-up an online game of Risk. I spent the better part of today figuring out how to be more productive at work. Super, right? The not so super part is that I didn't really accomplish anything worth while other than reading posts and articles on a lot of blogs and websites about how to quit procrastinating. The irony is stifling.

In the end, I learned what I already knew. In fact, most of it will seem like common sense to many of you, particularly my fellow CubeFarm nerds. I had done many of the Zen Habits and GTD stuff during my period of ass kicking. The key to any system for getting work done is to know what's in the queue, prioritize it and then attack it. Duh. I started doing this well in 2000.

The Y2K crisis was over for many gianormous companies during the closing months of 1999 as they had implemented solutions for the end of humanity by then. At least that was the case for the client to which I was assigned in January 2000. I can't disclose much except that the gig was high dollar and thus high profile. The burn rate was through the roof. Most of the engagement team logged over 300 hours that month; our small team neared the 400 mark. I had a starched shirt, razor and deodorant in my desk drawer.

We were still in the first few days of the engagement but work was slamming our team, the group responsible for finalizing the deliverables and presenting them to the client's CIO. We couldn't afford to keep drinking out of a fire hose or we'd all be toasted shells of ourselves. Our epiphany happened around 2 AM as we polished off dinner on some day ending in "y."

DL, BO and I were cleaning up the carnage of Taco Bell wrappers when ASJ, the man with three first names, told us to stop, have a seat, stay awake and take notes. From now on all of our Action Items (mmmm buzz word) would be color coded and prioritized according to the spectrum of Taco Bell hot sauces. And so it was.

Taco Bell Analysis Levels

• FIRE: Critical path item that must be addressed within 2 business days. Definite integration dependencies.
  
• HOT: Critical path item that must be addressed within 5 business days. May have integration dependencies.
  
• Mild: Must be addressed within 10 business days. No integration dependencies.

We followed those general guidelines. The time windows may seem a little soft. You won't think so if the fire hose is on full blast.

Check out the following links for help with getting your work/life/stuff under control.

• LifeHacker: an award winning blog about hacking technology and daily life tasks to improve your productivity. This is a daily read for me.
  
• Getting Things Done: David Allen's site that is like Stephen Covey for net heads.
  
• Zen Habits: solid productivity site that presents similar content to GTD, but in chunks that are more easily accomplished.
  
• Jott: call an 800 number, speak and send email, i.e. create To-Do's on the fly
  
• Creating a To-Do List via Jott & Gmail: a great tutorial on combining Jott and Gmail filtering & labels to get things done.

Word of the Day: huh

huh - interjection. 1. a grunt articulated with a range of intonations to express surprise, disbelief, or confusion, or as an inquiry inviting affirmative reply; 2. a concise method of conveying "You don't say," "What the hell are you talking about?" or "You must be out of your fucking mind!"

The police officer told me that I could still get a parking ticket even though the meter ate my quarters. I was like, "Huh?!"

BREAKING NEWS: Fletch Available on DVD

Great Odin's raven! I returned from Redneckia to find that Fletch is now available on DVD according to NetFlix. This is equivalent to astronerds discovering a new planet or hippies developing a version of patchouli oil that masks their B.O. but doesn't singe bystanders' nostrils.

Shitchyeah. I can't wait to catch up with the Underhills, Jim Swarthau, Marvin, Velma or Provo. Has anyone seen Sally Ann Cavanaugh?

Gentlemen, update your queues! It's all ball bearings these days.

"Don't worry your pretty little head" The State is now available

Before MTV entered it's current spin cycle of suck, the network used to host kickass shows that were avant garde - think The Jon Stewart Show, The Ben Stiller Show, and Liquid Television. The State was a sketch comedy show during the 90's that made Saturday Night Live of that era look like Little House on the Prairie. The show was much funnier than its big network counterpart. Only In Living Color could come close to its edgey subjects and its lack of respect for social conventions.

What's not to love about two white pimps, nearly as cool as "a Drexl," with a love seat covered in $240 worth of vanilla puddin'? The answer is "nothing," which is why I scoured the universe and Best Buy for DVDs. No dice. I nearly lost my mind with the GoogleWeb told me that The State on DVD didn't exist due to some mumbo jumbo legal crapola.

PTL for Steve Yobs and his ability to convince folks that selling downloadable media is a good way to make money. So, The State is now available for download on iTunes. It's $2 per episode price tag works out to roughly $10 for Season 1, which is a much cheaper and less time consuming way to enjoy $240 worth of pudding and without the mess.

Free virtual phone solution keeps you in the loop or let's you hide

Heads up. There is a slick new web-based phone service that you should know about. GrandCentral provides a one number telephony solution that makes the final destination of the call transparent to the caller. That's the nerd way of saying, you can call one number and have it ring multiple phones in various locations just like all those bad guys in James Bond movies. I know what you're thinking: Why do I need this? I can just give out my cell number and folks can reach me wherever I am. Sure. You could do that, but then everyone (i.e. clients, exes, collection agents, etc.) could end up with your cell number; and, then they can hound you all the time. Interested? Read on. Not? Have a great day while the rest of us dork out for a few minutes.

The service is called GrandCentral.com. It's free, and it's bad ass. Read the write up on LifeHacker if you don't believe me.

One phone number to rule them all
GrandCentral is a brilliant new web app that lets you consolidate all of your phone numbers into one number, meaning someone can call you on your GrandCentral phone number and all of your phones (cell phone, work phone, home phone) will ring. And then it gets interesting.

Still not buying it? You're dumb. The reason that I'm so excited is because I rarely work in the office, so giving out my office number is pointless. I can't give out my client location phone number to other clients from different groups. I'm not sure why, but I've heard it's ethical. Huh. I didn't know I had ethics; that rocks. Finally, I hate giving out my cell number to clients. I don't want to hear from them after 6PM or, heaven forbid, on the weekends.

In my last role, I was in contact with many clients constantly. Based on the reasons stated above, I signed up for Vonage and used it to facilitate an anywhere or virtual work phone. But, Vonage costs $30 a month and may go out of business due to the pending litigation regarding patent infringement. My internal communications dork broke down in a blubbering heap of snot and busted fiber.

Reading about GrandCentral on LifeHacker caused JB, Tech Dork, to send hallelujahs skyward. Ideally GC can steer clear of legal trouble and stay in business. May be the Googlians will buy them. One can only hope.

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.