RNDP 13: Avatars

This week's adventure in the quest for an RNDP takes us to Omnidate.com, where an enterprising Toronto couple have created a virtual world where people looking for love can send their avatars on virtual dates. Vidya Rao of Columbia News Service explains how it works:

Through OmniDate, users choose avatars, or animated images, that will represent them on their dates. They are given the option to choose from six male or six female avatars, with each wearing a different outfit and hairstyle. For both genders, the avatars have one option each that clearly represents a person of color.

Virtual dates can include touring a museum gallery, going to a bar, listening to the user's choice of music in a lounge or even going to the beach. The avatars can interact with each other to express emotion. Type in “LOL,” for example, and users can make their avatars giggle. They can also direct them to blow kisses, hold hands, yawn and even roll their eyes to let the person on the other side of the screen know exactly how much they are or aren’t enjoying the date. [Full Article]

Omnidate's blogger tells us "an average virtual date lasts over half an hour" and predicts that in a couple of years, "dating sites without a virtual dating component will be considered lame and will experience a major decline."

4D Analysis: In Omnidate's world, you can "blow kisses", but you can't try out your moves. Major drawback. On the other hand, you'll be able to tell how fast the other person can type and that may tell you something about their manual dexterity. Possibly important to you.

Although new, and maybe even paradigmatic, I'm not going to think about endorsing it as a new dating paradigm until they incorporate smell effects technology.

We've yet to have any of our fieldworkers report back on an Omnidate virtual date, but you can click on the image below to watch to see how a date that lasts less than half an hour might go.

Urban Olympics:Bank Street Hurdles

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2007-07-15 "Supporting Aggie"

Venue: The Usual Spot

Present: 4th Dwarf, Agatha, Conch Shell, Chair, Coyote, Independent Observer, Woodsy
Guests: Audrey, Harmony, Painted Stick

Absent with lame-O excuse: Nobody
Late: Nobody

4D is assigned responsibility for minutes. He uses this to imperiously rearrange the seating so he can hear people speak and Audrey and Painted Stick are not forced to participate in agenda items that will bore them and consequently cause them to sidetrack us from our important deliberations.

European Office Report:

IO passes around photos detailing the latest advances in furnishing of the Western-Europe office. All present make the appropriate noises and comments. 4D refrains from asking why IO has no images of cuties from RNDP fieldwork.

Our Old Friend:

Aggie asks about our feelings on recent developments.

IO: Damn his [redacted] loins!

Aggie: Who is anti-condom these days?

Male Chorus: {uncomfortable silence}

Woodsy: Everybody?

Chair: I like condoms. I also like showering with my socks on.

Coyote: Will this be front channel?

Woodsy: Did you say there's going to be French?

4D: Front channel, Woodsy, not French channel.

Woodsy: So what about the date request?

IO: We never got a thank you for the marriage.

{Woodsy is filled in on old ESI history.}

Chair: Bring back the dude.

C.S.: It's time for a come back.

Chair: We've run out of anything interesting we can do.

4D: Hey!

Aggie: There, there, 4D, you and Coyote are carrying the blog.

Coyote: She needs new rules of engagement.

IO: Number One - Avoid engagement.

Chair: The lower-case poet!

Some honourable member: Absolutely not!

Aggie: Anyone else ruled out?

Coyote: The Dude.

Chair: M?

Aggie: No M.

Coyote: And there is no Fifth Rule of Engagement.

How Can We Support Aggie?

Aggie introduces her problem: People say to me, '"Hey, Boss."

IO and Chair request a report on Aggie's sabbatical.

Aggie: I can do that.

IO: We meant right now.

A: No, I can blog it.

IO: How about a 10 to 25 word synopsis?

A: In a poem?

IO: No, not a haiku.

All stare at Aggie for an uncomfortably long period.

4D: Um...

A: I need some time.

4D: So, Aggie, you need support. What is falling? What is sagging?

Woodsy: Even before he said that, I was about to suggest new underwear.

Aggie: I like good concrete advice. Especially management advice from people who've managed.

Some honourable member: Listen more than you talk.

Harmony: You can't be their friend.

Woodsy: But you can be friendly... No high heels or fancy nails.

CS: It's like parenting.

A: How?

Coyote: You can't let them smell your fear.

4D: We're tossing out all this management advice you can read anywhere. Let's talk about what you specifically need. You can't be their friend. Does this mean you don't have anyone to have lunch with?

Some honourable female member: Or yoga?

Chair: We could show up in power suits and snake skin boots.

Woodsy: Always with a kiss, kiss.

A brief interruption from Painted Stick and Audrey's end of the meeting table.

Painted Stick: We're discussing weight.

Audrey: I have to keep the same weight for the next 60 years.

Chair: Put on a pound a month and he'll never notice.

Audrey: As long as it's in the breasts!

Aggie points to herself and raises her eyebrows to bring us back to the agenda.

We are still on the power suit visits.

Woodsy: You're welcome to give me a little pat on the ass as we leave.

Aggie: That's good because we have a lesbian friendly office.

Chair: Corset Fridays!

Harmony: Let it be noted that Woodsy was eager to help purchase corsets.

The meeting is informally adjourned as conversation drifts to Aggie's crush on Milan and issues involving carbon dating.

Wading in to the chocolate morass

As Zoom has noted, these are the dog days of blogging. Oh, hey: I'm a dog. A dog about to risk life and limb by weighing in on the Great Chocolate Controversy.

Our Audrey is a singularity, a force of nature, an iconoclast who sashays to the beat of an entirely different drummer. It's why we of the Irregulars love her. So, while we may not agree with her contention that milk chocolate is the preferred option for romance, we respect it utterly. Ummm, possibly while eating dark chocolate.

Still, it got me thinking. Chocolate, when not served up as an adjunct to love, has - more than occasionally - been mentioned as an outright substitute. Is one better than the other? Obviously, the ESIs needed to research the great milk/dark divide further. Exotic locales are always good for research scams fact-finding missions, and if chocolate be the food of love and Paris la grande ville de l'amour, where better to investigate that love/gestalt/thingy...? Surely, they'd have things to say about it. After all, they speak a romance language...

I counted up my paltry collection of air mile points and found them (greatly) wanting, but it turned out, coincidentally, that the Amazon and 7th Heathen were going anyway. Hmmm. Not the junket I was hoping for, but at least it'd get quick results. Wringing grants outta the Canada Council can take eons, and the Amazon is admirably efficient and goal-oriented.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry and at great personal risk, the dauntless duo agreed to go to Maxim's (yes, that Maxim's...) They returned with the biscuit tin in the photo: "36 fine lace crêpes dipped in dark and milk chocolates". *

Yay! I clawed it open feverishly, alert for clues. Damn! With fine impartiality, and an eye to the tourist trade, those crafty Parisiennes had packed in 18 milk chocolate and 18 dark chocolate crêpes, individually wrapped. But wait! The dark chocolate ones were arrayed at the top of the tin. What can it all mean, Audrey...?

* I suspect I may owe a goodly number of these to Woodsy. Payback for scarfing the dark chocolate stash in her purse during a, ummm, legitimate emergency...

RNDP 12: Romantic Gestures that Score with Audrey

the picnic by Norma Desmond

Audrey, ESI's cultural ambassador, reports on recent fieldwork experiences and the results of listening to sage counsel:

Romantic gestures – Part 1

My boyfriends have typically been very reluctant to make romantic gestures. I always felt that it was not for me to tell a boyfriend to be more demonstrative. I reasoned that some men are just naturally more demonstrative than others. I decided that maybe the kind of men who were attracted to me were bold and sexy but not romantic.

A recent trip to Italy, though, caused me to question my theories. I had several dates with a bold and sexy Italian man. I was surprised to find that he was also a romantic. This man played romantic Latin music in the car; he took me for a cocktail at the stylish Café de Paris; he suggested a sunset stroll at the Piazzale Michelangelo and kissed me passionately at a particularly scenic spot; he shared his gelato with me; and he used flowery Italian phrases to tell me how much he desired me.

When I arrived back in Ottawa, I told my friends about my dates. Fourth Dwarf counselled me to choose an “attentive” man for a boyfriend, but to choose a man closer to home.

Well, I took his advice and my new boyfriend is the most romantic man I have ever met. He tells me frequently how much he loves being with me, and he makes many romantic gestures. I thought I would share some of these romantic gestures, in the hope that it will improve someone else’s search for true love.

Audrey’s top-ten list of romantic gestures

1. Buy her flowers – even carnations (my boyfriend gave me gerberas on our 4th date)
2. Buy her chocolate (esp. milk-chocolate) [4D: We're going to get letters about this one.]
3. Take her to the movies and only let her pay for the popcorn.
4. Have her over for a BBQ – just the two of you.
5. Meet her for lunch on a workday.
6. Take her for a romantic dinner (we went to Trattoria Caffe Italia on our 5th date).
7. Drive her home from work, even if you won’t be spending the evening together.
8. Visit her family with her and act like you are not anxious to leave after one hour.
9. Make her tea.
10. Tell her she is beautiful.