RNDP 24: The Never-Ending Story?

Q: What's the difference between the Never-Ending Story and my quest for a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm (RNDP)?

A: The Never-Ending Story actually ended.

New Research Results relevant to daters:

"Dating culture is dead - instead, young New Zealand women are regularly getting drunk and cruising around in packs looking for men to have sex with. " [4D: This must be true because it was on TV.]

Fidelity is all about chemistry? "Males in some species of pair-bonding mammals have their lifelong attachment triggered by vasopressin release, and studies of men in monogamous relationships find a correlation between low vasopressin levels and high levels of marital strife." [4D: Only on the radio. Best to take this with a grain of salt-peter.]

New Resources for Daters:

Cosmopolitan's Experts say you can learn 55 things about a man in 10 minutes. The only hitch is that it will be a very busy 10 minutes. To learn the 55 things, along with observing his speaking patterns and hair style, you'll have to:

• Learn his favourite sports and TV shows;
• Find out how long he's been hanging with his friends,
• See what he does when it's time to pay,
• Find out if he drinks, smokes or gambles;
• Learn his online communication preferences;
• See how he behaves at a party;
• Observe his driving style;
• Determine when and how often he likes to have sex and what his pattern is on who initiates it;
• See what he orders in a restaurant;
• Learn whether he is tidy or messy;
• See his underwear; and
  
• Have sex with him several times.

Red Flag Deals provides a useful grid to help you choose a dating site.

A Dinosaur Shows the Way?

It might not be what I've been looking for, but T-Rex has an honest-to-goodness new dating paradigm that may well be revolutionary.

p.s. A big shout-out to JE. Thanks for the support!

A Wellington Street view

I best know local uber-partisan Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre for an endless series of rabid political cheap shots that seem to me to be firmly rooted in a deeply considered intellectual process involving either cartoon logic or clinical insanity. Come to think of it, his parliamentary question period antics probably give rabies a bad name. He regards John Baird (or possibly Baird's hair) as his political mentor, for cripes' sakes...

So, earlier this week when PP, a member of the federal access to information, privacy and ethics committee, took a, ummm, principled stand against Google Street View in Ottawa, I immediately began looking for the guy's ummm, well-reasoned angle. There has to be one. There always is.

PP claimed that he had concerns about the service's potential for invading privacy. Since he backs a law 'n order agenda, which can occasionally involve stuff like, oh, ubiquitous closed circuit TV cameras aimed at the general populace for no particular reason, I hadda kinda wonder.

Now, suddenly he has flipflopped, (assuming foursquare, steadfastly antiflipflop Tories can ever be said to flipflop. I'm sure they call it something else among themselves. I digress.) musing that a "useful and popular service" like Street View could fall victim to Canada's privacy laws vis-a-vis public surveillance. Which, unlike earlier this week, are now apparently too strong. And so must be modified to make them weaker. To allow, ummm, useful and popular services. To whom, exactly, other as yet unspecified services might also be useful and popular with, remains an open question for now.

Oh. Now I get it... and I'm torn. And perhaps slightly more paranoid than usual. Tooling around virtual versions of the great cities of the world amuses me. Pretending Ottawa is a great city of the world would amuse me even more. I like Street View. But if a little git like PP supports it...

Amused? An ESI Caption Contest

Prime Minister Stephen Harper met The Queen today at Buckingham Palace. Whatever could they be talking about?

Breaking News: Tommy & Lefebvre burns

Details at CBC News

Why I Like Chinese Doctors

I have gone to Chinese doctors for a number of years and have been happy with my Chinese medicine experience.

Here are some of the reasons I like Chinese doctors/medicine:

1) You can go to them when your GP isn't really helping. Let's say, you've done all the blood work, the tests, and everything comes out ok. But you still have things like gut problems, energy problems, mild depression -- these are the issues Chinese medicine can deal with effectively!

2) Chinese doctors don't try to be diplomatic. They tell it to you like it is: "You're too fat." "You're too thin." "Don't think so much!" "Stop spending so much time on the computer!" "Your breath stinks". And my personal favourite --- "Don't eat too much garlic! That's not good for the ladies. Causes discharge."

3) Reading the "instructions for use" on Chinese herbal medications is hilarious. I'm currently taking pills for "shrivelled complexion" and another for "wounds, serious or otherwise, sustained from a fall or throw - down from horse back, hurt of tendons and fracture of bones, internal pains by shocks and external swellings, pains by clot of blood, constipation and scantiness of urine, bumping or rod-hitting."

4) Chinese medicine is pretty cheap. Some acupuncturists are covered by work benefits. It's important to stay healthy during these hard times.

5) Chinese doctors don't care about privacy and confidentiality, and there is something really liberating about this. "Come in here and let me give you this constipation medicine...Oh yeah. There is another patient in here, but no problem!" This kind of thing makes me laugh at my own Western uptightness. And laughter is good medicine.