Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Haiku


The air is warmer                                
nose finally stops running
ditch the Kleenex stash

the fragrance of spring
up and down Commonwealth Ave.
scent of thawed dog shit

sunflowers in yards
nod their heads impatiently
it's horny season





Monday, March 15, 2010

Niche Market for The Bean-Obsessed?

We as a culture have become obsessed with minutiae. I blame the seemingly endless stream of information floating into every orifice via a myriad of technologies. There are countless websites on every topic we could ever want to, or wish we couldn't, imagine. Sites like Twitter and Facebook allow us to record for posterity every insignificant detail of our lives - "I just took a piss, and it was slightly green. Maybe I'm eating too much broccoli."


There are now over 500 channels on our TVs (remember when there were only 7? Yeah, you know you do). This means that network execs have to come up with a vast number of programming topics to fit into a rapidly multiplying amount of "niche markets," which essentially means a target audience for topics that are more and more narrow, to the point where any specific subject may interest maybe three people, and bore the crap out of the rest of us. 

Yesterday while recovering from the rooster flu or whatever the hell other barnyard animal from which it was originally derived, I was channel-surfing and came across a documentary about beans. This was not even about the health benefits, which would have been somewhat interesting though not particularly new, but rather the history of bean growth in America. I think it was on the History Channel. I guess they ran out of material about World War I and decided to go with veggie folklore.

Of course, this couldn't compare in sheer entertainment value to what was showing on the National Geographic Channel - "Sizing Up Sperm." This apparently involved the simulation of conception with mountain-climbers clad in white, doggedly scaling up a series of precipices, determined to reach their destination even if it meant that either they, or all of their comrades, would be wiped out along the way.

Not that I'm uninterested in sperm, per se. But some topics are better as concrete experience.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Scary Wacko Guy

There are some pretty scary guys out there in Single Land.

I have a sort of philosophy statement on my online dating profile that states my aversion to getting or giving thanks-but-no-thanks rejection messages on the site, as I explored in some detail in an earlier post, "Get a Pair." I mean, if you get an email from someone you've never met and you're not interested, it should be perfectly acceptable to just not respond. To reply to everyone, or to expect it, is pretty unrealistic, and if you're that sensitive you probably need at least a few more months of therapy before participating in online dating.

Apparently, Scary Wacko Guy doesn't think so. Scary Wacko Guy believes that sending a message on a dating site to someone you don't know is similar to (I'm paraphrasing) making a meal that has been "lovingly prepared," and that "expressions of love should be acknowledged."

Excuse me, expressions of love? We've never met. Definite stalker potential there. And as far as emailing a stranger being similar to "making a meal that has been lovingly prepared," I'd say that a more accurate food-related comparison would be leaving a muffin in a Dunkin' Donuts bag sitting on a table.

I also received an email from someone who mentions in his profile that he's looking for someone who "wants to spend every minute she's not at work" with him. Apparently he actually wants a clingly, wacko stalker girl.

Good luck with that.