We had another WiP this weekend, as per usual. I posted it up on Meetup, and got 10 people to go with the 9 regulars (counting me) who showed up. It was interesting and fun, and some of the folks were really cool. Neat. And, on top of that, there were people who weren't able to make it who also expressed an interest in showing up. One lady even dropped by, though she was sick, to let me know she wouldn't be coming, because "you know how nuts Meetup gets when you don't show up". Whatever.
I've been attempting the personals thing, again. Though I wrote up a cute (or lame, depending on how you wanna look at it) little ad, I'm not really thrilled about the prospects. It's been quite a few years since I went that route, and frankly, I'm not sure I have the mental muscles to do the online flirting thing anymore. I like meeting women in person, and slowly getting to know them, because we have an indefinable chemistry, rather than meeting them online, scrolling through checkboxes, and hoping for the best. I'm sure there's a handful of really terrific women I've ignored because they've got checkboxes filled in for things that I'm not too keen on.
Bah. I've met too many women who fall into far too many different checkboxes. It's hard to close people out. And everyone says the same thing! Christ. Yes, you're spectacular because you're soooo into sports. Whoopie-do. Actually, I couldn't give two shits about any sports team playing any game anywhere, ever. If I'm on the team, that's a little bit of a difference, but 90% of the time, "I love sports!" means "I love to sit around and drink beer and talk about other people playing sports." Meh. Boring. Let's go do something.
And everyone loves traveling. Don't get me wrong. On the few occasions in my adult life when I've really been able to travel, I've loved it. But I see tons of photos of women who I'd otherwise find interesting, doing nothing more than showing off how much time they've spent abroad. I don't care where in the world you've been. I'm more interested in what you have to contribute to it.
Oh, just a photo note- I find it hard to be attracted to any woman whose every single photo is serious. Maybe that's just me. But I find nothing more attractive than the woman who's got a photo of herself in some cocktail dress looking all snazzy, followed by her cross-eyed, surrounded by Tickle-me-Elmos, holding a fifth of Jack.
...What?
I won't ramble about it. I am thinking, though, of throwing a "singles only" party (yeah, fuck you) at my place, beginning of next month. Doing a "pizza dinner party"- because everyone can make a pizza. Supplying ingredients and the kitchen, and hanging out for a few hours... then overlapping that into a karaoke party in the evening. Sound like fun? Yeah, thought so. Whatever the case, I like meeting women in person, but it seems like just about every woman I've been attracted to in the past 6 months or so has been involved with someone. It'd be nice to have at least that portion of the equation taken care of.
Punishing the body...
I've been hitting the workouts a bit more frequently, these past two weeks. I think I'll start taking photos now. I know I've not been eating quite well enough, just yet, but the workouts are feeling good. It's very strange, though, the things that stick with you, muscle-wise.
I've noticed that the muscles of the face, neck, and forearms get a workout, regardless of whatever else you're working out. Seems like, post-workout, those are the parts that get the most strained. Go fig.
And the muscles that have always been bigger... may always be so. Unless you're dedicated enough to balance them out, or something, but who does that but bodybuilders and the insanely muscle-obsessed?
When I was in junior high and high school, I didn't ever leave any of my books in my locker, because I figured I'd need them for homework. Yes, I was a nerd. So... I carried them around all the time. I'm fairly certain I left most of them in my locker during the day, and picked 'em up at lunch, but I know that I carried home 20-40 lbs of books every day, in two bookbags. One bag would be a traditional backpack, spreading the weight over my shoulders. The other would be a gym bag style bag, which I'd carry in my left hand... so much so that the muscles of my left shoulder are still markedly larger than those of my right.
And, when I was in 11th grade, working out in the gym (badly), some girl challenged me to the leg press machine. I really can't recall the circumstances behind it- it was half a lifetime ago- but she basically challenged me to keep up with her, to see who could leg press more. And we had a big, free-weight leg press machine that looked like it was designed by the same folks who built the machine from Aliens.
Anyhow, she and got going on this thing, and she crapped out before we hit 450 lbs. I kept going, and I believe I crapped out at about 490 or so. Ridiculous, true, but it got me playing on that machine (almost to the exclusion of all others) constantly, using it as a calf-workout as well as my full leg-workout. So, to this day, I have overlarge, Popeye-esque calves, and can leg-press considerable weights. I barely workout my legs anymore, because I gotta find some kind of balance, see. I barely touched anything else but that machine, like a complete dolt.
In the interest of following my "posting about cool things" endeavor, I bring you one of my favorite toys on the internet:
Ah, what a sweet piece of ass. I mean, technologically-speaking. Seems like exactly half the people I mention it to have either never heard of it, or use it every single day.
See, Pandora works with the Music Genome project, a huge music-categorization project that endeavors to take just about ever song written (okay, not everything, but millions of songs, anyhow) and categorize it by a shit-ton of factors. Style of music (not rock/R&B/jazz/country, but more by use of instruments, rhythms, vocals), influences, lyrics- just a ton of factors I haven't even fully explore. Regardless, it classifies the music, and if you were to enter a song into its radio-station query, you'd get a station that plays songs similar to that one. And you can give it a thumbs up/down if you like/dislike the song, and it takes that into account when choosing new songs. So, it's a really interesting way to find potential new music that is somehow similar to your current tastes. I've broadened my tastes a bit and discovered new artists this way, since I started using it about a year ago.
Actually, the chocolate in my peanut butter of this little dandy is Replay Music, a program that will record anything that comes from your sound card, and hunt it down on a database to somehow or other and name it according to artist, album, and song title. It's a pretty sweet program, and in conjunction with Pandora, you can add some great new MP3s to your music collection. You gotta get it going first, then load up Internet Explorer and the website. Settings vary, I'm sure, but I crank up the volume on my computer, on the Pandora volume bar, and on Replay Music's gain. Otherwise, it records the volume much lower than anything else in my computer. Weird, that.
I look at it as a step removed from recording Casey Kasem's Top 40 onto audio tapes when I was a kid. The technology is better, but it's still just me recording the radio. So, neener-neener, free sweet new music. Huzzah.
I just set it to record while I'm away at work, and review the spoils when I get home. If you leave it be, Pandora will stop playing music after 3 hours or so.
Little trick, though- If you move your cursor over the album cover art and leave it there, Pandora seems to think you're still actively viewing the music, and continues to play till you stop it. And since it keeps a running tally of all the music it's played, you can edit the tracks Replay can't find in its shiny little database. I've already found a handful of albums I have to go out and buy (and yeah, I'll go buy the CD, even if people keep saying how CDs are going the way of audio tapes. I still own some VHS, so piss off, world)
Bitchin'? You betcha.
Next post: Science fiction-y view of the universe and how cool it'd be if we could get some environmental tech going full-force. And recipes, or somethin'. (I realized I didn't even cover what I promised, last post. I'm a liar!!!)
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