One of the first times I used the site, I chatted with a charming girl from San Francisco who may or may not have been a prostitute. When I asked her what she did for a living, she said “things I’m not proud of.” Granted, she easily could have been lying. The site’s completely anonymous, so there’s no way of knowing that you’re talking to who you think you’re talking to. But that’s also kind of the fun of it. Anyway, this girl who called herself “Sonya” was actually a real pleasure to talk to. We had a pretty good conversation, which got my adventures off to a great start.
The next night, however, wasn’t as good. Pretty much everyone I talked to was from one of the Asian countries and had a poor grasp on the English language. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Asians; I just would prefer to do my chatting with someone who’s fluent in English. After all, how much fun is chatting if you can’t really chat? And that’s one thing that’s striking about the site…even though it was created by an American, the user base seems to be overwhelmingly Asian. Not sure why that is.
Tonight was also a pretty decent night. I talked to a guy who’s stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington in the US Army. He’s being shipped off to Iraq in August, and seems to have a great deal of regret for joining the military. He was waiting for his laundry to finish, and we had a fairly decent chat as well. Apparently when he was in basic training, his girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver, and he didn’t find out until his parents showed up for his graduation. I didn’t get his name, but I wish him the best of luck. Hopefully he makes it back from Iraq alive.
Other interesting people I’ve talked to:
- A total tech geek who disconnected after finding out that I don’t use Linux
- A 16-year-old gay kid from New Jersey who had apparently just snorted something. He was staying at the house of the middle-aged guy he was sleeping with. Thanks for giving us homos a great reputation, kid.
- A guy who right up front asked me if I was “a horny female.” When I told him I could be if he wanted, he said “OK” but then got mad when I told him I wasn’t actually a 19-year-old Korean girl.
- Another guy who told me he was horny enough that he didn’t care whether I was a guy or a girl. Noticing a recurring theme here? Lots of horny guys on the site looking to cyber.
- A Scandinavian (can’t remember the country) who e-mailed me pictures of two penises: his, and his father’s.
- Someone who was able to tell me what city I lived in without me telling them, which was really creepy.
- An 18-year-old girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend of two years because he had cheated on her. She was on the verge of a breakdown, and needed someone to talk to. I’m definitely no qualified therapist, but I hope I helped at least a little.
That’s just a sampling of the dozens of people I’ve encountered on the website in less than two weeks of using it. I really would recommend trying it out. It’s free, and completely anonymous, and you never know who you’ll meet. It might just be someone who makes your day.
Filed under: Internet Stuff, Links, People, Technology, Weird Crap | 1 Comment
Tags: bored, chat, chatroom, IM, omegle, strangers
Listening to “Amanda Leigh”
I’m currently listening to Mandy Moore’s latest album, “Amanda Leigh,” which I was delighted to find out was on sale a day early at Amazon.com for only $3.99. So I snatched that shit up, and I have to say, I’m pleased so far.
I was a little concerned after hearing the single “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week,” which kind of rubbed me the wrong way at first. However, that song grew on me, and overall I’m left with a positive attitude toward the new album.
I’m by no means a Mandy Moore megafan or anything, but I thoroughly enjoyed her last album, which was kind of my major summer album from 2007. I was kind of expecting something pretty much along the same lines as “Wild Hope,” but this album is different than I had expected, which isn’t by any means a bad thing. It has a definite retro vibe to it, which I really like. I’d kind of like to hear more songs like the upbeat “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week,” but it’s all in all a pleasure to listen, so I can’t complain. I think “pleasant” describes the record well. It’s a great follow-up to “Wild Hope.”
Filed under: Music, Pop Culture | Leave a Comment
Tags: amanda leigh, mandy moore, reviews
From ABC News:
The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.
I saw this story on Digg earlier, and people seemed really upset about it, calling the President a lying bastard and whatnot. First of all, it’s pretty well-known that President Obama is pro-gun control. Second, why the hell does anyone need an assault rifle in the first place? I mean, assault rifles are made for one purpose: killing people. You can’t hunt with them; all you can do is slaughter people. Quickly. So call me crazy, but I think anything made for the sole purpose of killing people should be restricted from the general public. I really can’t see any reason for people to have them…I’ve certainly never seen any good done with an assault rifle.
If anyone can give me a good reason or two why someone SHOULD own an assault weapon, I’ll change my mind. Otherwise I think President Obama is right on the money by re-enacting the ban.
Source: ABC News
Filed under: Musings, News, Politics | 4 Comments
Tags: assault weapons, gun control, guns, obama, second amendment
Mandy Moore’s new song “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week” was made available online recently through a promotion with Gain detergent (which is weird enough) and I have to say there’s something weird about it.
First, watch her sing it live:
Now listen to the apparent album version:
The first one sounds remarkably better, does it not? The second one sounds cheap and poorly produced. It sounds like she recorded her vocals over a MIDI track and added a few cheesy fake hand claps to try and make it sound more interesting. It’s a catchy song, and I really can’t get it out of my head, but I can’t get over the fact that it sounds downright cheesy.
Mandy’s last album, “Wild Hope” was pretty good, and she went for a more organic, singer-songwriter approach, but this sounds nothing like that. I’m hoping that since the song is available for download from Gain’s website as opposed to an actual studio release on iTunes or something, that it’s not a finished version. I guess we’ll find out on May 26th when “Amanda Leigh” is released.
Filed under: Music, Pop Culture, Video | 1 Comment
Tags: amanda leigh, i could break your heart any day of the week, mandy moore, pop
I’m so excited for “Watchmen”
If the movie turns out as good as the trailer suggests, “Watchmen” is going to be awesome.
I read the graphic novel a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it, but wasn’t really in love. After seeing the trailer though, I’m totally pumped. And it looks like they’ve done a fantastic job of replicating the visuals from the book. It also doesn’t hurt that the leading men are all pretty attractive :)
Filed under: Books, Geeky, Movies, Pop Culture, Video | 1 Comment
Tags: graphic novel, trailer, watchmen
Click here to download the spreadsheet
I recently discovered the list of “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” which has been published in a book of the same title but which can also be found on the Internet in list and Excel forms. An Excel spreadsheet is considerably more manageable since it’s such a long list. The only Excel version I’ve been able to find, however, is kind of awful. The formatting is terrible for starters, but overall the thing is buggy and doesn’t really work. And it’s full of hyperlinks, which are really annoying. You can find that one here.
So I made my own version of the spreadsheet. It’s simple and easy to read, without all the clutter and “fancy” formatting of the other. And it works. If you use the dropdown menus at the top to sort the books, it keeps everything in order instead of jumbling it all up.
So feel free to download my version of the spreadsheet. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to comment or email me.
Filed under: Books, Geeky, Links | 7 Comments
Tags: 1001 books, 1001 books you must read before you die, book list, excel, excel spreadsheet
This is the first of Ray Lamontagne’s albums I’ve ever listened to, and I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on! I really can’t stop listening to this album. I love it more each time. Lately I’ve really been getting over the whole folksy singer-songwriter genre, but this album is more upbeat and interesting than a lot of other music in the genre. It has a bit of country and rock tastes to it, and he manages to infuse a good deal of emotion into songs that, if sung by anyone else, would probably be sappy and boring.
I think I’m going to have to go out and buy his other albums now.
Damn addictively good music.
Filed under: Music, Musings, Pop Culture | Leave a Comment
Tags: gossip in the grain, ray lamontagne
Did you know that Rowlf the dog was the first famous Muppet, first appearing in a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials in 1962? Or that Pepe the King Prawn’s full name is Pepe Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales? These little tidbits and anything else you’ve ever wanted to know about any Muppet character (including those from Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock) can be found at Muppet Wiki, the Wikipedia-style Muppet encyclopedia. It’s a Muppet fan’s dream website.
I had no idea the website even existed until I happened to stumble upon it by way of LyricWiki. It seems there’s a Wiki for just about everything these days. You really can find anything you need to know on the Internet.
Filed under: Geeky, Internet Stuff, Links, Pop Culture, TV | Leave a Comment
Tags: fraggle rock, muppets, muppetwiki, pepe, rowlf, sesame street, wiki
Brandi Carlile is a badass
Just found this video on YouTube of the Brandi Carlile concert I went to last year:
THAT is why I love Brandi Carlile. What other artist does that? She even had the audience sing the harmonies on “Turpentine.” It was fucking fantastic.
I think the song is called “How These Days Grow Long,” and I’m hoping it will be on her next album, because it’s pretty awesome. By the way, Brandi, when is that next album coming out?
Filed under: Music, People, Video | Leave a Comment
Tags: Brandi Carlile, Concerts, live music
So it seems that people’s opinions of who won the VP debate last night are pretty split. Republicans think Palin won by a landslide, and Democrats think Biden had a decisive victory. Independents are kind of all over the place. The whole thing brings to mind a psychological mechanism known as confirmation bias.
From http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html:
Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one’s beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one’s beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects.
That explains pretty well why everyone thinks their own personal favorite “won” the debate. We all have a tendency to pay more attention to things that confirm our political beliefs. So for myself, according to the theory of confirmation bias, every time Sarah Palin avoided answering a question, it confirmed my belief that she doesn’t know her stuff, and every time Joe Biden made a statement about John McCain’s or Barack Obama’s voting record (whether ultimately true or not), it confirmed my belief that he knows what he’s talking about.
On the Republican side of things, they tended only to notice the times when Governor Palin corrected Senator Biden (and not vice versa), which confirmed their belief that Joe Biden is a crooked liar, and they paid attention to the fact that she was cool, collected, and witty, which confirms their idea of her as a great debater/speaker who can blow her opponents out of the water.
I can’t speak for Independents, but as far as Democrats and Republicans go, last night’s debate served mostly to confirm the ideas that people already had about each candidate. It’s unlikely that it changed many minds, since we all have a marked inability to shed our respective biases, leading each side of the aisle to claim victory for its own party.
Confirmation bias plays a big role not only in people’s perceptions of the debate, but also politics in general. Take a look at some blogs written by people from each party (myself included) and notice how they focus all of their attention on the positive aspects of their personal favorite candidate and the negative aspects of their opponent.
Filed under: Politics, Psychology | 1 Comment
Tags: confirmation bias, democrat, election 2008, joe biden, Psychology, republican, sarah palin, vp debate
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