As a married guy, I don't typically spend any time talking about, thinking about, or otherwise dealing with singles websites -- no matter what the spam email in my Inbox says.
But I felt compelled to mention ConnectingSingles.com after I heard about it, mainly because while I'm happily married, many of you may not be, and many of you may be floundering around trying to meet people in the old-fashioned (i.e., ineffective) ways that people used to meet people before the internet.
You know the ways people used to meet: They'd be introduced by friends, or fall in love at work (like Sweetie and I did -- at first sight! [for me; Sweetie took some convincing]) or, like my grandma and grandpa, they met while grandma was doing a keg stand at a frat party.
But that's all over, because the Internet has revolutionized everything except toast, and the latest thing it's revolutionized is meeting people.
ConnectingSingles.com isn't your typical dating site. Yeah, there's singles there and they're looking to meet people and all that stuff, but there's a lot more to it than that. A lot more like free games to play -- games ranging from retro fun like "Rubik's Snake" to the one I'm planning on blowing the afternoon with: "Missionaries and Cannibals."
There's also a blog where people can post on topics ranging from fun jokes to funner jokes to discussions of travel options and more, and, best of all for you superficial young people, a spot to rate people's photos.
If I was still single, and if Sweetie didn't exist for me to fall in love with, I'd be hanging out on ConnectingSingles.com, having a fun time finding someone to have a fun time with.
1. This version of "Such Great Heights" came on my Pandora yesterday: I was listening to the Regina Spektor station, and out of nowhere comes The Section Quartet:
It was one of those songs that made me wish I played the violin. But don't tell Sweetie, because she'll make that face she makes whenever I mention the sometimes-desire I have to play the violin, a face that says You're really kind of a geek, which I am, but she doesn't have to lord it over me.
2. I was able to exchange the coffee pot for one that works. Much of last night was devoted to correcting things that had gotten screwed up in the days before, and the first of those was that I had to take back the coffee pot that I'd gotten on Friday, a coffee pot I'd bought to replace the one Mr F broke. The new one didn't work, either: It leaked water out the bottom, so I had to take it back last night, waiting in line at the Wal-Mart behind a woman who had one of those too-convoluted transactions going on: a pile of things, some of which were being returned, some of which were being exchanged and some of which, I'm pretty sure, she just brought in to chat about with the clerk.
When it was finally our turn -- Mr F and Mr Bunches came with me, but were impatient about being in the customer service area instead of the toy department (or, as they seem to think of the latter, their own personal playground) -- the clerk graciously said I could go exchange the coffee pot, but warned me that because I was returning only the pot-and-maker, he was going to keep the new box and instructions.
I assume that's a precaution against me forming a grand ring of schemers devoted to getting free coffee-maker boxes and instruction booklets.
3. I finally got that sink fixed! The other thing that took up all my time last weekend and yesterday was the upstairs sink. Last week, trying to avoid brushing his teeth, Mr Bunches had kicked the bathroom vanity and knocked loose a door. In putting that back, I noticed there was some water dripping onto the bottom and checked to see if the sink was leaking... and the pipe crumbled in my hand.
That led to a trip to Home Depot, where a guy helped me (and Mr F and Mr Bunches) get a package of pipes to repair the sink -- he looked at the old one I'd brought in with me (I always bring the old one with me, because I don't know how to measure a pipe to determine the new one I need, and after the whole measuring-a-refrigerator fiasco, I just take a sample into the store.) The parts the guy picked out for us didn't work, so I went back later that night and got different parts, on Sunday night, but those didn't work, either.
So last night, I loaded up Mr F and Mr Bunches again, and we headed out to Home Depot, where they looked leery about coming back to this store a third time in 24 hours. Things got worse then when we got to the plumbing aisle and I realized that I'd left my wallet in the car, so I had to escort them back outside to get the wallet, at which point they thought they were leaving, and got excited about not being at Home Depot, only to then get dragged back inside, where I had to try to pick out the right part while simultaneously dealing with Mr F's high-pitched protests and Mr Bunches' attempts to escape (he did get away at one point by crawling through the shelves into the next aisle, so you can see where I might get distracted and not get the right part.)
But I did get the right part, and fixed the sink, and people are able to once again use the bathroom faucet/kick the vanity doors to avoid toothpaste without fear of leaks.
103 down, 10,642 to go: Because I'm still in a violin-y kind of mood, here's "Violin" by They Might Be Giants:
It's a great day in America, isn't it? Yes, I'm talking about the health care reform bill. But I'm also in a good mood because every day I think about 3 Good Things that happened to me before that day, and use them to keep me happy. Things like:
1. A Friday off of work! I was supposed to go in late on Friday, babysitting the Babies! while Sweetie took The Boy to the doctor, but around noon I made the decision to just stay home. Everyone ought to play hooky now and then.
2. This time, the Rachael Ray dinner turned out much better. I've started, every Sunday, picking out some new fancy recipe from all the cookbooks we have, and making a dinner we've never had before. Last week's recipe from Rachael Ray was some sort of way-too-olive-y pasta dish that nobody liked (although Oldest said last night that we should have given her the leftovers, because she loves olives, something I never knew.)
Last night's was supposed to be an Orange-Barbecue chicken, but the Babies! and I couldn't find "chipotle peppers in adobo sauce" in the grocery store (we did find pizza samples, proving that they do really exist), so we went with a kind of salsa instead of that, and cooked it all up.
The side dish was supposed to be baked bread with goat cheese on it, but we couldn't find goat cheese, either (we're not very good at finding stuff), so we got feta cheese, and it was only after cooking it all that I learned (from Oldest and Sweetie) that feta cheese doesn't melt when you cook it.
Which makes me wonder if it's cheese at all.
But in the end, the kind-of-barbecue-orange chicken, and the bread, was delicious. 3. I danced with Sweetie for as along as Mr F let us! Friday night, hanging out after dinner and relaxing, I put on this song:
And asked Sweetie to dance, right there in our living room. She accepted, and we danced for about 10 seconds before Mr F, our own personal chaperone, separated us and made us sit down. When he left, we started dancing again, and he came back and separated us again. It was just like high school all over again -- except this time my date wasn't imaginary.
102 down, 10,643 to go: Sometimes, I get some songs that I don't initially like, and then they come on at some time like when I'm playing catch with Mr F on a Friday morning off from work, and they catch my ear, and the combination of cool music and fun thing I'm doing makes me like the song.
That's what happened with song 102, Safe & Sound by Electric President:
As a married guy, I don't typically spend any time talking about, thinking about, or otherwise dealing with singles websites -- no matter what the spam email in my Inbox says.
