Plentyoffish: The Saga Continues

Ok, so it's not so much a saga as it is me making fun of innocent people again, but I like the word saga, so I'm sticking with it. I'm going to stop using their real pictures, but will instead attempt to find pictures of actual fish that seems to correspond with their, well, sparkling personalities. Here goes:

I love lamp! A big lamp!

FreeFalling122 loves absolutely everything, especially the word "big." Her profile begins, "I love life." Well that's just awesome. Seems like everyone else out there these days is totally into murder and genocide, so aren't you just a rejuvenating breath of fresh air? After some mindless pattering about life being "too short" and some god-awful schlock about taking risks, she seemingly turns into a retarded third grader and starts to list the things she loves, beginning with the basics: family, friends, exercise and coffee. Boredom racks my body as I read on. She continues her list (in order: laughing, Blue Moon, snuggling, the beach, hiking, sleeping with the window open, seeing live music, and movies) to the point where I was concerned that much like a song by Air Supply, she'd run fresh out of love.

But no.

She also loves "guys with big hearts... a big laugh and a big heart." My heart is obviously not big enough for you FreeFalling122, but you just keep on loving stuff (...tooth aches, losing your keys, painful urination...).

"I love it when you rub my tummy."

MsKiki289 looks, at first glance, like she gets her thrills on Blueberry Hill, beating the living shit out of anyone who gets in her way. But soon she shows that she has a softer side. Her profile begins, "well, I like to run and jump and play and I love it when you rub my tummy." One can only hope for an explanation of this befuddling introduction and boy howdy, she gives one. "Oh wait thats sounds like man's best friend lol. Well im man's best friend but I only have two legs =( but at least they are sexy! =)." I'm not sure what's more alarming here. The fact that she infers that she likes being treated like a dog, or the fact that her emoticons infer that she's upset that she ONLY HAS TWO LEGS! I'm scared to read on, but for you, gentle reader, I will persevere. 


The very next line reads, "Hi im kiki and my sister is also on this site her name is mizz nisha so if you are writing her please do not send me a message although sharing is caring, we don't like to share men. Thank you for understanding." Alright, MsKiki289, I've had enough. If I can't also date your sister, there's absolutely no way I'm going spend my time and money on Alpo, flea collars, taking you for walks, and trips to the vet. I don't care how excited you get when I come home from work.

"I might not be pretty, but I sure as hell won't apologize for smoking."

Aries4784 is not comfortable with the whole idea of "selling herself," and for good reason. She begins, "I may not be the most beautiful, or the sexiest, nor do I have the perfect body." That's not a good start, but go on. "Yes unfortunately I picked up the bad habit of smoking years back. I won't lie about it and I am not going to explain or apologize for it." Well, even if she's not the best looking, she is charming as all get out. And she's adventerous, too! She would eventually like to "go somewhere that involves needing a passport." Aries4784, if we were married we'd definitely honeymoon somewhere that involves needing a passport! Like Mogadishu, or Pyongyang!

She goes on to describe herself as "a nice person 99% of the time." I don't know about you, but all that does is make me wonder about that missing 1%. What is she then? A rabid dog? I think I may have found MsKiki289's sister! I guess I could put up with the smoking after all.

"I hate commas cuz commas look like little fishhooks!"

Babigurlniki1 describes herself as "down to earth i do not have time for games or lies." She also does not seem to have time for punctuation, but who does these days? Life is fast paced, and slowing down for commas is in no one's best interest, least of all the interests of Babigurlniki1, who wants potential suitors to know how much she loves football and run-on sentences. " I love all aspects of the game whether its watching it on tv or at the stadium or playing wit friends i have to say im not that good but i try but i am good at bowling mini gold shooting pool and soft ball."


Great Babigurlniki1 you seem like a great catch maybe we can watch football together then go bowling you could give me pointers then mini gold shooting pool whatever that is see you could even introduce me to new games I'm adventurous like that what a great team we could be eventually we'll even learn to end sentences with appropriate frequency my lips to yours!

Food Network Drinking Game

[With thanks to Lacie Hicks.]

Here are some fun drinking games to play while watching the Food Network. Feel free to choose your own poison, but I don't recommend any cocktail made by Sandra Lee (you'll end up in a diabetic coma) or Guy Fieri (you may as well drink cat vomit).

All Hosts
Drink every time:
1) the host tells you to use, and casually reaches for an ingredient you've never heard of before, as if you ALWAYS have clarified fish oil in your kitchen.
2) the host uses the word "caramelize" or any derivation thereof.
3) the host uses an amount of an ingredient that's nowhere near the amount they say they're using (like, 3 handfuls of salt later, they say use a teaspoon).
4) the host acts surprised that the food they just cooked tastes good.
5) the host has an obnoxious guest cooking with them (this includes their children).

The Barefoot Contessa
Drink every time:
1) she mentions in a tone usually reserved for mortuaries and funeral homes, what a terrific party she's going to host later.
2) she uses the adjective "good" to describe an ingredient (i.e. "good vanilla" or "good tomato juice").
3) you're pretty sure she's going to fall asleep from all that fresh basil.
4) she forces herself to laugh.
5) she gives her husband, Jeffrey, an awkward, "I obviously married a gay man" kiss hello.

Giada de Laurentiis
Drink every time:
1) she over-enunciates an Italian word.
2) she smiles to the camera while doing something menial like stirring.
3) she scares you or your child with her "Monster's Inc. Mouth."
4) she uses the word "crunch." Seriously, it's blood-curdling.
5) you imagine her whisking while topless.

Guy Fieri
Drink every time:
1) he references his bling.
2) he sounds like he's drowning while trying to say "Worcestershire."
3) he tastes his own food and gets it all over his face and hands.
4) he makes a repulsive cocktail (i.e. his "dirty pickle martini").
5) you hate God for concocting such an awful douchebag.

Sandra Lee
Drink every time:
1) you can't believe this nutjob has her own television show.
2) she mentions the time-saving benefits of buying pre-sliced vegetables at the store.
3) she uses onion soup mix in one of her recipes.
4) she uses the word "super" twice or more in a row (i.e. "it's super, super simple").
5) she says "DUH-licious."

If you have any other Food Network shows you'd like to see incorporated into the Food Network Drinking Game, please let me know. And as always...

My lips to yours.

More on Wieters

This morning, the Baltimore Sun ran a piece which asks the question, where in the lineup do you bat Matt Wieters? Let's hold on a minute, here folks.

Wieters had a good game last night. And yes, he's hitting well with runners in scoring position. But the Orioles coaching staff needs to focus on getting runners on base before they start shuffling the lineup. If Wieters is coming around, that's great. Maybe his hot streak will start catching on to guys batting before him (Brian Roberts and Vlad Guerrero both had 3 RBI nights last night) so that he'll have someone to hit home when he gets up to bat. But let's not get crazy and put him in the number 3 spot yet because Derrek Lee is having a slow start.

Wieters hasn't turned 25 yet. What's the use of moving him up in the lineup and adding more pressure on a young player just because he's had a recent hot streak? Let him stay in a comfortable slot and see if he can start to produce more than his .239 batting average suggests he can.

My lips to yours.

A Quick Note on Matt Wieters

Here is a rather frightening statistic on Matt Wieters so far this season. He is 5 for 5 with runners in scoring position (according to espn.com). In those at bats, he has 8 RBI, with 2 of those at bats and 4 of those RBI coming from tonight's 11-0 drubbing of the Minnesota Twins.

Why is that frightening? Because he usually hits between the 6th and 8th position, right after the supposed "heart" of the Orioles' lineup. And so far, he has only had 5 at bats with runners in scoring position. That means, tonight aside, the bulk of the lineup is not getting on base. Now granted, with his .239 average, Wieters hasn't been getting the job done for the most part either, but he is proving that he can hit when it counts.

Tonight was a good sign for the Orioles' offense (their pitching was fantastic too; anyone notice Gregg and Gonzalez not pitch tonight?). If they can keep giving Wieters a chance to hit when it counts, they can keep giving themselves a chance to win.

My lips to yours.

O No. Not Again.

The Orioles just lost their 8th consecutive game after starting 6-1. Chris Tillman gave the O's a quality start, giving up 3 runs in 6 2/3 innings, but the offense continued to fail to earn its paycheck until the 7th inning with solo home runs from Adam Jones and Matt Wieters.  "Anemic" doesn't begin to describe the Orioles' bats. I'm not sure what word to use to describe an offense in which your best hitter is batting .266.

But the most frustrating thing to watch is Buck Showalter calling on Kevin Gregg and Michael Gonzalez to close out games in close situations. Gregg's 2.00 WHIP (before tonight's game) is the highest the Orioles have to offer, yet he is still called upon to keep close games within reach. But why? He threw 34 pitches (less than half for strikes) in the ninth inning alone, giving up two runs, a fact that became exacerbated by Luke Scott's solo home run in the bottom of the ninth. Take away his poor performance tonight (one of many throughout the season), and the Orioles have a good shot to win tonight's game. Even in situations when he's gotten out of tight spots, it's taken near miracles by the Orioles' defense to ensure he does.

The same thing goes for Michael Gonzalez, the pitcher I'm now convinced has THE WORST MECHANICS IN BASEBALL. He practically falls off the mound after every pitch and sports an ERA (10.38) to match. Yet instead of warming up a reliable reliever (Jim Johnson, Jason Berken, Koji Uehara), Buck Showalter's only other bullpen option for the ninth inning was Captain Mechanics. I'm choosing to believe he wasn't warming up to come into the game, but rather to work on his fundamentals.

Buck, you're great. I love you. But you need to ignore Journey's admonishments, and STOP BELIEVING IN THESE WORTHLESS PITCHERS!

Anyway...

My lips to yours.

Learning to Squawk

I was originally going to title this post, "Washcloth Bathing Suit Lady," an homage to a patron from the Health Club. I will describe her here in detail later, but I felt it necessary to show what inspired this particular post. My friend, Sarah Perrich, used to work with me at the airport before she moved to Istanbul. She knows many of the people I am now responsible for managing, including the elderly, disgruntled women we lovingly refer to as "The Bats."

Without getting too far off my original topic, The Bats are a funny bunch when I'm not presently dealing with them (and when they're not actively hitting on me) and they provided Sarah and I with a lot of entertainment when we worked together. Sarah often sends me correspondence asking for updates from them. When The Bats have been particularly "flappy," I'm more than happy to comply.

Recently, Sarah wrote me about Turkish Bats:

The grandmothers of all Bats everywhere live in Turkey- the headscarf women from the East. They're alarmingly identical- they're all between 4'11" and 5'2" and fat. In five months I've seen exactly one skinny one. They wear headscarves and long, flowery skirts that are sewn shut at the bottom with two holes for their feet, and aprons and scarves and long coats. They all waddle- seriously waddle, like they lurch alarmingly from side to side when they walk. When they sit down they have their knees spread wiiiide open in a way I find, well, upsetting. They are incapable of forming lines. You see them in the banks and post offices and grocery stores in angry little clumps, squawking. Like geese fighting over bread. When I was on the night train back from Capadocia, we stopped at a rest stop with a busload of them from God knows where. I used the rest room and when I opened my stall door I had to push my way out- five or six of them were pressed up against the door and the one in front was halfway in the stall before I got out. There were more of them by the sinks, stuffing wads of toilet tissue into pockets sewn in their sweaters and shawls, doing alarming things with the electric handdryers, rocking side to side, squawking. 

It was disturbing. 

I don't know about you, but the visual of the "angry little clumps" of Turkish Bats "squawking" had me in stitches. It also reminded me of a Health Club patron who could squawk a blue streak, herself.

She was Korean and roughly 65 years old with a flat face that you'd be terrified of even if she was your Korean grandmother. Damon and I called her Wash Cloth Bathing Suit Lady because she came to the pool every day in a white terrycloth tank top with matching shorts (shudder). White. Terrycloth. Pool.  65. You do the math.

She was a devoted Hot Tub-ite, and on days when we had to clean it she would squawk a LOT. One day when it had been cleaned and refilled with cold water (like frigid. There was no way to add hot water to the hot tub and it was winter so it took a long time for it to re-heat after it was filled) and we were simply waiting for it to heat up, she did the usual "ignore the orange cones around the hot tub" routine and steps into it. 

Her English was not so good, but she was nonetheless a very communicative person.

"Raaaaaaawwwk!" 

I did not make eye contact with her. In my mind I thought of ways to justify this, like "if you're not going to address me in English you shouldn't be addressing me at all," but that made me feel racist and thick-headed. I'd been feeling that way all too often at the Health Club recently and I didn't like it one bit. 

"RAAAAAAAAWK!"

I sighed and braced myself but still refused to look up.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!"

I acknowledged her squawk. "How can I help you?"

"Craw," she said, pointing to the hot tub. She has her foot in the water on the top step of the hot tub and she wants me to know that the hot tub is cold. Like somehow, I didn't know. I'm the one who did it!

"It's cold," I told her, hoping that stating the obvious would placate her.

"CRAW!"

"I know. It's going to take a while for it to heat up. Until then, try the steam room!"

Menacingly, she scowls at me and suggests, "raacaaack?"

"Perhaps. I apologize about the hot tub. It had to be cleaned and it takes a while to heat up so it will be a few hours."

She replied, "RaaaaCAW," in a tone that suggested I go fuck myself.

"You have a nice day, too."

She got into the hot tub anyway and sat there in the icy cold water while I went back to my table and thought horribly racist things about Koreans.

My lips to yours.

1000 Page views!!!

Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue!

Recently, my humble blog reached its 1000th page view. So far, outside of my 95% American readership, I've had readers in Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Poland and other, weirder countries like Moldova. I have no idea how these poor saps stumble onto my page. I doubt there are too many people in Luxembourg looking for kickball team names. Perhaps the Dutch readers are looking for refreshing, new anal games to play, or the Russian page viewers were looking to book a flight on Delta Airlines. Maybe the Moldovans were looking for a way to deal with hippies? I don't know.
 Regardless, I am going to try to get to 2000 page views as best and as quickly as I can which means I need to start posting a bit more on this sucker, so I'm first going to cheat and import my posts from my other blog at http://footdipper.blogspot.com.
THEN, I'll get onto writing new posts on a more frequent basis. I'll be off work for about the next six weeks or so, so I really don't have an excuse not to write. Or to exercise. Or to clean my room. Or to start practicing the ukulele again. Or to volunteer at the orphanage. Or to finally finish that alchemy project I started in 2005 under my bed.
Until then, dear readers,

My lips to yours!

More Matches from Plentyoffish.com

This time I decided not to be a shallow pig and make fun of other people's pictures (though it's really fun, you should give it a try); instead I'll take aim at the self-descriptions my "matches" have left for me to peruse.


Puppylove874 lists her interests as follows: "dating, hugging, doggies, entertaining, hair." She goes on to note, "I love eating, drinking, partying and my two dogs." Gee thanks, plentyoffish.com! It sounds like we'd have a great time together discussing her hair, her dogs, what parties she likes to go to, her dogs, what the best kind of hugging is, and her dogs, too!


Mdblueyez is an interesting character. She sports many tattoos that look like they were drawn during a kindergarten finger-painting lesson and she is morbidly obese. The first line of her "About Me" section reads, "NOT LOOKING FOR JUST SEX OR CASUAL ENCOUNTERS... Does nobody get to know someone else before jumping in bed with them? I mean seriously, wtf?" Well, Mdblueyez, I hope you're happy. You've ruined my day. When I saw the tattoos, I immediately took you for the type who would let me come to your house, and after introducing myself, let me make violent love to one or more of your chins. Congratulations. You've won this round.


Funshiner chose a profile name that implies that she enjoys getting black eyes. But what's in a name? Let's see who she thinks she really is. She claims to be "a 29 year old professional female who enjoys getting down!" I seriously cannot wait to see what her definition of "getting down" is. Let's find out. She continues, "... watching the science/history/military channels, catching up on my sci-fi stories..." Ah yes, there it is! Get DOWN, Funshiner! She also goes on to note that she likes knitting fleece hats and that "the biggest thing about me right now... is that I'm very overweight." (That was her ellipses, not mine.) Funshiner, if you aren't just a big ol' tub o' Man Bait, then you can call me Peggy Sue! 
[Editor's note: the author of this blog will now respond to the name Peggy Sue during any future correspondence.]


Lilbitren gets right to the point. "I am awesome and fun and great in bed. I listen to awesome music and I kick ass." She forgot to mention that she is not so awesome at describing herself and the things she likes. She awesomely fails to elaborate on what makes her so awesome so I'll just have to take her at her awesome word for it. Unfortunately for me she prefers "tall, manly men who build things and fix things." I am nowhere near that awesome. 


Pookey1615 is a mother of two and considers herself quite the comedian. "I don't know how I do it, but I come up with some funny shit, its a mix of dry humor, to dumb stuff that still gets people to laugh." Yes, I'm sure you're basically the female version of Ricky Gervais from Middle River. Your teased bangs could be a good sight gag, too! She may also be out of my league being that she wants potential suitors to know that she "don't do stupid, jerks, conceited or jealous types." Pookey1615, you'll always be the one that got away.


To all of the beautiful, intelligent women from the Baltimore area on Plentyoffish.com...


My lips to yours!