Welcome to Together Dating

Welcome to Together Dating. At least that's what they say.

Since my divorce, or more accurately since my separation, I have been trying out various dating services. I was completely sucked into joining Great Expectations. My advice? Don't. They took about $2500 from me and I got less than nothing from them. I had much better results from the $20-$40 a month on the personals web sites. And I didn't have much luck with them.

Finding someone to go out with on a social date, as opposed to a romantic date, isn't easy. First off, I have little time to spend "going out". Having my son with me takes up all my time and on the alternating weekends he's at him mothers I'm to tired to do anything but the laundry and dishes and shopping and whatever to go out.

Work is not help 'cause the people I work with are 98% male. Of the two women there, one is almost old enough to be my mother and the other is, well, if you can't say something nice about someone you shouldn't say anything. So I'm saying nothing.

The Bar/Club scene isn't an option. With my disability the way it is I'd be lucky if I could spend 3 minutes out before having to go home. Standing is difficult. I'm not as immune to the whole smoke and booze atmosphere as I was 20 years ago.

What else is left? Church would be a potential option but I don't go to church. Social clubs? The only ones I ever belonged to were all tech ones and the only women at these kind of things were the waitresses serving the drinks. How about relatives. There's always someone willing to fix you up with a friend or co-worker. Well, not in this family. Thank $DEITY for that. Are there any other ways to meet someone? Maybe, but I don't know what they are.

While wandering the web one day I ran across this Together Dating site. At first I'm thinking it's just another Great Expectations. "Give us (lots of) money then all you have to do is come in and look at all the books we have filled with pictures." You find someone, attempt to initiate contact and hope that they contact you back." Yeah, right. Not even if I looked like Brad Pitt. But this place promises a different approach. They will do all the matching for you and initiate the introductions. All you have to do is meet the person and see if there is any potential.

Now, they don't do this for free, naturally. And, being the kind of company they are, you won't find a price list on their web site. However, I'm guessing that they aren't looking to suck as much money out of you as they can and run like Great Expectations. OC, I could be wrong. It's an interesting premise, though. I might have to contact them and see what they have. If it doesn't cost an arm and a leg maybe I'll give it a shot. I mean, I really would like to have someone special in my life. Who knows?

Nearly unbelievable display of athleticism

This post is about Sumo but you don't have to understand anything about it except that the first guy to touch the ground in the ring with anything other than his feet OR is pushed/carried/thrown out of the ring loses.

A few days ago, during day 8 of the Nagoya-basho, Yokozuna (Grant Champion) Asashoryu had a match against Kotonowaka, one of the higher ranked top level rikishi (wrestler). Asa is not only the sole Yokozuna but he's one of the smaller guys competing. However, he is one of (if not the) strongest men in Sumo and his technical ability is way above that of the competition (as demonstrated further on).

The bout took only about 9 seconds (an normal time in Sumo). At the start Koto was able to get a good grip on Asa's Mawashi (loincloth, not diaper!) and did a real impressive job of turning him around. He started a high shoulder throw that actually spun Asa so that his back was to the floor. As they both went down it seemed obvious that Asa was going to lose this bout (he was unbeaten up to this point). But this is where the Yokozuna showed why he is the Yokozuna. Asa did an unbelievable back bridge with only one arm on Koto and his feet just inside the ring. OMG! I couldn't believe my eyes. You can see a video, with some slow-motion replays, at http://www.banzuke.com/~movies/nagoya2004/080704mov.html (Banzuke.com is the Sumo video archive site).

It doesn't matter if you like or understand Sumo. Go see this match. You won't believe your eyes either.

It's oh-three-thirty. Why am I still awake?

I'm so damn tired I can barely see but I can't get to sleep. My son is dead-out and when morning comes he'll be whizzing around at 145 kph like normal. I'll never be able to keep up.

It seems that Blogger has a new compose interface. Lots of new formatting features. However it seem that the spell checking doesn't work. That's definitely not a good thing in my case. My spelling prowess, or the lack thereof, is (in)famous around the world. Anyone who's ever received an email from me before good spell checkers came into being knows how truly bad I am at English word spelling. I can probably still tear up German but in the 41 years I've been around spelling English words is something I just can't grep.

$DEITY, I just fell asleep at the "wheel". Dozed off and ended up pressing the space bar for a L-O-N-G time. What a trip.

I'm hungry. I want a snack but don't have any in the house. Well I have Oreo and chocolate/peanut butter chip cookies but no milk. Can't eat the cookies without milk.

Man I wish the spell checker worked. I can still use my workaround, open a compose window in Evolution, type the message there then cut-n-paste it to the Blogger form. Think I'll do that... Ok, now I'm in Evolution. Already found a small handful of words misspelled.

I didn't get an article written for LWN this week, which was disappointing. I'll be working double-time this weekend. I know that they are relying on me for some content as many of their outside writers are on vacation and such.

Oh hell, I fell out again. My snoring woke me up. That's one thing I can claim to be world class in... Snoring. You can hear me from the other side of the house and possibly from outside my bedroom window.

My son is all hooked on a Spider-Man game on his iMac. I need to get a joystick for him. The guy at CompUSA said that all the ones they had there would only work under a Microsoft OS. I think he's full of it as a USB is a USB. But I'm going to check with the Mac store, just in case.

That's enough for tonight. Or should I say this morning?

Insomnia sucks

I'm sitting here at oh-dark-thirty in a small room with the only light visible coming from my monitor. My son has been happily sleeping for at least 4 hours but I've been wandering around the house looking for something to do.

• I did a little email answering as well as deleting the 1800+ spam email messages caught by my anti-spam tools
  
• Watched a bit of the Tonight Show. Leno had Sharon Stone on and was just drooling all over himself. But then again so was I... Halle Berry will be on tomorrow night so much more drooling is to be expected.
  
• Had a small dip of Skoal. Since I was drooling I might as well make use of all that extra saliva.
  
• Came back to the computer and fiddled around some more
  
• Decided to write this entry
  

So here I am. Tired as hell as I didn't get to sleep last night till after 0245. I did make it into work today, thank $DEITY. The new meds I got from the doctor on Monday seem to be helping, though I was quite "stoned" all day. Hopefully that will be a minor side effect that will go away after taking it for a while.

I seem to be ready to pass out so I'm off to bed now. I won't get to sleep in much at all as my son will undoubtedly wake me up around 0800 to make him breakfast. I think I'll make pepperoni and eggs tomorrow. It's incredibly good breakfast food. Just throw a bunch of pepperoni slices in a frying pan and cook them for a little bit. Then throw some scrambled eggs in, cook and serve with toast. Mmmm.... Gettin' hungry just thinking about it.

British GP comments

While the results of the race may seem like it was just another Ferrari/Schumacher boring win, the race was anything but boring. I'm really trashed right now so I'll just run down the highlights...

Kimi Raikkonen, who came in 2nd, started from poll with the new MP4-19B McLaren-Mercedes and made a decent go of it in the race. This version of the chassis (they say it's just a slight modification of the MP4-19A but it's truly a new car) really looks good. There's a great opportunity for McLaren to salvage the rest of this season.

This is Michael's 80th win in vintage Michael Schumacher style. When he was able to take the lead he ripped off blazing lap after lap. It's almost unreal the way he can just tear through any circuit and pick up 10 or 15 seconds on cue. Right now the combination of Ferrari and Bridgstone (tires) and Michael is something magical. He's got 100 points in 11 races on the season and there's still 7 races to go. Last year he won the Drivers Championship with 93 points over the entire season.

Rubens Barrichello had another great race. Starting from second he ended up in 3rd place for his 9th podium in 11 races. He's the only driver to score points in every race this season. Michael is winning but Rubens is really doing a great job for the team.

Giancarlo Fisichella, in his Sauber-Petronas, is really turning some heads this season. He started dead last and ended up taking 6th. Over the last couple of races he has been making a habit of starting way back in the grid and climbing his way into points. If it weren't for a bad pit stop he could have had a real chance to take 5th from Juan Pablo Montoya in the Williams-BMW. As a side note, the Willians cars are not performing well this season. It's a credit to JP that he is able to take this car and get points with it.

Then there was the big crash. Jarno Trulli's Renault lost it on lap 40 (of a scheduled 60 laps) and he slammed into the wall hard at an estimated speed of 275 kph (170 mph). After he hit the wall he went into the gravel pit and flopped a couple of times. This was a very bad looking crash but Jarno was completely unhurt. The safety designs in the car did exactly when it was supposed to do. It's amazing what these cars can do.

Lastly, Takuma Sato's BAR-Honda didn't blow out on him. But he finished 11th and was noticeably slower than his teammate Jenson Button, who took a disappointing 4th on his home track. The general censuses is that the team cut back the throttle on his engine. Honda really needs to figure out what's going on with their engines.

Now it's on to Hockenheim and the German Grand Prix. Will Michael and Ferrari continue to dominate? Will Renault be able to push enough horsepower to match the great chassis? In the McLaren MP4-19B the real deal? Can it bring the glory back to the once dominant team? We'll find out in 12 days.

I'm going to bed now.

Tired and sick

I'm really sick and tired of being sick and tired. After having a few good weeks last month this week just plane sucks. I was a mess on Tuesday but was able to make it into work. Wednesday is my off-day but I ended up in bed almost all day. Today hasn't been much better but it also means another day missed from work. Additionally, I had planned to start going back to Tae Kwon Do this week. The instructors are going to think I'm never coming back. At the rate things are going they might be right.

I got all of my sons TKD equipment over to his mothers so hopefully he'll get to a couple of classes a week. That would be at least something. The fall tournament normally happens the end of October or the beginning of November. Next week the TKD school is closed for summer vacation so the best I can hope for is to try again in two weeks. I don't know how but I do need to get back into going. It helped my health quite a bit and it is a lot of fun. Definitely better than just lying on the couch in front of the TV for hours.

I'm just so damn tired of the constant pain. It's crushing, like a boulder on my back. It's a good thing I'm not feeling well enough to drive, though. If I were I'd probably be out getting cigarettes again. (I've been quit this time for almost three weeks, I think)

French GP comments

Another race, another 10 points for Michael. But this race the Ferrari team had to do some serious work to keep Fernando Alonso and Renault from take the race. It all started out fairly normal. Alonso got the poll with Schumacher in 2nd. At the start Alonso and Schumacher led off 1-2 and it looked like the standard Ferrari strategy in action. The race was looking like a 3 stopper and Michael would just sit on Fernando's tail and then rip off some fast laps when the Renault took it's first pit stop. But that's when things went out the window. Alonso stayed out so long that Schumacher had to bring his car in first. Now what? The whole Ferrari game plan just went out the window. Well, in the fly, Ferrari switched to a 4 stop strategy. This let Michael take the lead about mid-race and then it was just unreal. Michael whipped off fast lap after fast lap like he was riding a jet. He took a 9 second lead and extended it to 22 seconds within 8 or 9 laps! By the time Alonso brought his Renault in for their third pit stop there was no way to catch the world champion. But that wasn't the last Ferrari surprise. Rubens Barrichello, who had problems during qualifying and started 10th, had worked his way up to 4th behind the other Renault driven by the only other driver to win a race in 2004, Jarno Trulli. Having the French team take 2nd and 3rd at the French GP wouldn't be to bad. But on the last turn of the final lap, Barrichello made a gutsy move inside of Trulli and finished on the podium. Ferrari now has double the points in the Constructors Championship, 158 to the 79 that Renault has. And the only driver with a realistic chance of winning the Drivers Championship at this point is Rubens.

But the season is only half over. Many things could happen. It looks like Renault has a really strong car. BAR-Honda is still carrying a lot of potential. [Side note: Takuma Sato left the race again with a blown engine. IMO, there's definitely something funky about the fact that it's his car blowing up while his teammate Jenson Button hasn't had any engine trouble.] McLaren-Mercedes debut their new chassis, though it didn't seem to help them much.

This Sunday it'll be the British GP at Silverstone. We'll have to see if anyone can come up with something that can keep the German and Italian National anthems from being played after the race for an unprecedented 10th time this season.

Mocking my Mocumentary

Since no one really sees this blog but a very small number of friends, little I say here will have any lasting or significant impact on anyone's life. However, the friends who did read my earlier post about Fahrenheit 9/11 (yes, the both of you) have sent a little feedback. Mr. Light Green may or may not post a comment to the story. If he does I strongly recommend anyone interested in this issue to read what he says. And as for you, ya hardass union maker, I hope you get to post about this, too. I am sure that I will learn more from LG and the Beach Bumb about what is really happening in the world of politics. There was a time not so long ago when I was much more active in political issues. Now I haven't the strength to actively do anything. I can hardly take care of myself and my son these days. I do try to follow as much as I can. And not only the propaganda of one side, either. I prefer to get as much information from both sides that I can wean out of the highly political and partisan information that comes from the news and the rest of the media, like the afore mentioned Michael Moore film.

My previous rant against it didn't really make clear what I wanted to say about the movie. First; I do not care what political slant Moore wants to put on him films. If he'd have done something like this at the height of the Clinton presidency he'd have had enough for two or three films. And had this Clinton movie been made with the same care and passion of F 9/11 it would have been a big hit as well. And would still fall into the category to which I misnamed "Mocumentary".

I couldn't think up a better, more precise word at the time (and still can't, though I'm so doped up I can Barlow tupe... Uh, make that "barely type"). The bottom line beef I have with F 9/11 and any other kind of contrived and manipulated film, is that they shouldn't be called nor classified as documentaries. They are political propaganda, which is just fine. Nothing wrong with political propaganda, the current administration is a whiz at it. Clinton was a master. And the greatest of all just passed away a short while ago. Have you seen the movie Wag the Dog? That's really the way it's played when you get to that level of politics. You take a grain of truth, gather as much as you can to support this grain then use "the other side" to show how they messed things up and how you (or we, the "good guys") need to band together to fight this terrible evil government and it's leader.

Reminds me of The Passion of the Christ. Ol' Mell made a film as his depiction of the last days of Christ. It was done as a movie but it was intended to be as close to a documentary as possible. Of course it wasn't a documentary. It was a personalized expression of something that he thought and felt to be true. In it's way it is just the same kind of movie that F 9/11 is. Showing a slanted, jaded, biased, take a grain of truth and build a house of cards from it is just fine as a fiction or drama, like the Law and Order "Ripped from the headlines" catch. And just in case someone might think that I'm just saying this due to my political leanings, I an not a fan of GW at all. I think he really blew it in so many areas since 9/11 that this country could be in it up to it's neck for years. But had Michael Moore made a movie that was 100% the opposite, one that showed the world what a great leader GW was in the time of crises and all that I would still be sitting here typing away at this message.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is, by all accounts, a funny and sad and thought provoking movie. That's a good thing. If Moore has released this film honestly, as a fictional drama based on reality, in stead of a Documentary¹, I'd be all for it. That's my real problem with his, and many others in the media industry. Hell, half the "news" reports these days are slanted one way or another.

If Michael Moore ever makes a real, documentary as defined by the very word "documentary", I might go see it. But, probably not. With a 7yo in the house all I get to see are Disney or Nickolodean or whatever Pixar might have out. With luck I will be taking him to see Spider-Man 2 this Wednesday. SP2 is not a documentary so there's little to be worried about if I go see it, huh?

1) From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: ¹doc·u·men·ta·ry
Pronunciation: "dä-ky&-'men-t&-rE, -'men-trE
Function: adjective
1 : being or consisting of documents : contained or certified in writing
2 : of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE <a documentary film of the war>