Backhanded Insult?

Recently, I was meeting a group of people to see a Take Me Out at the Studio Theatre here in Logan Circle. We decided we would get together at Logan Tavern for drinks/dinner first, then head over to the show half a block away.

I decided to pass on dinner, so I met with the group a little later just to get a drink and walk over to the theatre. My companions for the night had been seated earlier and, indeed, had ordered their food. As there was no empty seat at the table my companions occupied, I turned to a neighboring table, a four-top occupied by two women, and asked if I could borrow one of their extra chairs.

"We were kind of hoping to be able to get some cute guys to come and sit with us," one joked, "but you can have it."

The other girl laughed. "Consider what neighborhood we're in!" she told her friend.

Trying not to miss a beat, I pointed to the table I was about to join, and the eight gay men sitting around it. "There's an entire table of cute guys right here!" I exclaimed. We all laughed, as did some of my friends who were listening. I took my seat and ordered a drink.

After finishing our food/drinks, we got up to leave and I returned the chair. "Thanks," I told the girls. "If we see any cute guys, we'll send them your way... if we don't snag them for our own." Again, we laughed.

A little later, as I was thinking about that conversation again, a different take on the exchange went through my head: She said she wanted to save the seat for some cute guy. What am I, chopped liver?

Match's Matches

I'm on match.com. (Yeah, I know: ugh. It was a lark.)

From time to time, I still receive emails from them providing me with profiles of men in my area who might be what they call a "mutual match": based upon each of our responses to certain questions, we might be compatible (he'd like me, I'd like him). It tells you quantitatively how "matched up" you probably are, too: you and Guy #1 are a 83% match; you and Guy #2 are a 71% match.

I'm proud to announce that one guy on today's list is an 86% match with me. Who is this man I'd be so lucky to meet?

Me. Match.com just matched me with myself.

I suppose I could do a Brad Pitt/Edward Norton thing on myself. That would be interesting, if a bit weird. And who am I kidding, I am certainly no Brad or Edward. (Though Tyler Durden was hot.)

Apparently, I only match myself by 86%. I'm not the ideal man for me. I guess that's understandable given that there are lots of things about me that I don't care for. Harsh, but true: I shouldn't be dating myself.

Though I do all kinds of other things with myself. (Perv.)

Flyover

The other night I was walking down Connecticut Avenue NW (in the Van Ness area) wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the Arkansas Razorbacks logo. The shirt is a gift from my cousin who attended Arkansas. (Yes, there are Asian people in Arkansas. There's a whole other blog entry there. I'll work on that soon enough.)

As I made my way back to the Metro after finishing my errands, I passed a group, obviously tourists, one of whom exclaimed (in a mildly southern accent), "Woo hoo! Go Arkansas!" I had forgotten what I was wearing at the time, so I didn't have time to respond to his reaction to my chest.

Strangely enough, the book I happened to be holding in my hand at the time was What's the Matter with Kansas?. I wonder how a Kansan would respond to seeing that book in my hand? Somehow, I figure "Woo hoo! Kansas!" wouldn't be their first exclamation.

Flyover states scare me, if for no other reason than their bright, bright redness.

Horny Gay Men

I recently added to my Blogroll a link called QueerClick (most decidedly not safe for work!). It's truly out of step from, well, all the other blogs that I link to, but a gay man's gotta have somewhere to go sometimes.

Well, an unexpected result of my Blogrolling them is that they've recipro-linked me. Which is cool of them.

I didn't notice the recipro-link until today, when I was looking over my stats and realized that on Sunday alone, I received 30 hits coming from that site. This may not seem a like a lot, but for a relatively less-trafficked blog like this one, it's quite substantial.

To all of you surfing over here from QueerClick: Thanks for coming by. Sorry to disappoint, but the content on this blog is soooooooo not like what you've just come from.

** UPDATE (7/26): It turns out the traffic that came here wasn't just from a recipro-link, but because there was actually an entry on QueerClick mentioning and linking to my blog. Woo hoo! The power of a shoutout on a very popular blog.

Tipping the Scales

I bought myself a bathroom scale this weekend. This is either an absolutely horrible idea, or a great one. I can't decide which yet.

It could be a horrible idea because I know I'll step on it whenever I use the bathroom and get disgusted with my weight, possibly to the point where I scream, cry, throw the damn thing through my window, or any combination of the above.

It would be a great idea if, instead of getting upset, I use that number as motivation to get off my ass and do something about bringing that ubiquitous number down.

I stepped on it last night, and so far, the former proposition seems to be the dominant reaction.

Ridin' With Deuce Bigalow

Below is my first foray into AudioBlogging. As you can probably tell, it's a pre-written story. I had to audioblog it, because words on the page would never do it justice. (And yes, I already know that I have a weird voice.)

When Do You Get Off?

You know you're in for an interesting afternoon when an IM window pops up on your screen that opens with:

Her: how old were you when you started masturbating?


In case you're wondering how I responded --

Me: uh, hi. how are you?
Her: lol

Unmasked!

I get an email from a friend of mine: "Do I remember correctly that you maintain a blog?"

My quick-and-dirty response: "Yes."

She responds a few minutes later: "So how does one get to your blog?"

I take a deep breath... and ignore her email.

I have this thing against telling my friends the URL to this blog. I've posted my reasons before (and Randy doesn't even seem to be big on blog-writing or -reading anymore), but the long and short of it is I prefer random internet strangers reading this blog than friends. This way I can write about friends without it getting back to them.

A few hours later, I get an IM: "So you never told me how to get to your blog."

Me: "You don't read blogs anyway. You think they're a waste of time."

Her: "Yeah, but people keep talking about blogging, and I wanted to see what it was about especially since that opportunity came up to write for one."

Me: "Oh, I could point you to a ton of blogs you can check out for style and flavor." I list some for her.

A pregnant pause in the IM traffic ensues. I'm not entirely sure if it's because we're both busy "working" (I use the term loosely) or because she's pondering why I won't tell her my blog URL.

Her: "You write stuff about us on your blog, don't you?"

Me: "Yes. Mwahahahaha!"

***

I arrive to Screen on the Green last night. All kinds of socializing before the movie starts, including introductions to people I haven't met before, when suddenly someone starts up: "Wait... Dennis!... I..."

I arch my left eyebrow slightly, a tad curious as to just what he's getting at. It's my way of nonverbally saying, "Yeeeeeees?"

"I read your blog!" he announces triumphantly.

Uh oh.

I stammer. "N-n-nuh... no you don't."

"Yes I do! Your last post was about Harry Potter!"

I suppress the urge to tell him that the post was, in fact, explicitly not about Harry Potter, since this would only confirm my hand in the post. "I'm sure some 85% of the internet posts in the last 48 hours were about Harry Potter!"

"Oooo, wait, you also had a post about Hurricane Dennis! Yeah, I remember!"

Humina-humina-humina. All I can think is that I'm screwed. There's no ducking around this. Although this is a new guy, my friends are here too, and in one fell swoop, New Guy is capable of giving away the address to my little cyberspace cul-de-sac. Little beads of sweat, forming independently of those created by the swelteringly humid conditions, take shape on my forehead.

Yet all I can get out of my mouth is: "Nnnnno I didn't." Somehow I doubt I was very convincing.

"Oh, come on!" he declares. "How many gay Asian men named Dennis! live in this city and maintain blogs?" By now my friends have picked up on this conversation. Even though they're trying to act like they're involved in their own conversations, I can tell they're listening.

"Uh.... Surprisingly many!" Quick-witted I am not.

"Please," he presses on. "You're More Than...."

... which is when I'm finally able to cut him off. "So do you blog?"

He gives me the title of his blog, which I have surfed by from time to time. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of it (hence its absence from my blogroll), but this is my way out.

"That's you?!?" I screech like a little schoolgirl. "That's so cool!"

From there we manage to digress into other stuff, and eventually we even execute a Conversational Musical Chairs, moving on to new people and new discussion topics.

But now my friends have a source. I may have to take drastic measures. Anyone know how I can put a hit on a guy for relatively cheap?

This is Not a Post About Harry Potter

I don't want to post about the latest Harry Potter book. Every other blog I saw on BlogExplosion this weekend mentioned him and it's sickening.

I don't want to mention how, even though I'm looking forward to reading the book myself, I am good and ready to bide my time to read it when I can get hold of it. And I'm not going to talk about how I don't intend to spend money to purchase the book either. (I plan to borrow it, either from a friend or from the library.)

I'm not going to blog about how the series, which started off as a great way to encourage kids to read by finally giving them something that was so enthralling that they wanted to read, is a victim of its own popularity. I'm resisting the urge to talk about how the "joy of reading" isn't fully captured when kids (and adults alike) are plowing through the 672-page book faster than a Japanese bullet train.

I would sound like too much of a curmudgeon if I were to talk about how The True Joy of Reading involves a much slower process, one of engaging the author and savoring her imagery and word choice. I'd probably sound like a snobby purist if I were to mention that one of the true benefits of reading is having the ability to put down the book once in a while and just allow yourself to be entertained by the mental picture drawn for you by the author. How the mark of a truly talented author is her ability to do that just: draw vivid and wonderful pictures in your head.

Perhaps a post could comment on how making movies of the series has yet again dumbed down society by taking a book which imprinted mental image on untold millions of children, and gave them a visual to substitute for the one their own imaginations (coupled with Ms. Rowlings's) created in their heads. I used hear the "older generation" (the pre-television set) talk about how their minds were so actively engaged when listening to radio programs because no visual came with the story being told. Harry Potter gives kids a chance to do that, and yet now their own mental images run the risk of being replaced by Hollywood's thoughts of what everyone and everything should look like.

I could lament that untold numbers of schoolchildren everywhere are today, less than 48 hours after the release of the book, finished with it. Given the attention span of your average schoolchild, I can imagine that, at least for the core set that finished the book already, Half-Blood Prince will be "so yesterday." How it's just another way of filtering the "cool" kids from the "uncool" ones, the "cool" ones having finished the book already and the "uncool" ones having to wait to get their hands on it and diligently avoid overhearing conversations about it.

And I could talk about how I can only hope that kids who have finished reading Harry Potter this weekend can channel their energies into reading other stuff too, because one can never really read too much.

But I won't say any of that, because I don't want to post about the latest Harry Potter book.

Oh But That I Were This Powerful. And Popular.

It's amusing to have a hurricane named after you. The headlines alone make for a fun day. A friend of mine IM'd me a few days ago to tell me that I'd killed five Haitians. It took me a bit before I figured out what she meant. Apparently my murder spree rose to ten shortly thereafter. A little depressing. Certainly not something I wanted to take credit for.

So I get to read the headlines about people fleeing me for their lives, or about me commanding an evacuation, or me destroying everything in my path. It's pretty fun. Of course, Dennis killing Haitians isn't as much fun. But in general it's humorous to think I wield such power.

I remember a few years ago a different hurricane was named Dennis. Sometime that day, a buddy of mine IM'd me to say, "you're churning out to sea!" I had no idea what he meant until I clicked over to the news to reveal that that particular Hurricane Dennis (which I think had become a tropical storm by then) had, in fact, left the seacoast and made its way into the ocean.

But all those headlines pale in comparison to this sign spotted near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, sent to me by my friend Chris who lives near there:

I Can See the BBSs All Atwitter

Overheard between two adults in part of a group on Thomas Circle, 7/12/05 12:55 pm:

Guy: I wonder if Ron and Hermione get it on...
Girl: Oh, they totally do!

... because, of course, the thought that two high school age kids will "get it on" in what was originally intended to be a children's book would go over SO well with parents around the world.

Here I thought she had a crush on Harry. I guess the bigger question is actually whether Harry will get it on with Cho.

"Chemistry is So Hard It Makes My Brain Bleed!"

In my high school chemistry classroom, our desks were positioned in a manner similar to stadium seating, on stairs: the landscape in front of the teacher was not flat; each of our smiling (our puzzled, or frustrated, or annoyed, or confused, or angry) faces were plainly visible to her.

This of course means that if you were sitting in any row other than the front row, you were slightly elevated with respect to the row in front of you. During exam time, this meant that, were you so inclined, you could check out the papers of the guy sitting in front of you.

During one particular test, my eyes randomly drifted to the desk of the guy in front of me. Russell was member of the track and field team, and I remember thinking he had hot body type. Of course, because he was a "jock," he was also an asshole and, well, not terribly academically gifted. (Stereotype much? Sure, but in this case, it was true.) Okay, I'm digressing. But all that was kind of meant to say that clearly I wasn't planning on cheating off of him. In fact, his test paper would have been the last one I would have looked to for guidance during a chemistry exam.

But wander my eyes did, what I did notice was this: there were drops of blood forming on Russell's paper. After watching two or three drops form (and thinking, "ew"), I suddenly realized that Russell had randomly sprung a nosebleed. (Perhaps it was because the seats were so elevated that the air was thinner? Nah.)

He put his hand to his face, thus bloodying his finger and his pencil (we all used pencil back then, because the test was not multiple choice, and showing your work was oh-so-important, and you certainly had to be able to back up in case you messed up and came up with some stupidly improbable answer, like -2.53 moles of NaCl). But he seemed disinclined to ask for help.

I briefly rummaged through my backpack, which was sitting to my side, to look for some spare tissues or something. (I being the sickly sort used to always carry around such necessities in the event that my nose ran during class.) I had nothing to offer him.

Eventually I raised my hand to catch the teacher’s attention, at which point I pointed at the back of Russell's head and mouthed some words to the effect of "Uh, he's, like, bleeding." The teacher pulled off some paper towels and handed them to Russell.

All this took no less than two minutes. Upon being handed the paper towels, Russell looked up at me quizically and I kind of nodded at him to indicate that he'd be okay, I guess.

Only later did I overhear a friend of mine tell someone else that Russell was quite the cokehead, and that his spontaneous nosebleed in class was not unrelated to his snorting habit. Here I was, naive simpleton, thinking I was being such a nice guy for helping out this kid who happened to spring a nosebleed. Meanwhile, as I reflect upon the faces of both Russell and my teacher during this exchange, I realize I was the only one who didn't know the true reason behind Russell's mini-hemmorhage.

Buckingham Palace

This is a picture of me with my good friend Weedy on a recent trip to England:




Okay, so we weren't really at Buckingham Palace and I'm not really a royal guardsman. But Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is a pretty damn funny movie.

Las Vegas Observations

Stuff I learned this weekend:

• It takes a lot of effort to walk away when you're ahead, but it's pretty damn important.
• That last thing is probably why I wasn't a terrible success at gambling.
• Okay, I lied. I actually did pretty well at the 2c slots. I did even better at the nickel slots.
• Security frowns upon kissing slot machines that have just paid you a slew of money.
• But it feels damn good just to get a huge slew of money.
• You will never, ever win those progressive jackpots on slot machines.
• Hand payouts are annoying as sin.
• Always check the payout tables on slot machines before you play. Most times even the highest payout just isn't worth the investment it'll take to get there.
• Those slot machines with cool little games attached are lots of fun. I liked "Once Around Monopoly," "Turkey Shoot," and "Hoot Loot," although the last one betrayed me like a crack whore on her wedding night.
• Even though I laughed when I first saw them, those slot machines in the airport gate area can, in fact, kick ass. To the tune of a few hundred smackers.
• Comfortable shoes are essential in a walking city.
• $20 can last you an hour and a half if you bet $5 minimums at a decent blackjack table.
• The above is an even better bonus if it means you can also snag free drinks while you play.
• It's fun reminiscing about your elementary school years with people you haven't seen in 20 years.
• Even though I disagree with 100% of the drivel she was spewing, I do have tremendous respect for the woman holding a large "REPENT YOUR SINS" right outside Caesar's Palace. She's got a right to speak her mind, and doggone it, she sure picked the right place to target sinners for her little message.
• I know prostitution is "legal" there (kinda), but I don't need to have little cards handed to me on the street advertising that girls can be delivered straight to my door. This is especially true when I'm in the company of two attractive women already. (What, do I need to purchase a third?) My friends actually saw one of their little tricks which was to watch a clearly married couple walk by, wait until the woman passes, then reach out behind her back to snag her husband. Classy.
• Oh, and even though I know handing out those cards must be a sucky low-wage job, it's truly sad when women are handing out those cards, further contributing to the objectification of their own sex.
• You get what you pay for: The cheapest hotel on The Strip can look and feel remarkably like a Motel Six (complete with a window that faces straight out to the parking lot) and will be populated by a bizarre mix of white trash and college kids trying their hardest to dress like they're of legal age.
• My friend Elizabeth will never, ever remember my birthday (try as she might). But it was fun anyway.

Random Thoughts, and Generic Away Message

First, random thoughts:

- Another commercial I hate: that one with the kids ordering the guy to crash-test various cars. Those kids are annoying little brats. I would refuse to crash any cars just to be contrary. (I've bitched about commercials before, here and here. And, of course, here. Oh yeah, this one too. Damn, I blog a lot about stupid commercials.)

- Why do I always wait until late the night before I leave on vacations to do laundry and pack? It's stupid of me. Usually it's not a big deal because I just stay up all night and hop my plane and sleep on the flight. But I still need to put in office time tomorrow (all day!), so it's not like I can just sleep in until I leave for the airport.

- What does one say to a girl you haven't seen since you both "graduated" from the sixth grade? I'm excited to see her and all, but there's SO much to catch up on it's almost overwhelming. She's married and has a family and a doctorate; I'm gay and have a J.D. Do we spend the whole time reminiscing about our fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers, or do we spend all our time talking about the present?

- I want to go to Six Flags more than once this summer.

- I still need to make it to the beach, and I want to do it sooner rather than later.

- As Dunner points out, as of today we've hit the mid-way point of the year 2005. Damn, this year been going by fast!


And now, generic away message, only not really so generic:

More Than My Luggage is on vacation for the Fourth of July weekend. It is quite likely that there will be no new posts over this holiday weekend. If I do make it to a terminal and post something, well, that would be kinda pathetic, seeing as I'd be in Vegas writing for my blog. There's much better things to be doing while I'm in Vegas. So let's hope that I don't actually post anything in the next five days. When I return I'll be officially a year older. I'll be 28. *cough*


Another random thought:

Why do we say "I'll be a year older"? It's not like that whole year sneaks up on us and hits us all at once like some quantum packet of time. We get older by the second. It's just that on one particular day of the year all those seconds add up to a whole extra year.