Zombie Dogs

I heard about this story a day or two ago, and it still creeps me out a bit. I think it's the name Dog Zombie that really makes it feel spooky. I've copied and pasted the story below as I wasn't sure how long a link to the story would last.

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

However rather than sending people to sleep for years, then bringing them back to life to benefit from medical advances, the boffins would be happy to keep people in this state for just a few hours,

But even this should be enough to save lives such as battlefield casualties and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss.

During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.

"The results are stunning. I think in 10 years we will be able to prevent death in a certain segment of those using this technology," said one US battlefield doctor.

My Way

Take my advice ...

Why the hell should I take your advice? What is so special about you? How is your advice any better than Joe's down the hall? These are all fair questions. I have already posted about my reluctance to give advice. However, there are still tons of people out there that are not only willing to give you advice, but are actually over eager to do so.

When people say "take my advice", they really mean, "let me live your life for you". Often times, the people offering the words are genuinely well intentioned, looking out for their friend or their loved one. Other times, they are jealous and mean spirited. For example, I knew a girl that would sabotage her friend's relationships because she was jealous. Brilliant!

What it comes down to is a belief that they know better than you, and they merely want to offer their opinion on the situation, in the guise of actually trying to assist. Sometimes they do know better, and sometimes they don't. Opinions are everywhere, and people often love to share them. It's like a talk show with full on audience participation and in the world of blog, the audience includes both friends and strangers. I seek out advice, on occasion. I don't always listen to it, of course, but I will seek it out. Generally, I turn to one person. She is the one I count on to give me the same advice I would give if I were not in the situation. I love it.

Everyone has motivations for doing what they do, but sometimes actions have unintended consequences. For example, I write on my blog to share my life with my friends, and as a way for me to keep a chronicle of my so-called-life. However, as has been seen, it has unintended consequences. Some love me, others hate me, and I'm sure still others are entirely indifferent to me, and would not care one way or another if I wrote another single word.

It is really troubling to me when the unintended consequences that occur are negative. This is something I briefly mentioned in a prior post. Advice sometimes comes with too much responsibility, especially if you know the person is absolutely going to follow it. I have had people take notes on my advice so that they would not forget it later when they had to actually follow through with it. That is stressful. Suddenly you know that you are impacting someone else's life, and that only is ever easy when the person is in a terrible relationship - with flying punches, and emotional degradation.

I am not such a big fan of advice when it is of the unsolicited variety. I do not go around trying to upset people or their lives, but at the same time I do not go around trying to be complacent in the face of another's opinion. I am my own person, with my own thoughts, urges, and vices. They are mine. I make mistakes along the way, but at least when I look back at the end of the day, I can say they were mine and not someone else's.

**This post was inspired by Sass**

Perceptions

Everyone has their perspective or their opinion.

"Your blog isn't very funny."
*blink*
"Sometimes it is, but it's much more analytical. Whereas, you are so much more laid back and funny in real life."
"Thanks(?)"

People can say the most interesting things sometimes. It is true of course. No amount of writing I could do here would ever fully express who I am in real life. How I act, my mannerisms, my cooking, my massages, all sorts of things are lost in this medium of blog. Lost in the translation, as it were. Moreover, the things that I write here are, at times, subject to interpretation. Everyone takes their own perspective from what I write here and has their own impression of the type of person I am from it. My friends have the ability to apply what they know of me to what they read, but to an outsider, it may be a much more fuzzy picture that they perceive. Even people I have dated have, at times I feel, gained a misconception of who I am.

I have found, during the course of my relationships, that I have often been mistaken for the other guy. A woman will meet me, and get to know me and like me but suddenly be nervous. I had one girl explain to me that she gets scared when a relationship is going well and will push the guy away, out of some sort of fear. Others worried that I would hurt her like the last guy. I always would try to protest, and claim that it was simply a case of mistaken identity. Most of these women would then go off with the next guy only to get hurt. I was somehow mistaken for the next guy, the wrong guy, or the next mistake.

Considering the foregoing, I feel I should straighten out a couple of things - like crooked pictures in the room:

I really do not have anything against my ex. I think she is an amazing woman. I think we, as a couple and indivisually, had some problems that needed to be worked through in order for the relationship to succeed. This did not happen. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was lack of desire, maybe we just did not fit together correctly, I have no idea. The bottom line is that she is a great person and I care about her, and would never want to hurt her. I feel like there is a misconception, based on my posts that she was this terrible person that I stayed with, and she was not.

I, actually, get along with a decent number of my ex girlfriends. It has usually taken time and effort on everyone's part, but I feel it has been worth it every time. Some of them have given me rare gifts that I caanot thank them enough for.

I think I have mentioned how important I feel communication is in a relationship. However, I think that it is really only step 1 in the stairway that is the relationship. Once, a need is communicated, both people actually need to do something about it, or cope with it in some way. People can express their frustrations and unhappiness with each other and themselves until they are blue in the face, but if nothing is being done about it, nothing will change. It's a lot like the person that says they want to lose weight, but fails to change their diet or go to a gym. If you really want something, you have to make it happen. No one said it would be easy.

Ants

Well, while some are out on a date and others are drinking, I sit here typing my next post. I did attempt to locate a decent drink tonight. Wine was going to be my weapon of choice, but we went through four bottles of spoiled wine (two of them we had just purchased) before we called it quits. I also tried my best to locate a date in Orlando (as I am here visiting friends), but it simply was not going to happen. I was too busy wasting my life away in Disney's Magic Kingdom (Wally World).

As I mentioned to someone earlier today as I was standing in the larger than large line to get on the Small World ride, I have realized that the world is not really that small after all, and it's filled with mean and annoying people. Somehow theme parks seem to attract this type of person, as they lumbar along, pushing others out of their way because they are just as miserable, in the most happy place on Earth, as everyone else. We were there for no less than five hours, and made it onto a grand total of five rides, which was not terribly bad, given the mass of people swarming.

I went to Busch Gardens once, and it was great. However, I think the reason it was great, aside from the company, was that no one was there. It was in the middle of a week in early May. It was awesome. We went on the same ride about six times in twenty minutes. Today, I had no desire to venture to The Kingdom. I thought Universal maybe. After all, I have an annual pass, but everyone else wanted me to go the way of The Mouse. So they bought me a ticket, and I went. I'm very accommodating that way. I learned that there are special things at Disney to occupy the fanatics' time. For example, there are hidden images of Mickey throughout the park. It's sort of like a Where's Waldo game only much more vast and amorphous. Armed with your knowledge, you can impress your friends by pointing out all of the places that you see a Mickey face.

Somehow, this concept reminds me of Easter eggs on DVD's, which I cannot stand. I understood them in computer programs, to an extent. In my experience, they were only mostly known and used by nerds, and I am speaking as a nerd now. Suddenly, these items have become trendy and must be in DVD's. Why? Why can't you just include these special little features in with the rest of the special features? Or if people really want these stupid things, why can't you sell two versions, a version for the geeks that want to waste their time either figuring out where all the damn Easter eggs are or downloading the instructions from some other geek who has already found them, and another version for regular people like me that just want to see all the content without jumping through all the hoops? Does this meaningless hunt somehow prove I am a more devoted fan? I mean, I bought the damn DVD. Clearly, I am a fan enough to spend the money on something I could have downloaded for free instead. But, I digress.

In a way, the lines were good. I got to call people, and text others, and I also got to discuss life, the universe, and everything with my friends (this, of course, included a brief discussion of me moving out of the State of Florida for somewhere with more affordable real estate). However, I still feel that this all could have been accomplished in more hospitable surroundings.

Attraction

I remarked to my friend the other day, "Some women find me attractive." She eyed me for a moment, trying to see it. "Maybe in a Nick Cage sort of way?" I responded, "Yeah, I don't know either."

I had one girl tell me that she found me attractive because I was intelligent. That's right, she wanted me for my mind. (I'm resisting the temptation to throw a blowjob pun in here.) A few women have been lured to me, like a moth to the flame, by my witty humor. I'd love to think that my amazing sense of humor could get me women galore, but c'mon, how many comics have women throwing their panties at them during a show? Some women have remarked at my attentiveness and ability to listen to them. They find this to be an amazing trait, and apparently a rarity among most men. I also have a certain degree of confidence, tempered by my constant belief that no girl will ever fall for me. (Always shocked when they do.) I have been told that I have certain skillz, in the carnal area, but no girl can tell that by looking at a guy. I have even known a couple of girls that were actually attracted to me for my looks alone, but I seem to spawn the inside out sort of love. The kind developed over conversation, and sexual inuendo - the sexual tension building.

I just do not appear to be the guy that will spawn the lust in millions of young girls' hearts with my suave looks alone. Maybe a couple thousand, but in a sea of millions, them's not good odds, especially with 95% of the population being undatable. It means that you do not end up having a lot of meaningless sex with random women, which is not necessarily a bad thing because who wants to end up with the girl having random sex? It also means that there can be a lot of downtime in-between women.

I remember at one of my offices, I specified the three traits I look for in a woman: cute, nice, and smart. They felt I was setting my standards too low, and there I was thinking I had set them too high. The more I have dated, and the more time I have spent meeting and getting to know women, the more unattainable I seem to believe finding those three traits in one woman is. It's a hunt, a game, a challenge, and an investment. An investment of time, energy, heart, soul, and, of course, money. It's high stakes poker, and I suck at poker. (Resisting the temptation to make another pun.)

The nice things about downtime are catching up on all the things you were wanting to do, reflecting upon your past relationships and what they say about you and the people you are attracted to, rethinking what you should be looking for in a relationship, and forming new plans regarding finding another "Miss Right". Like a moth to flame.

Advice

I think the two things that always struck my friends in college was my ability to give advice in a sort of "I can predict the future" kind of way, and the amount that I would think. It's a terrible past time; really quite a bad habit, and one I should certainly break. I suppose the third thing noticed by the women in my life was my ability to give great massages.

I had one friend that used to call me all the time so that I could predict what would happen in his relationships. He would always listen very nicely, never really believe me, and then call me later (even if it took a month) to tell me, "Dude, you were right." The worst part about these situations was, generally, being right. I had a friend once that explained to me that no one likes a person that is always right. She explained that one begins to develop an inferiortity complex when there is someone there that can always see what is going to happen. What happens, she went on, is you will say what is going to happen, end up being right, but then the person has to live with the fact that you were right, AGAIN. It's annoying. So I stopped giving advice. I tried to not get involved.

Dumas wrote that there are two reasons people ask for advice. The first is so that they can precisely not listen to it - in an attempt perhaps to prove the advisor wrong. The second is so that, in case they do follow it, they will have someone to blame if things go wrong. Neither reason makes it very fun to be the advisor.

I now get paid to think a lot and give advice. The two things that bug me most about it is that people always expect you to just know everything legal off of the top of your head, and none of them like to pay. Everyone thinks that you are getting rich off of them. They should really look at my bank account, my student loan bills, and my poor little car in the parking lot. However, the rules have not really changed; people still come to me for the advice, often, so that they can have someone to blame if things go wrong. It's a way to spread the liability; a way to have someone else to point the finger at if things go wrong.

As hard as it often can be to take advice, it is also a tough thing for me to give out now. Oftentimes, I find I cannot actually tell people what I know, or give advice based upon it. For example, I cannot very well tell the fiancee of my friend that he has been cheating on her. Hell, I couldn't tell my friend that his wife was cheating on him. It is just too much responsibility. Suddenly, you have completely altered lives, possibly even the lives of children, and potentially your friendship as well. Somehow the stakes became higher. What do you say to a friend when he asks you what you think of his fiancee? You cannot say you dislike her or you think she is absolutely wrong for him without potentially alienating him. In college, I was able to say things like this without any adverse affects. Maybe because the person had more input, from more people, and there were others saying the same thing I was, so I was not the lone "bad" man saying these things. Maybe we allow ourselves to be more open to contrary opinions during college.

It also becomes tougher to give out the advice because you begin to realize that the advice is probably not going to be followed anyway, or that you may get blamed in the end. A person, at the end of a day, has to make their own decisions, and live their life the best they can, as well as they are capable of, given their urges and vices. Now and again, someone can affect another, but the conditions have to be exactly right. The person has to be open to what they are about to hear, and potentially willing to make a change in their lives. The variables become amorphous, and complex.

After all these years, I have realized that the Count of Monte Cristo had it right, all we can really ever do it "wait and hope".

Back Again

It lives on. It lives on because of something Stephanie said to me. Basically, that I would get used to it and not to give a fuck what others say.

My weekend was eventful. First, I went out of town, and plans got all rearranged so I ended up seeing my mother and going to a big fish cookout at my friends' place in Punta Gorda. It was a lot of fun, and very relaxing. I got back home in the late afternoon on Sunday and took a long nap. It was great. I also contacted an ex while I was away. She's not exactly an "ex". We sort of dated ... or something for about a month before she moved away. The only part that really sucked was our friendship sort of went haywire as a result of ... extenuating circumstances, and there ya have it.

For this story, I must digress a bit. David Sedaris wrote a book called "Me Talk Pretty One Day". In it, he introduces you to his life and the lives of his family (whether they like it or not). One of the chapters in the book is called "You Can't Kill The Rooster", which basically introduces you to his brother, the black sheep of the family, who spews vulgarity as easily as he breathes. For example, "Motherfucker, I ain't seen pussy in so long, I'd throw stones at it." My ex gave me this book, with which I surprised her by reading it. In any event, after a year of not speaking, I decided an email written in the prose form of "The Rooster" would be in order. (I am often tempted to write in this form, but always fear offending whomever I am writing to, but not with her.) I wanted to write her to apologize for not being a great friend towards her at the end, and assisting in the debacle that was our friendship. I had no idea what to expect in response. I only hoped that whatever the response, it wouldn't be mean. I really wasn't up for mean. She actually wrote me back today, and it was really rather amicable. Hopefully, we can salvage a friendship out of the mess.

My hair continues to run away from me. It becomes a struggle for me to go get a hair cut as I consistently have less and less of it. It starts to become scary when they get to the top of your head and only have to make a few snips to finish. I began life with a very full and thick head of hair. This consistency now only remains on the sides and back of my head, as the remainder retreats in complete defiance of my wishes. I'm told many women find bald men attractive. Perhaps I will soon entice a whole new type of woman.

As a final note, I have thought long and hard about what to do about the comment situation, and have decided that if it does become too much, I will start deleting the negative ones, but for now, I will endeavor to just ignore them.

Choices

It started out as a simple idea - a blog. A place for me to share MY thoughts, MY ideas, and MY persepctive on things with my friends, and moreover, a way to better chronicle my life. I've tried writing in journals and it doesn't work for me. Emails worked, but their longevity was subject to hard drive crashes.

I have gotten some really cool things out of my blog, I have met some really interesting people, Kiki, her sister, Sass, Sarah, BJ, all sorts of folks. I have learned about them and sort of shared in their lives as they have encountered obstacles or have wanted to express a thought or emotions or something. It's been a really great experience. I have also gotten some really negative things from it, and somehow today, the negative is overwhelming the positive.

I've been considering my options for weeks now. Blogger doesn't allow me to lock down my blog - password protect it. So I could shut it down, and move it over to LiveJournal. I already have an account there, and I can lock down all of my posts so that only other members who were also listed as my friends (selected by me) could read it. However, that sucks because you have to pay (I think it's $1.00) to be a member and read what I write. I could revert back to emails. This comes with its own pitfalls and I would miss the thoughts and comments of the cool people that read what I write. I could ignore the negative comments. I think Stephanie has become an expert at this tactic. I'm amazed she can keep it up with the comments she gets. Finally, I could delete the comments with no response or explanation.

I am not sure what I will do, but a solution has to be found because I am really tired of mean (and anonymous) people commenting on my blog, telling me that what I think is wrong, telling me the way I view things is wrong, and overall, telling me I'm a terrible person for thinking or acting in a manner of which they don't approve. I'm tired of people incapable of simply not reading a thing that they feel is written by terrible person.

Zones

I can't dance. No I am not about to breakout into song about it or anything like that. I merely stating a fact. The funny part is I can spontaneously improve, and not simply through the consumption of alcohol either. My ex-girlfriend could dance. She had danced almost her entire life, and was, as you may have guessed, really good at it. She, on occassion, would work on teaching me. The lessons were never very consistent, but she noticed that I would just suddenly improve. There really was no reason for the sudden improvement. It just sort of happened. I'm like that with many things though, including basketball. I get into zones where I'm just on fire, but I have no idea how or why. Suddenly, it's all so simple and clear and easy.

My friends are going through some tough romantic times. One of my friends fell for a guy in another state - actually in another geographic reagion of the U.S. When you live in Florida, it's hard to date a guy that doesn't live in the same state, unless you are on the border or something. Florida is nothing if not large. When I was growing up, I used to think driving a couple of hours to Boston was a long drive. In Florida, many people will drive that just to get to work everyday, and the weekends? Forget about it. In any event, I'm not sure it's a good idea to fall for someone that doesn't live in the same state as you, unless you own a private jet, or she is Salma Hayek. It's terrible to watch. She just doesn't seem to have luck with guys. It's weird too because she's gorgeous, smart, funny, and all the rest, but she always seems to fall for these emotionally unavailable men. Terrible.

Another friend of mine just found out her husband has been having an affair. Good times. My ex-girlfriend has a cousin who is married. One night all four of us were out, and I got caught checking out the half naked waitress. I felt terrible about it. It was always a weird feeling for me to check out another girl while I was dating one. I always felt terribly guilty about it, mostly because I would worry if I didn't care about my girlfriend enough if I was checking out another one, and because she was super jealous and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. In any evemt, I got caught, and the cousin told me her husband would never do that as he thought she was the prettiest girl in the world. I started laughing so hard. It was hard not to, knowing that he had cheated on her a few times, at least.

I have friends that are engaged or are getting married and I know at least on of the partners has, unbeknownst to the other, cheated. It's a terrible situation. Then they offer me advice on my romantic life. Good times.

I feel like everyone has their comfort zones, and they get used to doing certain things and often find it too difficult to change. Some people date men who live far away. I have one friend who has been dating the same guy since undergrad. They've been together for about 10 years now, but they have rarely lived near each other. Her boyfriend currently lives in an entirely different country. Some people date - hopping from one romance to another. Some people don't date, or at least rarely do so. I think we hit comfort zones, and don't always know what to do outside of those zones, nor why we enjoy the zones so much, or what keeps them in these zones.

We are often complete contradictions, wanting family, money, career, and lots of time to do everything else. We want a dichotomy of things from our lives and others. Wanting "a lady in the street, but a freak in the bedroom" or a woman "with good looks, who cooks and cleans". Some people want the smoldering eyes, unattainable man or woman to suddenly change and convert for them, or as Stephanie would say, they want to convert funnel cake into celery.

I don't think enough people take the time to really think about the zones they are in, or to take any steps to figure out why they are there.

Accomplishments

For months I have had stupid things that I have wanted to accomlish. I have wanted to finally finish a book. It didn't matter which book really, but I definitely wanted to finish one of the 5 I had started. I also wanted to watch some of my DVDs. See I buy DVDs and then never watch them. Sometimes I don't watch them because I've already seen the movie and still remember it too well to want to watch it, but if a friend hasn't seen it I'll watch it with them. Othertimes, I buy them and simply never find the time to watch them.

Over the past week, I finished "Fast Food Nation" and I watched two of the DVDs I had recently bought, "Intolerable Cruelty", which I thought was dumb, and "Garden State", which I found amusing, in a melancholy sort of way, on certain levels. I also saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", which rocked.

"Fast Food Nation" has left me with a lot of thoughts. One being that if a terrorist group really ever wanted to mess up our country, they could just sneak some terrorists into all the migrant workers we have preparing our meats for us. Another is something I remember learning in my food law class, and that is that our country really doesn't care that much about us. It all gets confused by the time all the lobbiests and the other money holders have had their say. I learned that the whole story about fast food companies not being able to make better quality food or pay their workers more is all krap because In-N-Out (which I loved before reading this book) has been doing it for years, and their food is still cheap. Their managers make about $80,000.00 per year. I also learned that some of the biggest safety and health related reforms in the food industry, as of late, have occurred not due to government intervention, but because of protests and lawsuits, and McDonalds wanting to avoid these things and change its image.

I cooked this weekend. I created some really great dishes, and layered a ton of flavors. Cooking is really a lot easier than everyone thinks it is. The two hardest things about cooking are having the currect tools and all the preparation (cutting, chopping, marinating, etc.). I really love to cook. I think I could watch the Food Network and Comedy Central all day and never get bored. There's always something good to watch.

I went on a date last week. I tried the online thing, but I don't think online is for me. I'm not exactly certain how I'll meet my next girlfriend or my next date for that matter, but I really think there has to be a better way than the Internet or a bar or something like that, or maybe it's just time for me to be single and imporve upon myself without anyone else being around. My psychologist doesn't like the whole idea of online dating. She feels I should try and meet people with similar interests. Hence, my idea of joining clubs and such where I may meet people with similar interests has some validity. I still haven't done a very good job at finding those clubs. I've been thinking about getting a dog. I'm not really a cat person. I've only ever really liked my best friend's cat. I had dogs all through growing up until I was about 16, and I love them, but I'm allergic to them. So I think I may need to go see an allergist and get tested for everything and maybe we can find a solution.

Small accomplishments I suppose, but they are all mine.

Standards

I'm superficial. It's very sad, I'm sure, but I simply cannot get over certain things with women. I don't like fat women; a little heavy, I have no issue, or if they can compensate with a great face, no problem, but if all they've got is a lot of extra cheeseburgers, I just can't get into them. I'm sorry. I wish I could. Believe me, it would make my life a whole lot easier if I could, but I can't. I can't help sitting there thinking, gosh, is it so hard to get to a gym? Maybe if I was fat or didn't go to the gym consistently, I would over look this more, but I'm not and I do.

Dumb women, I can't stand them either. I don't think I'm exceptionally smart. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people out there much smarter than I, but I hate communicating with a woman when all I can think of is how poorly they speak, write, or communicate. I'll be sitting there wanting to runaway and escape as quickly as possible. Praying that they are really smart on the inside, and that they are just nervous. A woman can be absolutely gorgeous, and then they open their mouth and you spend the rest of the night together wishing that they hadn't. Again, maybe if I were more dumb or something this would be easier to overlook.

Women that smoke. Ick. If I liked the taste of cigarettes, I'd smoke them myself. Who the hell wants a chick with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth? It smells like ass, and kills you. Great. As soon as I see an exceptionally hot chick light up, I say to myself, "see ya". I know that I probably didn't have a chance with her to begin with, but it makes me feel better about it, knowing that I wouldn't want to anyway.

I hate women that can't stand up for themselves. My best friend is engaged to a woman that is like that. You'll start getting into some sort of witty back and forth banter, and she'll look at him and say, "are you going to let him say that?". I mean, are you kidding? You can't joke? You don't have the intellect to come up with anything better than getting your boyfriend to tell me to stop?

I hate women that expect a relationship to just sort of happen without any effort or time commitment. The ones that are actually too busy for a relationship, but want one anyway. They sit there with their calendars booked, and constantly on the run with no time to date, but somehow feel that if they wish for it hard enough you will both date and get to know each other better. They don't want to sacrifice any of the other things they do to actually make time for this, they just sort of expect it to happen. Reality is foreign to them.

I think I may be too picky. I'm often reminded of the Seinfeld line, "70% of the population is undatable." I agree. I think it may be even worse than that. I have a friend, who now tells the women he dates up-front that he is simply waiting for them to go crazy. He tells them, "I know you're a woman, and so you're bound to go crazy, and so I'm just waiting for it to happen, but until it does, we can hang out and have fun." He's gotten his tired slashed twice within the last month by ex'es. Good times.

Then when I find a woman that may fit all of my qualifications, I get nervous. It's so rare that I see one, I think that I possibly panic. Sort of like if I saw a unicorn, or some other mythical creature. I have no idea what to say, and I never think they will like me. The girl I dated before my last girlfriend actually had to attack me halfway through the night because she got tired of waiting. She had the funniest line when I asked her about it: "Well there's only so much one can talk." Yes, she ended up being a little crazy, but she was very cool, and fun. She could never understand how I didn't think she would like me. She told me I was super smart, so of course she would like me.

I love women, and their ability to fall for a guy for all sorts of reasons, looks, money, brains, sense of humor, whatever. So many of them don't seem to be very picky. I wonder if they are forced to that - if there are just so few guys out there with the "whole package" that they are forced to accept what they can get.

As I read this post over, I notice that the things I have listed that I don't like in women are things that I wouldn't like in myself either. If I were fat and didn't work out, smoked like a chimney, and was dumb, maybe my standards would change. It seems I'm looking for a woman that has similar abilities, traits, and values as myself.

Tough Weekend

I am a blogging slacker. I simply do not blog as much as many other people. I'm lucky if I add an update 3 or 4 times per week, but I have friends that update 1 or 2 times per day. A total slacker am I. Very sad.

This weekend I got my car its routine checkup and maintenance, had breakfast with my ex, and saw Star Wars. Breakfast with the ex did not go as well as I had hoped. It was so weird - seeing her again for the first in weeks. I really didn't know what to say or how to act. I also didn't expect to still have feelings for her. It was so weird. We tried talking some more later that day, and that sort of seemed to go a little better, but Sunday was bad too.

I remember when I was in undergrad one of my friends broke up with his girlfriend. They were such a fun couple. I liked them both and I liked hanging out with them both, which made it suck all the more when they broke up because I didn't get to hang out with her anymore. Lines were drawn and such. The thing was that they still really cared about each other and tried hanging out and being friends right after. At the time, I was dating one of his friends (isn't it cool to have friends with hot friends that like you?), and she and I spoke about the situation and we both agreed that this was a terrible mistake on their part. We felt that they would probably be able to be friends again one day, but not right away, and they both needed space and time to get over each other and the hurt and all of that in order to ever really be able to be friends in the future. But how do you tell your friend that? You don't. You sit, wait, and hope that you are wrong. It didn't really work out terribly well for them as I recall. I really understand his dilemma though now that I am in it.

Despite my misgivings and my preconceived notions, I liked Star Wars. I heard a lot of bad things about it, but I really thought it did everything that it needed to do to bridge the gap. Sure, I thought there were aspects that could have been better, but this was a substantial improvement, in my opinion from Episodes I & II.

I heard on the news today that they used computers to shrink Lindsay Lohan's breasts for the new Herbie movie that is coming out because the size of them offended some parents. You have got to be kidding me. (I thought they looked a little small in the previews.) I still cannot believe that the studio did it. It makes me not want to see the movie now.

Car Insurance

Presently, this post does not relate to my personal life, but it could, and I think that's what bugs me most of all.

I'm going to start off by saying that I know next to nothing about car insurance. Car insurance and I have a love hate relationship, it loves my money and I hate paying for it. I hate paying for something that I hope I will never have to use. I feel like I should only have to pay for 10 or 20 years and if nothing has happened at that point, they should give it to me for free until something does. What I hate more is that if something does happen, the company I have paid for years to protect me now wants me to pay more because something actually happened. I understand the company's reasoning and logic, but I also think it sucks, especially if I was not at fault for whatever happened.

Insurance in general fascinates me with its various forms and packages. However, automotive insurance simply mystifies me. I barely know what I am covered for, but they tell me it's what I need to have and I blindly believe them. I believe there is coverage for if you hit someone, and then there is coverage if you hit an object, and not a person. Then there are a lot of additional types you can acquire. You could probably spend as much as the car is worth on insurance quite easily, especially where I live.

I do know that a car in Florida is considered a dangerous instrumentality so if you have a lot of money, you better carry a hefty insurance policy to cover your liability, and not own it jointly with anyone, especially your spouse. I wouldn't pick the insurance policy though, I'd call an insurance broker for that.

In Flroida, as in most other states probably, we have no fault car insurance. So that even if it is totally not your fault that you are in an accident, yeah it still is. I mean I know they call it "no fault" but really they just mean it's always your fault, or "everyone's fault". I think the worst thing is that no matter who is at fault, your insurance rates go up as a result. So someone cuts me off, slams on their brakes, and I rear end them, and I'm at fault. (I think even before no fault insurance you were presumed to be at fault in this type of a situation anyway.) I just think it sucks.

Old Friends

My mom and my best friend from high school came to town to visit me for a couple of hours last night. My best friend now lives in Germany, which I think he enjoys much more than the U.S. It was really good to hang out with him again. We caught up on old times and he met some of my new friends (friends from law school). It was cool.

One of my other friends found out recently that her husband is cheating on her. Good times. She works a lot, and she never really liked sex with him very much anyway so I guess it was to be expected, but it really does suck for her. I think you should probably leave a person rather than cheat on them. Cheating on them seems like just some sort of passive way to make the other person want to leave you because you are unhappy and don't have the nads to step up and say, I'm not happy. Either that or a total sign of disrespect.

I put a post up here yesterday for about an hour. It was regarding my hatred for car insurance. I think I still have it saved somewhere. But I took it down because I didn't want to offend anyone who might sell car insurance or really have a love for car insurance, or something like that. After all, I thought, I really don't know anything about car insurance. Maybe it really is the best thing since sliced bread and I'm just being overly hostile towards it. I'm still toying with the idea of reposting it, but I just can't decide.

I hope you all have fantastic weekends.

My Memorial Day in Review

I ended up in Orlando. Orlando the city of theme parks, and some of my closest friends. It was a lot of fun. We went to Universal. We had barbecue. We figured out how to make Starbuck's Passion Lemonade. It was cool.

I had never been to Universal so I got to ride The Hulk, and Spider Man and everything else for the first time, and I am now the proud holder of a season pass, so I'll definitely be returning. I also spoke to my ex-girlfriend on Saturday, which may have been one of the best parts of my trip even though it was a little weird. We actually seemed to have a really productive conversation and it was really cool to be able to talk again. There were definitely some communication problems between us towards the end of our relationship, and it was nice to kind of talk about what happened and what each other had been thinking and feeling, in reflection. We had a few "ah ha" moments, and I think we both understood at least a little better. I think we may be able to at least remain friends out of the whole twisted mess.

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly relaxing and hanging out. We kept wanting to do things like sing karaoke or go to the movies, but then would run out motivation, and would end up just talking, joking, and laughing instead. Overall, a very nice (and a little expensive) weekend.

Interesting News

I have seen more photos and videos of naked ex-girlfriends online from jilted men than I ever though imaginable. Today a woman filed suit against Yahoo for hosting naked pictures of her that her ex-boyfriend posted. Evidently, he created a profile for her, complete with the pictures and also impersonated her, communicating with men that contacted her. Random men would show up at he office expecting a sexual liaison. She, apparently, had asked Yahoo to remove the profile multiple times, but they had refused.

I still cannot believe women let men photograph them and video tape them in sexual positions and then lose track of the pictures or tape before a breakup. In the days before Internet, this probably wouldn't be such a big deal, but in the digital age, one has to be a little more cautious. Ex lovers can just be so sweet sometimes.

Speaking of sweet, recent studies have also concluded that Americans drink the bulk of their caloric intake. Yes, that's right, at one time it was from white bread, but now it's from soda. Drink up, kids. Did you know that there's a statistical probability that you will get a partially dissolved rat in your soda can? I learned this from a food law attorney. Apparently, settling the lawsuits over these occurrences is built into the soda manufacturers' operating budget for the year. Mmmmm, tasty.

I am currently in the section of the book Fast Food Nation where the author discusses slaughter house practices and such. He doesn't really focus on any potential animal cruelty or anything like that - or if he does I'm not there yet. His focus, presently, is more on how the meat processing plants try to get everything done as quickly and cheaply as possible, which causes much higher rates of contamination and injury to the workers. I guess most of the workers are uneducated immigrants - you know the type of people you would probably not trust to take care of your child, are helping to prepare his/her food. In any event, it takes a certain amount of time and skill to get the cleaning of the animal down so that the intestines and such don't get serrated and contaminate the meat or the carving instrument. Unfortunately, there is such a high turnover in the plants and the speed is so demanding that few carvers ever get it consistently right. Reading it makes it difficult for me to consume meat only because I now know the potential contamination rates, and that the industry polices itself and is known to lie. Good times. I can't give up meat, man. I love it too damn much.

I have no idea where I will be this weekend. Hopefully, it will not involve me sitting at home on my couch. I hope everyone else has a splendid weekend.

Business

Before this blog was a blog it was a weekly email to my friends. I did this for two reasons: one, my friends were important to me and I valued their opinions and thoughts, and two, I didn't want to have to contend with what some bloggers have to contend with everyday, mean people posting comments. Just look at the comments to this recent post and you'll see what I mean. After much convincing, I started a blog, but one of the main reasons I started it was because the emails became a sort of journal for me, and every time my hard drive crashed, I lost two or more years of my life. I am not sure a blog will be any more permanent, but it's worth a shot.

I did not start a blog to meet people. I did not start a blog to please people. If I am around people that I constantly have to please or worry about offending, then I won't be around them for very long. My happiness is not determined by how much I can please others. In my opinion, no one's should be. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."? Bullshit. Try hanging out with a masochist and see how far that rule gets you. "Do unto others as they would like to have done unto them."? More krap. Hang out with the abusive bastard and see where that rule lands you. The only possible rule out there is live your life to be happy. Yes, there will be consequences to your actions, both positive and negative, but you cannot live your life in a vain attempt to please everyone because you can't please all the people all the time.

If you don't like my blog; if you don't like what I say or how I say it, then go read someone else's. There is no shortage of blogs. Hell, start your own. Clearly, based on some of your more recent comments, some of you would like to have your own blogs to discuss such things as cliches, and their profound import.

I was asked a, presumably, honest question by Anonymous in his comment to my last post, and I gave a very honest answer. I explained why I said what I said. If this does not meet your expectations of how you want me to act like or how you think I should behave, then too bad. I am not writing here to please you or anyone else. I don't even know you.

If you had clicked on the link that I supplied in my previous post, you would have seen that one of Kiki's most recent posts was about relationships and her having been in them for about as long as she can remember. This inspired me to write my last post. That is how it was inspired. Kiki's comment was a cliche, but it was supportive and it was after we had already talked about what happened much earlier. Finally, Kiki has a boyfriend, who she is extremely happy with. The mere fact that we get along should not bug anyone. Obviously, my "meanness" has not kept me from making a friend or two.

So there it is. I ain't changing to please you. My blog is what it is. It is mine, and only mine. You comments are mine to dispose of as I see fit. If you don't like it, look elsewhere, or start your own.

The Game

I remember once my friend compared this girl to a video game. Something about guys having to keep putting quarters in her to see how far they can get. Somehow this amused her tremendously. I repeated the comment to a girl and it went really badly. I told me friend what had happened and her cried, "You did what!? You can't just go around doing that to just any girl." That's when I realized, I was really in trouble.

Through most of college, I was single. However, given the dating pool, I felt I was better off for it anyway. When my friend and roommate finally moved away from Miami, Florida, he told me it was a shame we had not gone somewhere else for school because we had wasted some of our best years on some of the most materialistic and mean women ever. I thought he was probably right, but when I went to a different university for my advanced degree, I knew he was right. It was ok. I had so many friends to keep me occupied that it really never bothered me. When I did have a girlfriend she would get jealous of my female friends and think I was sleeping with them. Suddenly I lost my autonomy and my freedom. Besides, I was still figuring myself out. There was no real necessity to have a girlfriend.

After I finished school, I suddenly had about a tenth of the friends to hang out with. They were scattered throughout the country, and in some cases the world. The friends I did have worked terrible hours or had significant others and so I didn't see them as much. I decided that I now needed a girlfriend, and that I was ready to have one. I had finished my degrees, I had a solid career ahead of me, things were looking up and I was tired of just hanging out with myself at the end of the day. However, I wanted a cool girlfriend. I wanted one that was fun to hangout with, someone that I would hangout with even if I wasn't sleeping with her. I had this theory - beauty fades, but personality is forever. So I had to genuinely like the person that I was with for more than their body. Don't get me wrong, there had to be some sort of physical attractiveness, but it was not high on my list. She only had to be "cute".

The problem was that I don't like hanging out with that many people consistently, and the ones that I did like hanging out with were already my friends, and I was not going to try and convert a friend into a girlfriend. That was just not an option, which may or may not be wise. Well there was always that one girl that became my friend after I tried to date her for two years, I would have totally converted that one, but she was too busy sending me mixed messages. For example, one day after I listed my requirements for a girlfriend, she asked me, "so which one of those qualities don't I have?" What an unfair question. The other problem was that I didn't meet women my own age through work or something like that. I am about half the age of most people I work with so it's hard to have office romances or be introduced to young friends of co-workers when their young friends are 40.

As I reflect upon all of this, I wonder how it will all shake out in the end. I am not really sure, but I think I definitely need to find some extracurricular social activities to meet new friends and such. Unfortunately, I really have no idea where I will find the time, nor which ones I should join. A lot of the clubs I look into joining are also filled with old people. Where did all the young people go? I think they must all be chained to desks slaving away, and not joining clubs.

This post was partially inspired by Kiki.

My Minor Weekend

Wow. I didn't expect the amount of comments I received from my last post. I suppose one just never knows. Interestingly, other people posted sad break-up posts on their blogs this weekend, without receiving anywhere near the number of comments, and one of my friends broke up with her boyfriend. It was a big relationship weekend.

I went out of town for most of the weekend. However, due to the magic of technology, no one really knew that. On Sunday, I ended up on a very large sail boat. The owner has had it for a long time. He sailed it from California to Florida when he moved here, and has taken it to Cuba, Mexico, and New York. He's a very successful businessman, which is probably obvious given that he owns a huge sailboat. He told me he had to learn to relax. He said he realized over the course of his life that at the end of one's days, one does not think about the huge deals that they have closed, but instead remembers the fun times they had with friends and loved ones while they were relaxing, and enjoying their life. I know, easy for someone that already has a lot of money to say, but that doesn't make it wrong.

I saw some of my friends, and my best friend took it upon herself to set me up on a blind date, which I didn't find out about until I was on the way to the restaurant. Evidently, the woman is a real estate broker that models in her spare time, and is the sister of one of my other friends. It was very casual though with some other people there, thank God because I could not have handled a real date yet. She thought I was cute, and spent seven hours hanging out with us, when she had only planned to spend fifteen minutes.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was on Saturday morning at around 8:00 AM when my best friend and I got into a debate about the tax consequences of a transaction she had recently encountered. Neither one of us had real legal support for our positions, but we were arguing based on tax policy. I was absolutely convinced she was wrong and explained to her what I thought should be the consequences. She had to call her grandmother, and so I did some research, and found the magic Internal Revenue Code section that vindicated me. I felt very triumphant. Yeah, I know, we're nerds.

I was invited out again for next weekend when the three day Memorial Day bash occurs. Basically, this guy throws this three day open bar, free food party on this 90 acre piece of property. I am not sure I'll attend it, but it is a whole lot of fun.

Not a very eventful weekend to report on really, but I figured I should post something new now that the dust has settled.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I don't care how many times you hear it, it always seems easier until you do it. No matter how many you go through, they all suck. Suddenly, this person that you cared about and shared everything with is not a part of your life. All the whispers of love and forever and the like evaporate in the wink of an eye and you are left sitting there feeling as though you have just been kicked in the crotch saying "What the hell just happened?".

Is it really so terrible that I wanted to spend more time with her?

She says she loves me still and thinks about me often, but she just has too much going on in her life right now to work on our relationship. How does that happen? When did the relationship that is supposed to last the rest of your life become an after thought? The after dinner mint. Something to occupy yourself in-between working, sleeping, and eating.

I suppose it is all priorities, and some have different priorities than others, but I just don't see how the person that is supposed to be so important to you occupies such a low spot on your list. I also don't see how you love someone and care about them and miss seeing them, but don't put forth the effort of keeping them in your life. Maybe I am not supposed to understand it, but just accept it.

No matter how it all happens or the reasons for it, all you are really left with is the empty spot that is quickly filled with the rush of regrets. Eventually, from this you will take the memories and the experience.