Month: April 2014

A Great Online Dating Profile

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2014/04/30
No Comments on A Great Online Dating Profile

Writing a great online dating profile

In another bout of insomnia vs Logan – where insomnia won, as per use – I took all my posts about writing online dating profiles, cleaned them up, and updated them. Added a section on astrology if you want to know how compatible aries and scorpio are , or are not!?

Then, with the help of my wife and brother, made it into an ebook called A Great Online Dating Profile – with a snazzy new cover – and put it up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the iTunes store for $0.99.

BUT, if you like reading PDFs, you can actually get a copy for free by clicking here and entering your email address.

It’s pretty well-researched, if I do say so myself, and has some interesting things I didn’t know when I was actively dating, such as the one word you can put into your profile to increase your response rate by 31%.

31%!

Now if you want to support by buying a $0.99 copy for whatever ebook reader you’re using, I’m not gonna stop you – but otherwise, it’s free.

I also dropped the price of my book on first dates to $2.99, just as an FYI.

As with A Great Online Dating Profile, it’s available on Amazon, BN.com, and the Apple Store.

OK, end shilling; back to the regular nonsense next week.

Location: at my desk, listening to the rain
Mood: writer-y
Music: walked home in the rain because a person can not lie
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Tags dating, personal

personal

Squinting through life

Excuses build monuments of nothing

Gizmodo just wrote an article called, Why Squinting Helps You See Better.

There are a number of reasons why but the most basic is that it lets in less light so that you can focus on those items you are interested in.

Had a busy weekend with people I’ve not seen in years; saw my friend Claire for her birthday downtown, went to an improv class with Skinny, and missed a call from KG Betty.

Skinny and I grabbed a drink around the way after our class. Told him that I didn’t want to be the greatest improv player in the world but I did want to keep my ability to think quickly on my feet. The problem is that there’s always an excuse to everything.

But then you have to squint and refocus on the things you actually want keep to and the things you have to let go of.

Me: This fella once said that Excuses are tools of the incompetent, which create monuments of nothing. I felt like we were good at this, and then things just got in the way.
Him: That’s just what happens.

Location: home, waiting for workmen
Mood: ambitious
Music: it’s just too much – miles apart but close enough
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Why Squinting Helps You See Better

Tags conversations, dialogue, friends, overheard in ny

personal

Naked cupcakes, peanut butter, ribs, and wings

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2014/04/23
5 Comments on Naked cupcakes, peanut butter, ribs, and wings

When you’re 41, you can eat naked cupcakes and peanut butter out of the jar

Her: What are you having for breakfast?
Me: A naked cupcake.
Her: I knew this would happen after you got your results!

Went to the doc’s the other day for my annual checkup. Got a clean bill of health – cholesterol is less than 200, low blood sugar, low resting heart rate, etc – and this conversation:

Him: Do you eat fish every day?
Me: No. Maybe once a week, why?
Him: The last time I saw triglycerides this low, it was on a fisherman.
Me: Well, I do drink a lot of rum, so in that sense, I’m like a guy at sea.
Him: (laughing) I don’t think that’s it.

So I immediately went home and slow baked a dozen chicken wings and a rack of Alton Brown’s Who Loves Ya Baby-back Ribs. I shoulda taken a pic.

In a few more days, I’ll probably go back to eating a lot of beans and downing wheat-grass shakes but if I’m gonna be 41, I’m going to try and enjoy it as best I can.

Her: Is that a jar of peanut butter next to the bed?
Me: … No?

Location: in front of some more deadlines
Mood: pensive
Music: It’s so unright, it’s so unright, it’s a technical, accept it
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Tags conversations, dialogue, funny, overheard in ny

personal

Logan’s 41

The 1s are a little different

Tomorrow I turn 41.

There’s something about the “1s” that really hit you. Turning 40, 30, and even 20 is a shock, but turning 41, 31, and 21 is more of a: “Well, I guess I should get used to this,” type of feeling.

Because I have to see the rents tomorrow, the wife brought me out to catch the Captain America flick in a red leather recliner, and then dinner at Five Napkin Burger on the UWS the other night.

My seventh birthday was roughly the same except I went to see Superman II and had Burger King.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speakinga staying the same, wish me a Happy Birthday, alla you bastards that read me and never say anything.

Just to change it up a little bit, I’m actually going to give something to you instead of the other way around a week from today so check back then?

Location: off to the gym
Mood: 41-ish
Music: I’d go black and blue, I’d go crawling down the avenue.

Tags birthday

personal

Staten Island, Ferries, Pigeons, and Horse heads.

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2014/04/14
6 Comments on Staten Island, Ferries, Pigeons, and Horse heads.

My home’s a strange town, but it’s home

Went to Staten Island to meet up with a client. Was the first time on the ferry since the turn of the century.

As I left the terminal, a pigeon was on his way in.

Stopped to snap some pics of artwork.

It’s peaceful there. Whenever people talk about New York City, they usually just mean Manhattan.

But New York City isn’t just Manhattan, it’s also The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

Headed back in to Manhattan and finished up the work week.

Over the weekend, the wife and I went to Central Park where we saw a woman in a suit wearing heels and a horse head while playing an accordion.

Her: Is that a woman in a suit wearing heels and a horse head while playing an accordion?
Me: I think so.
Her: Well, that’s something new.

Location: home
Mood: good
Music: I’d go black and blue, I’d go crawling down the avenue.
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Tags conversations, dialogue, overheard in ny, photography, travelogue

personal

The disappearing watercooler

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2014/04/09
8 Comments on The disappearing watercooler

Emerging from winter

The weather’s been slowly getting better so I’ve been emerging from my winter shell.

Met up some college buddies for sushi around the way the other day and, yesterday night, headed over to my local tailor with my buddy Paul to get some clothes fixed.

Regrettably stopped off at Grey’s Papaya after dinner to get a dessert of two hot dogs.

Her: TWO hot dogs? After you had a dinner of ribs and potatoes?
Me: I’m not proud.

The post I wrote about the HIMYM finale seems to have struck a chord with people because I received several emails and a few mentions by others in social media.

It’s interesting because an opinion just came out in the NYTimes where the author notes that the water cooler is disappearing, both literally and figuratively.

It’s disappearing on the figurative front because there are just so many shows to watch and we all have such divergent interests.

So to find something that so many of us can actually discuss is rare.

On that note, I’m finding that more and more people are reading this blog, but less and less are leaving comments here – when you do comment, it’s either to an email to me, a comment on FB or somewhere else, or no comment at all.

I miss the old LiveJournal account mainly for that reason; because people were such active commenters there.

Leave a comment below from time-to-time!

Location: Staten Island
Mood: rested
Music: all right, I got no time for private consultation
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Tags conversations, dialogue, friends, overheard in ny, picturing food

personal

How I met your mother in a refrigerator

Post author By Logan Lo
Post date 2014/04/07
2 Comments on How I met your mother in a refrigerator

This is why you’re bothered by the HIMYM finale

Wasn’t planning on writing two back-to-back opinion posts but these things have been bothering me enough to say something.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

If you’ve watched the finale, you know that the mother was a red herring the entire time. The story really was, and is, about how Ted and Robin end up together after years of orbiting around each other.

But if it left a distaste in your mouth and you can’t figure out why, let me tell you about the Women in Refrigerators issue in comic books.

The term comes from a 1994 story where a superhero returns to find that his girlfriend has been killed and stuffed into his refrigerator.

It’s a plot device, whereby a female character is killed or maimed in a male-centered story purely to make stuff happen for that male character. And it happens enough to have a name.

Turning back to HIMYM, we essentially meet the mother in a refrigerator in that we met her when she was already dead six years.

The purpose of the refrigerator in comic books is to shock and horrify; ditto for the reveal in HIMYM.

That’s why the finale bothered me. Because this character was ostensibly there purely to provide story impetus – and offspring – for Ted and then is conveniently killed off to make room for the person he’s loved all this time, Robin.

The entire last season, which could have been a look into the mother’s life – let’s call her Tracy, because characters of meaning deserve names – was instead just about Robin’s marriage, which itself was a red herring.

And Robin’s life is essentially a waiting game for Ted. So both females lives are disposable and there to serve the protagonist of the story, that is all.

We’re not even told how Tracy died or why, that’s how marginal her death actually is.

Of course, does this happen in real life? Sure. Girlfriends and wives are killed every day, spurring the men in their lives to take action. But men are killed as well and this isn’t a major trope in writing.

Ultimately, to devote close to a decade of storyline to characters only to do a fake out seems cheap and easy.

I’m no hardcore feminist, but this is so glaringly distasteful that it’s difficult not to notice it.

End rant. Back to nuthin later on this week.

Location: apartment on a rainy Monday morning
Mood: still irritated
Music: Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know – it’s serious
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Tags observations, opinion, rant, writing

Writing a great online dating profile

Excuses build monuments of nothing

Related articles

When you’re 41, you can eat naked cupcakes and peanut butter out of the jar

Someday we’ll know

The 1s are a little different

My home’s a strange town, but it’s home

Emerging from winter

This is why you’re bothered by the HIMYM finale

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