The strange, strange world of dating

The annual bleg

I wasn’t sure if I should post this, but as long as I’m blegging this week, I suppose readers deserve to be entertained. And what could be more entertaining that relationship drama? Besides, this has me as perplexed as a tweener at their first middle school dance. Almost a year ago I asked a lady out, we went out twice. For those with inquiring minds, we didn’t make out — or anything else — I got the distinct feeling she wasn’t interested in me after the second date. Which was confirmed when she declined a third date. She could have used a traditional brush off, like “I have to wash my hair,” but I kid you not, her words were along the lines of, “you are gross and the thought of being with you makes me sick.” [Read more…]

The most wonderful and humiliating time of the year

Once a year I hang out my annual bleg pleading for handouts from readers. You can send via Paypal using the email address [email protected], name Steven Andrew, the main site is here or click the logo above, I’ll keep the paypal logo/link up for a week or so. For those who don’t use Paypal, you can email me using the subject line “Bleg,” or leave your email address in comments, I’ll figure something out, contact you, and edit your info out of the comment.

To be clear, I blog because I like doing it. A few bucks here and there to subsidize the work are important, but I’ll do it as long as possible regardless. But the cold hard reality, these days, is the quality and quantity of my efforts will suffer without it. Every dollar will go straight to the sorely needed essential tools of this trade: gizmos, software, etc.

As scary and humiliating as it is to admit, I’ve endured a long painful slide down the economic razor blade over the last few years, starting in the comfy middle class thanks to a lifetime of work, only to land cut and bruised and broken firmly among the hard-working poor. I won’t be bummed if you can’t afford anything this year — believe me I can relate — but I’ll happily and gratefully accept anything you can swing.

Meet the Methanogens

Most Americans are emerging bleary-eyed from a tryptophan induced coma today and grudgingly marching back to work after a glorious extended weekend. In this twittering multimedia digital world many stories compete for a slot on our rested minds. The scary looming fiscal cliff and backroom dealings in DC that might fail to ease us down its gentle slope, the political back-and-forth back stabbing continues unabated as Republicans wrestle with ballot box defeat and Democrats continue to come out of the decades long reflexive crouch. It would be easy to miss what could turn out to be the most important story of the season. Right now its mere speculation over tantalizing hints, past and present, centered not on the third rock from the sun, but a more enigmatic planet, the fourth world out. NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover may have found something interesting in the arid frozen soil of the Red Planet. Right now the smart money is on a substance called methane. [Read more…]

We may have a brand new war in the Middle East

I don’t know where you come down in the Israeli Palestinian issue. To me it seems like one of those intractable problems that has existed since the day I was born and will outlive me and everyone else in my generation. The Camp David Peace Accords demonstrate incremental and significant progress is possible, but the glowing coals of the fundamental conflict were never extinguished. From time to time they rekindle a flame that threatens the entire delicate region, with potentially dire consequences for the entire world. Today that flame burns again: [Read more…]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away …

Some people call a 13.7 billion year old universe ancient, but others think it’s held up nicely and doesn’t look an eon over five billion. Or in Bobby Jindal’s lesser epochs, a day over 5,000 years. But however one mismeasures time, lo those many billennia ago, there was at least one galaxy burning bright, and where there’s one modest-sized super massive black-hole embedded in dark matter cloud with a frothy retinue of stars and dust and maybe even planets, there’s probably a billion more: [Read more…]