Internet Dating Weirdness

The joys of internet dating, if you have been single in the last 6 or 7 years you have probably dabbled in this medium of seeking love through the comfort of your underwear or flannel P.J.s...
I know I have. Being what is called an early adopted technology came quickly for me and after my wife died and I worked through my grieving it was a natural choice to look to my online world for companionship. I saw it as a supplement to the more traditional styles of dating;

A) drunken bar monkey sex: it has lead to some fun relationships and a case of the crabs but hey you cant win if you don't play right. this has been a way people have been waking up next to someone they would cross the street to avoid for years.

B)Co-Worker Love: Nothing says healthy like sleeping with a co-worker, this always starts out great, you have things in common, like the mutual disgust with your boss, and the desire to find out who is stealing the activa yogurt out of the break room fridge. But soon you realize that is all you have in common aside from the wild monkey sex (i use this reference alot) and the lonely isolation that only working in a cubicle can bring. The constant time near or with each other soon shines a spotlight on each others differences. This leads to a break up and the very uncomfortable working conditions that follow. ( I just want to be friends is a bull shit way we want to make ourselves feel better, when we really want to say "You creep me out and I do not want to see you again and restraining orders cost too much in this economy".)

C) The Friend's Hookup: Because your friend always knows who is good for you, never mind that he or she is really not a good person to judge taste in any relationship. But you are a good friend and would like to meet a good lay, err I mean person so you say sure! The truth is sometimes these work but if they fail you now cause a friend rift and have to share your friend like a child in a bad divorce.


So armed with these truths I set out on the internet dating adventure. I have tried many sites, from Jdate.com ( a jewish dating site) to match.com and e-harmony. I am currently looking for misses right on Plenty of Fish ( a free site and that comes with it's own set of issues). So here is my site break down;

Jdate.com; Being a man of Jewishness I thought i would try this service. I have lived in cities with various sized Jewish populations. This site would be great if i lived in NY but here in Vancouver ehhh not soo much. I had my problems here. I found that the women here tend to be looking for the typical Jewish man. I am not him, and frankly for some reason I have never had much luck with Jewish women. I have wanted to but alas nope it usually ends very badly. So no more Jdate for me.

Match.com: Not on it long enough and never dated anyone from the site.

E-Harmony.com; the ads are great it makes it seem like they have the power to find your soulmate. what a crock the have the power to take your money. They have a personality test, scientific they say to help find your soul mate. It is a joke, they ask do you like food? Oh course I do i need it to live for fucks sake. People can answer these questions anyway they want. So hence e-harmony is e-bullshit.... I went on 4 dates that they recommended and three were complete train wrecks and the fourth was good but no mutual attraction.

Plenty of fish.com: This site is free and was started and still run by a guy in a condo in Vancouver. Being free takes the pressure off thus allowing you to graze the site for as long as you want and to date as many emotionally vapid people you can. It is the cruise ship all you can eat buffet of dating. Lot;s of stuff to eat put most of it bland and not too appetizing. I have met some really nice women on this site, I have also met some real freakshows as well.


So now you are on a site and reading profiles, these can be the real entertainment of the web. It is amazing how many women are obsessed with yoga. I go to yoga twice a week but not 6 days a week, fuck. find some other hobbies other than a false body image. Then there is the " I have a very active social life lots of friends, go out all the time, work out everyday, blaablaa bla." So what do you need me for? you will never admit it is sex because you have worked your way though all your friends friends and co-workers (see above) or you cant be alone....ever...ever....

Then the list of demands and translations;

FROM WOMEN:
1) Must be Financially sound= must be rich (now we all want to be with someone who is responsible but if the first thing you list is money...Huge red flag!
2)Love the outdoors= see must be fit
3)must like dancing = I go out every night to the clubs and get really really drunk and you must be able to carry me home and hold my hair when I barf
4)Must love cats= Equals I have 8 to 12 cats and little social skills ( O.K. please stay far away from me one cat is fun three can be a hoot but any more say I am a creepy animal hoarder who is looking for love and acceptance in my feline friends
5) I like UFC / Ultimate Fighting = i only date douchebags who wear ED Hardy tee-shirts
6)I am younger than I look= I am a cougar and a alcoholic (see "must like dancing")
7) No players, Liars, cheats= I have been hurt, used and in generally all unhealthy relationships and come with a shipping container of emotional baggage (see "must love cats") Do you think these kind of men will read that and say well I guess I wont try and get a date with her, because I am an asshole. They will say great I can take advantage of this one as well.

FROM MEN:

1) must be fit= hot and anorexic
2)likes the outdoors= hunting and fishing but not with you just my buddies
3)must be open minded= i will probably ask you for a threesome, anal sex, or accepting of my porn addiction
4)must be family orientated= a) I am a momma's boy b) I have 4 kids from three marriages c) I am a fundamentalist Mormon
5) must like dogs= I have a pit bull
6) Financially Stable = your credit cards

Not that I am saying you cannot find a partner online, but if your list of demands read like a union negotiation you may be waiting along time. Take a chance date outside your comfort zone because we all know how well your comfort zone has been working for you til now. Attraction is elusive so you never know when hit will hit you and being an open person allows life's little surprises to find you. Some people online serial date, women who do are looking for free meals and sometimes sex, men pretty much sex and will pay for an expensive dinner and drinks to get it.
I am just an average looking guy with a decent job who treats women well looking for that connection that I once had before. Simple as that. I don't require a structured workout schedule or a certain job. Just a good person.
Status is not important to me . So much for a list of demands. The internet is the new singles bar and it can be productive if you are honest, open and where else can you meet someone while wearing a mud facial mask in an old pair of sweats or like me usually naked........ I will leave you with that image.

Air Travel or Battan Death March?

Just returned from my trip to Cuba with a torn ACL in my right knee. Now Air travel at the best of times has changed from the glory years of past to mix of a flying version of greyhound bus travel, a legal ponzi scheme, and a W.W.II death march. From the bait and switch fare price sales. "WOW I just saw a fare to Scotland for 9 bucks!" Then the let down heavier than a bad internet date. Here in Canada you find these air deals like 9 dollar flights only to be slapped in the face with a tax structure that would be illegal in north Africa. That taxes can be as high as $300 on that 9 dollar flight. The old bait and switch. The airlines also love these cheap fares to your destination than a $600 flight back. Have you ever tried to find a cheap return ticket.

Now that you have paid your, airport improvement tax, security tax, fuel surcharge, landing fees, departure taxes, bad service tax, and sitting in front of a screaming kicking child tax. The money grab has just begun. Oh you have actual luggage well fork over some $$$$, You are cold and want a blanket? more $$$ please ( I am convinced they turn the air way down on planes now so they can rent more blankets). Thirsty well that will be a second mortgage please even though airplane cabin air is dehydrating. And let's not even discuss the food. I am lucky that I fly business class most of the time, but I do fly coach alot and on a 4 hour flight a snack would be nice. Now you can buy food to take with you but they have a new scam with that. I call it,. the 9/11 economic model. Sorry you cant bring food with you through the security checkpoint that subway meatball marinara sandwich maybe a bomb, or your California rolls may be used to assault the flight crew. Now you have to buy a over priced turkey wrap or stale sabbaros pizza on the airside.

And this generations flight attendants, They used to be fun, perky, flirty and, talkative. Now they are drones all resembling some weird mix of a stepford wife and polyester wearing Martha Stewart. They dont even do the safety show anymore they just hit play on the in flight entertainment system. I am sorry that they sold their life out for cheap airfare to Mexico and a bad haircut,but they chose their career path.

Mix all that up with the battan death march at the ticket counter and security. The Orwellian customer service models and the fact that I am no longer allowed to get piss drunk and flying has lost it's panache.

So next time you fly, try this air travel fun, smile at every employee like you are a scientologist, request everything free you can even though you may not get it. make your rude flight attendant answer tons of stupid questions because if they are going to bankrupt you, we might as well make them work for their money.

A brief Caveat: There are still some really great people and service in this business treat the with respect and let their bosses know when the provide great service.

All Inclusive Cuba or Compound Vacation Syndrome

I have been doing a show on Canadian Vacations in Cuba and I have come to some startling early conclusions.

1. Most people who go to All Inclusive Resorts never leave the resort. (Why leave your sterile it can be anywhere hotel, when you have all you can eat cheeseburgers, shrimp, and bad cocktails and explore the wonderful cities and people of Cuba. And I know you will brag that you visited Cuba when you get home to Edmonton even though you never set foot outside the resort.)
2. If you do summons up the courage to leave your all you can eat cheeseburgers you take a coach tour of Havana and never leave the bus. Isn't it a lot like visiting one of those drive through safari parks. after you go there you don't say you went to Africa do you? "Please don't feed the Cubans", or "tap on the glass it bothers the locals".
3. Summer at a Caribbean resort attracts a special kind of tourist here is the breakdown; The Twenty something University Student: only mission is to get drunk on free booze, get drunk and pee in the hotel planters, and dry humping poolside. (was i like this when I was in university?) Bored Middle Class Housewives: Let the cougars free!!! they prey on their cabana boys, twenty something university students (see above) and by law all get their hair cornrowed. The Fourtysomething Sex Tourist; he sleeps all day by the pool and slinks off at night to the local brothels so he can get a Caribbean variety of Syphilis as a gift for his family back home ( you can spot these men by their large bellies mirrored sunglasses and greased up porcine like bodies).
4. Enough with the Che Guevara tee shirts already!!!! I don"t wear a Reagan tee shirt when I visit the states or bring my pope on a rope soap to Rome do I. I also know that you, yes you wearing that Che shirt also drives a Mercedes, lives in a McMansion and owns 8 T.V.s.....
5. Your pool boy/girl, Server, room steward does not want that bottle of maple syrup that you brought all the way from Hamilton or those Tim Horton"s Hats. They want cash!!!! tip them please and they don't eat pancakes here.
6. Also Who raised some of you... Please stop littering or I will find out where you live cash in some airmiles and shit on your porch.

In conclusion, why travel to a exotic place when all you want is a pool and cheeseburgers. Is it fear of discovering a culture different than yours, maybe? Because sitting by the pool with other people just like you is not international travel. This trend of all inclusive vacations is disturbing for me on many levels. The hotels are mostly generic copies of other resorts elsewhere. It is like eating at chain restaurants. No matter where you go they taste, and look alike. A passport is a gift of discovery, the opportunity to meet and learn about other cultures to also build relationships between people of different cultures. Maybe they should just build airports at the resorts and cut out the middlemen, and while you are at it give these people a passport with a McDonald's logo on them.

Lobsters have rights too yah know

I was visiting my favorite website today, and no it is not the midget amputee porn site that is my third favorite site. It is the Huffington post. And what did my near sighted eyes see. An article on whether boiling live Lobsters should be outlawed or not.
I am sure outside of those wacky PETA members there where some rational humans out there but I guess not. It seems our friends in the lovely country of New Zealand has legislation protecting the rights of lobsters! But not oysters or clams...Hmmm. What is next Bacteria, lets make anitbiotics illegal because those little one celled animals suffer when they get some penicillin. Or maybe pimp slap a lion when he rips the head off of a gazelle. Italy also has banned boiling live lobsters. but you can kill live squid that is ok. And no shit in Britian there is get this it is real;

the Shellfish network. http://www.shellfishnetwork.org.uk/ I will post an excerpt from their website;

Shellfish are invertebrates which are the most common creatures on the planet and yet, when it comes to welfare and compassion, they are at the bottom of the pile.

We therefore decided to take on the problems of shellfish, which are eaten as a 'delicacy' and are treated simply as 'fruits of the sea'!

But they are not apples, or oranges; they are living, breathing creatures with their own needs and capabilities. Who have a captivating beauty all their own. So we aim to:

1 - Increase public awareness of the fact that shellfish are living creatures capable of experiencing pain, stress and pleasure. 2 - Stop the cruelty involved in, and eventually to bring an end to, the slaughter of shellfish for human consumption and other abuses.

What the Fuck? England please explain this to me. Because if i think about it too long my ears begin to bleed, seriously, bleed. Barney and Liz you both live there can you go over to their offices in Surry ( go figure) and smack them with a trout.

Now for the PETA wackos, i kinda get your rants sometimes. But I still love porcine, bovine and water fowl. The Vice President of PETA Mary Beth Sweetland has diabetes and injects herself daily with insulin that was tested on animals. Yet she campaigns against experiments on animals -- making her a veritable poster-child for hypocrisy. She concedes that her medicine "still contains some animal products -- and I have no qualms about it ... I don't see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals."

Yes Lady you are a hypocrite, and PETA is just a money making scam feeding off of poor misguided animal lovers. The president Ingred Newkirk was angry that President Obama killed a fly. a fucking fly. Maybe she should try and convince bats and frogs to become vegetarians.

This whole Lobster, thing ruined my mojo here in Cuba, the only saving grace is I just ordered a lobster and shrimp for dinner. Pass the drawn butter please time to eat a boiled bug.

Cuba Libre!!!!!

I am currently working on a broadcast in Cuba. This is not my first time to interesting Island in the Caribbean but it is my first time working here as a professional journalist. So upon landing at the surreal Jose Marti International airport you soon realize how economically hobbled this place really is. It is a mix of 50s/60s with a dose of the present. Imagine women hosts outside of the mens rooms (everyone gets a job in a communist country) and then CNN on flat screen t.v's..
Once passed immigration we were met by our hosts and I use this term loosely. Instead of taking a soviet era cab or my favorite "Coco taxis" (yellow coconut shaped tricycle taxis) were traveled in a modern toyota van to our hotel. Down town Habana is like a shot from the past old colonial architecture most of which is crumbling, old 50's American Chevy's and dodges, litter the streets. Homages everywhere to Fidel and Che' still with a fairly closed communist system the people are happy. Sure there is food rationing, lack of many modern convinces but not much less than other so called democratic Caribbean Countries.
The things I love about this country are the people, food, music and it's disheveled beauty. A pace where people gather in the oppressive afternoon heat and discuss baseball, music, literature. About Literature Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. and the highest in North America. So much for communists keeping there people uneducated. This allows for so much wonderful banter everywhere you go. Nothing like a well read half drunk populous.
Cuba sees the beauty in simple things like, food, drink, and music so for a degenerate food obsessed so called intellectual like me I feel right at home here. Any place that came up with Mojitos and Cuban sandwiches to me is Epicurean meca. Some of the odd things are the two currencies, one for locals and one for tourists. But everyone accepts u.s. dollars even though there is still the stupid embargo.
Cubans laugh at the embargo and so do I. Canadians can enjoy this friendly country and so can Americans if they travel here from Mexico, Jamaica or another Caribbean country. They will welcome anyone.
Granted this is not a modern city the architecture like I said is a mix of Caribbean Colonial and soviet concrete the later of which can be so off putting it does not belong here not in the Caribbean where there is sun, heat and humidity so high you almost need gills not lungs. But more in place where there is lots of snow, mail order bridezillas and men in track suits gold chains and long leather jackets.
our hotel is a Batista era grand old hotel that Hemingway used to stay in with the classic noisy ceiling fans and dark oak bar where yes they claim the Mojito was invented. The Mojito is the perfect drink for this city. Cool refeshing mint and rum it makes you feel like you should be wearing a white linen suit and Panama hat whilst worrying if the revolution is really coming or not.
That is some of the beauty of this place eternally trapped in the 50's by Americas backyard kids fight. So you wander the streets of old Havana, seeing people repairing their old 50's us cars with such a pride. Entering a small cafe for yet another Mojito or a cervasa you are quickly asked where you are from. In my party we are all Canadian but it seems everyone here knows someone in our cities. We talk baseball ( a real religion here ) we talk about snow, and imagine a man who sells eggs for a living even knows stuff about our prime minister. Just ask an American who the prime minister of Canada is wait to see that disparaging look come across his or her's face. So we settle down gnaw on some smoked pigs ears drink a beer and enjoy our new friends.
Hospitality is one thing but this place is unreal. Everywhere we go we are invited to come over for dinner, lunch breakfast. From people who barely have enough for there own families. They Love their little country and love when tourists leave the sterile western resorts to see the real Cuba.

My next post i will discuss the Tourist resorts of Cuba and how they are like any place in Cancun and not the Cuba that you should experience.

Yippie for my first post

After abandoning my last Blog like a 15 year old girl dumping her love child in a dumpster behind Walmart I am back...

The voices in my head said they needed an outlet on the internets.. So here I am, soon you will be able to follow my very diseased mind as I fumble and struggle with the world I encounter on my daily voyages. As a journalist, liberal and devote Bi-Polar man and frequent world traveler ( i am still amazed that I am allowed a passport and access to business class seats on a plane) I see the world through a pharmacutically altered mind. So sit back, leave your political correctness at the door and enjoy. feel free to comment, scream, laugh give me topics ect. But I draw the line at LOL cats, offers of religious cures for my lovely bi-polarness, Nigerian money scams or used underwear from young republicans.
I always welcome gifts of Beer ( preferably Belgian ), Badgers, donations to the NDP, Petions to stop the proliferation of Yam Fries, photos of couples who are wearing matching clothing, anything anti hipster, or a promise not to vote for Stephen Harper when we have another national election.