Entertainment online

As an experienced ‘Interneter’ (definition: One who spends way too much time on the internet) I know that the lack of sign-ups may change. One morning I may awaken to 30 new affiliates in each of my programs. Or at least that’s what my guru friends keep telling me… The SPAM however, ‘ain’t goin’ nowhere.’ It’s just become a fact of internet life. ‘He Who Hath Email, Will Get SPAM.’

I personally use the Delete-It-And-Forget-About-It Method to deal with SPAM. This time tested method has three basic steps:

1. Select the ’suspected’ spam email (Note: I use the term suspected because according the Internet Law Code Title 12 Chapter 15 Subtitle 3 ‘All spam is innocent until proven guilty by a jury of it’s peers, or until it emails a virus to your whole address book.)’

2. Hit the ‘Delete’ button

3. Move on to the next email

This highly complicated method for dealing with SPAM is not, I have found, for everyone. There are some people who feel that this method lets spammers off too easily. These are people who feel very strongly about SPAM. They don’t just dislike SPAM, they DESPISE it. I’m talking about the kind of people who, judging by their actions, must be allergic to SPAM.

These kind of people prefer the I’m-Going-To-Get-You-If-It’s-The-Last-Thing-I-Do-Online Method. This method involves any or all of the following steps:

1. Quitting your day job so you can have more time to write nasty replies to all the emails that you get that you don’t remember requesting.

2. Doing an exhaustive 30 hour online search for a suspected spammers IP address so you can report them to their ISP. And their hosting services. And their mother.

4. Attempting to get in touch with Tom Ridge, newly appointed Director of Homeland Security, because you think spamming is a form of terrorism.

5. Showing up at suspected spammers front door at 3 AM wielding an AK-47 assault rifle and wearing only WWJD bandana and a mousepad, and shouting, “If I want Spam I’ll buy a can” between gunshots.

However you deal with SPAM is of course your business. I, by nature, am a passive person (by passive I mean lazy) so SPAM doesn’t usually annoy me to the point where I feel the need to take action. I will admit that occasionally though SPAM does get me a little angry. Like when I open my inbox and see that of the 25 unread emails I have, 20 have subject lines like:

* Let Me Show You How To Make An Extra $5000 An Hour Selling Squid!

* Hot Blonde Men Want You!

* Congratulations You’ve Won An All Expense Paid Trip To Uzbekistan

* Do You Know What You’re Children Are Doing Online? (A quick note to all spammers: If you are going to illegally fill my inbox with SPAM at least be kind enough to send me something that might interest me. SPAM about children does not interest me in the slightest bit seeing as I have none. And if I did have kids I wouldn’t care what they did online as long as they stayed quiet and left me alone. Thanks.

* Become A Catholic Priest In Two Short Weeks

* Here Is The Information You Requested On Llama Breeding

These are just a sample of some of the subject lines that I have seen in my inbox. I assume they were SPAM since I don’t remember every requesting any information about any of those subjects. Although the one about selling squid did seem interesting. Which brings me to a question. If you know that an email is SPAM but the subject line is just sooo darn catchy, is it wrong to open the email? Do I become an accessory to spamming? Am I aiding and abetting known spammers? I sure hope not because truthfully every now and then I open an email that I know is SPAM just to see what it’s about. It’s just that some of those spammers have gotten so good with their subject lines that I just can’t help myself. For instance I’m GOING to open emails with subject lines like:

* Free Fried Chicken For Life

* Fast Hemorrhoid Relief

* Drink ALL You Want And Never Get Drunk

* Drew Barrymore and Tara Banks Want To Meet You (Another quick note to spammers: If you were the online law breaker who sent me the unsolicited email about Drew and Tara could you please send it to me again. I think I accidentally deleted it. Thanks. P.S. If you have anything about Angelina Jolie send that too.)

* Even Faster Hemorrhoid Relief

* Stop Premature Balding

* Legally Get Back All The Money You’ve Ever Blown On Women

There are some of you who probably think it’s deplorable that I admit to reading emails that I know are SPAM. You probably think that people like me are the reason spammers keep spamming. You probably think I’m just as bad as the spammers. You’re probably trying to figure out who my ISP is at this very moment so you can report me. All I can say in my defense is: I’m only human. And I only do it on weekends.

In conclusion, even though I’ve poked fun at anti-spammers in this article, I do feel that spamming is wrong and illegal. My purpose in writing this article was just to bring a little humor to the otherwise ever-so-serious SPAM table. Whether you’re an avid anti-spammer and a card-carrying member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email or a lazy Delete-It-And-Forget-About-It slacker like me, you’ll probably agree that spammers need to stopped. Anyone caught spamming should be punished. And I know the ideal punishment. They should be forced to clean my house and keep my llamas fed while I’m on my 2 month vacation in Uzbekistan with Drew Barrymore, eating fried chicken-hemorrhoid free.]]>

One of my favorite websites to visit when I’ve had a few beers is HotorNot.com. If you haven’t heard of HotorNot.com then I suggest you click over there real quick and check it out. I’m far too buzzed to go into a detailed description right now. I’ll pause while everyone clicks over. (PAUSE) Ok! Is everyone back? Good! And now that we all know what HotorNot.com is all about I can continue with my ranting.

I like HotorNot.com because it allows me to look at women without the risk of them calling me a ‘pervert’ or ‘freak’. In fact I can stare at the women on HotorNot.com as long as I want and none of them will call me a psychpath, or worse, call the police.

I also love the fact that I get to rate the women after I’ve finished oogling over them. Any man will tell you that this is basically what we do anyway. We look at a women and then we rate her in our heads. Of course our rating scale is not so much ‘from one to ten’ as it is ‘would I sleep with her or not’, but it’s essentially the same concept.

I hate the pictures of woman that have men in them as well. I find it hard to rate a women if she has her boyfriend standing there next to her. If I give her a 9 does that mean that he gets a 9 as well? I may not think that he is a 9. Not that I’m judging men. But then again maybe I am. I’m not gay or anything but I know an ugly man when I see one. But that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable rating them.

I finally got up the nerve to put my picture on HotorNot.com. Actually, it wasn’t so much getting up the nerve as it was getting up the money to get my picture developed onto a CD so that I could upload it. I’m an admitted cheapskate and even though it only cost $2.82 I still had to work the added expense into the budget. Now that my pictures online I wake up every morning and check my stats to see hat rating people are giving me. Today when I checked I was up to a 7.2! That means that I am hotter than 69% of the men on the site! At least that what it says on my statistics page. That means that for every 100 males that post their pctures on Hotornot.com only 31 of them can do as good as me in the looks department. I’ll be sure to bring that up at my 10 year high school reunion. Every one else may have great careers as doctors, lawyers, mystery shoppers, et cetera, but has all of cyberspace voted them into the ‘Top 35 Percentile of Hotness’. I think not.

You can click here: http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=ERELALO&key=HNY to rate my picture. However, I warn you that I have contacts in the Russian underworld and I’d hate to have to send the Gormanilov brothers after you because you gave me a 4 or below. I might be just a tad bit biased but I think I’m easily a 8. Then again that may just be the liquid stimulation talking…]]>

1. Me Make Good Play!

Ever see NFL players beat their chest like a gorilla after they just made a good play? I guess it’s a Tarzan thing or something, but they look kinda ridiculous. Maybe if I was out there on the field and I was a 170-pound kicker watching a defensive lineman beating his chest after a sack, I may be a little intimidated, but overall, they look really silly doing it. (I attended a professional all-women’s football game this year and saw a 350-pound woman do this, which was particularly scary.)

2. The God Factor, Part I

I hate it when players point up to Heaven and thank God after a good play too. Bear in mind however, that I am not criticizing religion or anyone for having faith in God. But this just looks lame. It happens a lot in MLB for some reason. A strikeout will cause Pedro Martinez to do the chest-touch and double-index-finger-point to God as if he and God were chatting earlier about possible pitching strategies in the locker room, and the strategy they chose together worked, so he had to personally thank God using his direct line.

3. The God Factor, Part II

Locker rooms, sidelines, dugouts, bullpens, and court sides are often full of praying men. One question: “If you are praying to win, and your opponent is praying to win, who does God choose?

4. Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?

Why do pro jocks get arrested for drug and/or gun possession so much? Of course, lots of people do this one unfortunately, we just happen to hear about the famous athletes who do. C’mon guys, keep the drugs at home, stop driving while high, and for crying out loud, stop packin’! You don’t need a gun. Who’s going to harm you? You’re six six and weigh 275 pounds!

5. It Wasn’t Me!

Telling Congress you don’t do steroids, then getting caught doing steroids is pretty dumb. I loved watching the clips where Rafael Palmero sat pointing a finger at the Congressional hearing stating with disgust and confidence, “I do not take steroids.” And then the next clip showing him apologizing profusely for taking steroids.

6. I Love You To Death

Murdering ex-lovers doesn’t happen very often fortunately, but my list wouldn’t be complete without at least mentioning O.J.

7. Rabbits

It seems that there are a lot of NBA players out there who use the phrase, “My baby’s mom” a little too often. And there’s too many pro athletes’ offspring introducing their buddies as “My brother from another mother.” Ever hear of a condom?

8. How Much Bling Bling Do You Need!?

It’s fascinating to watch professional athletes blow through all their millions in their first year or two and then have nothing left at retirement, which is usually only a few years later. How many fifty-year-olds are still playing pro sports? Not many (minus golfers of course, who will drag their canes and oxygen tanks with them on the fairway). So why don’t pro athletes save a couple of bucks?

9. Love My Hog

It’s not too smart to get injured off the job when you’re a pro athlete. Cleveland Browns Kellen Winslow Jr. crashed his motorcycle recently and will now miss the 2005 NFL season. Jay Williams, a number one draft pick of the Chicago Bulls, also got into a motorcycle accident and has not played since. What’s with motorcycles anyhow? Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

10. “When You Come To a Fork in the Road, Take It” - Yogi Berra
Saying really dumb things in the media seems to be a particularly easy thing to do if you’re a professional athlete. I looked in a lot of places online to come up with a good list here. My problem was that there were so many good ones, I wasn’t sure which ones to pick. But here are a few gems:

a. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: “I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.”

b. Baseball player Tito Fuentes, after getting hit by a pitch: “They shouldn’t throw at me. I’m the father of five or six kids.”

c. Football coach Ray Malavasi: “I don’t care what the tape says. I didn’t say it.”

d. Baseball player Dizzy Dean, after a 1-0 game: “The game was closer than the score indicated.”

e. Boxing Analyst: “Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.”

f. Soccer commentator: “Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.”

g. Bill Cowher, Pittsburgh Steelers coach: “We’re not attempting to circumcise rules.”

h. Jim Wohford: “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”

i. Joe Theismann: “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

j. Charles Shackleford of the NCSU basketball team: “Left hand, right hand, it doesn’t matter. I’m amphibious.”

k. Shaquille O’Neal, on his lack of championships: “I’ve won at every level, except college and pro.”

As I already asked before, what can we expect from professional athletes? They often reflect society as a whole. Too much time, money and fame at a really young age can augment stupidity, simple as that. We all say and do dumb things, but thankfully, we don’t have microphones and video cameras pointed at us all the time. As Norman Einstein used to say, “Really smart athletes stay away from problems because they can predict the future with their ESPN.”]]>

You know how it is on a stormy night when you take the ferry across Havana Bay and you smell the fear of the passengers as the waves call you to your death and the drunken ferry captain almost falls overboard three times before the rope to the harbour wall has been cast off.

The captain is drunk again, I said to my brother Ramon.

Not on his salary, Ramon said, He is dizzy with the danger.

Yes that is how it is , I said. But this danger that makes him dizzy does not affect us.

It is not that kind of danger, Ramon said.

And so we stood on the deck in the rain, all 65 of us, as the small ferry made its way across the bay.

After a few minutes, Ramon spoke again: It is the other kind of danger, like when a young chiquita comes down from the hills and sees the city for the first time. And she brings with her the smell of ripe bananas and sweet oranges so that when she walks along the street, the old men look up from their chess board and sigh: Aiy bananas, while the young men straighten their trousers and moan: Aiy Chiquita. That is how it is.

So we stood on the rain-lashed deck and prayed to God to keep a firm grip on the captain’s cojones for as long as it took. Five more minutes passed and Ramon leaned close to me and whispered : La fiesta no es para los feos. It was the signal to do what we must do and I moved through the people to get closer to the captain’s position near the front. Yes it is true I thought: this party is not for the ugly ones, but an ugly one may still start his own party. Did not Fidelissimo show us how?

When I got close to the captain, I saw it in his eyes that he still had the madness upon him. I tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around, I pulled out the armchair from where I had hidden it in my shirt pocket and pointed it at his chest. La fiesta es perdido I said. E mas perdido. I could see from the look that came into his eyes that he had once been a good man. One of the good ones, maybe even one of the best, but tonight he stared at the armchair pointing at him and he knew that death had joined the passengers without paying a single peso. Verdad.

The captain, although he had once been one of the good ones gave a loud belch like an elephant getting up from a mud hole and the cloud of tobacco,tequila and three-bean stew caused the passengers to stumble back towards the stern of the ferry.

Que pasa? said the captain like a man waking in a gutter who feels a hand in his trouser pocket that is not his own hand. I held the armchair against his temple, and if you were not there you can never know the shiver of fear that wracked his wobbling frame. I made my voice the sound of the grave. Ramon, give me the thing, I called and he was at my side like the wind. In his hands he carried the thing that had kept us alive for the last five years. The thing that we had traded our mule, two machetes and a hundred bananas for. The thing we had to have, in the way that an old and rich man looks at a young chica in her Sunday dress and becomes an old fool for the rest of his life. Such was the nature of this thing that we had treasured.

With infinite care, Ramon peeled back the corners of the oil cloth that wrapped it, and when the light of the moon caught the shine of it, even the captain drew a quick breath.

While I held the armchair steady on the captain, Ramon leaned over and placed the thing that we had brought on the shelf in front of the steering wheel.

I stepped back and held the armchair at my side: Mi Capitan, I said in a firm voice while the other passengers crowded round,..You will take us to this thing you see before you. You will not stop until you reach it. And when we are there, we will sit around a table, you and I, and drink the best rum with real cocacola and speak of the past and the future, as men do who have looked at their feet for a long time but now choose to look at the stars.

The captain looked at me for a long time.

I knew you were the one, he said, you have a light that shines above your head, and also… he gave a small smile like a man who will not give his cards away…you have a big armchair… Then he turned to the steering wheel and took it in both his sun-darkened hands and pushed the throttle to maximum power while the rest of us stood carefully and watched the thing on the shelf ahead of him that would guide all of us to a different day. It was small but Madre Mio it shone like an angel to guide our way. One of the passengers said it was named El Statudo de Liberdad…

© Bill Dollar 2005]]>

The recent North America humor movement really began in 1979 when Norman Cousins published Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient. Cousins, after being diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a serious collagen illness, decided that if discomforting emotions could create illness that the converse could be true. Using his own body’s disintegration, Cousins embarked on a heuristic experiment with the hypothesis that pleasing emotions could produce positive body chemical shifts. In a hotel room, across the street from the hospital, Cousins systematically watched reruns of Candid Camera, Marx Brothers films and anything he deemed laughable.

He discovered that 10 minutes of a belly laugh gave him at least two hours of pain free sleep. There is a well known story of a nurse who once asked Cousins if he had passed his urine sample. He responded in the affirmative, then lifted the container and swallowed the liquid saying something like, “It looks a little murky, let me run it through the system again.” The nurse was horrified and then laughed when Cousins’ showed her the apple juice container that supported his practical joke. Cousins cured himself and began lecturing about the healing effects of humor. The movement towards humour in the health system, education and workplace had begun.

There are many health and relationship benefits to the use of humour that are well documented by many studies since Cousins’ discovery. Humor is an effective stress management tool. It increases creativity, boosts morale and confidence. It can decrease conflict which is useful in customer service. It can help workers get through long days and increase their effectiveness with clients. Let’s take a look at some practical information.

First off, hear this clearly; telling a joke is not necessary to establish a reputation as a light hearted person with whom to work. Joke telling takes a certain kind of personality combined with skill. If you are good at it, or are willing to practice and practice creating an effective set up with a great punch after the perfect pause, go for it. Also choose your jokes appropriately. Use puns sparingly. Though people laugh they may send a message that you believe you have superior thinking.

Most people are looking for relaxed and spontaneous responses in conversations. Indeed, Dr. Robert Provine discovered in his research that only about 10 to 20 % of laughter is created by something considered “humorous.” We smile and laugh to give the message “I like you and want connect.” Smile and laugh no matter how you get there. It is good for your health and increases your likeability factor.

Avoid perfection and add more fun to your work. Laugh at mistakes. “Oops, there goes my delete button. Too bad it was this week’s appointments. Now what would I like to commit myself to–the psych ward?” This is called self deprecating humor. If you can’t give up your perfectionist tendencies, at least laugh at them. We all have weaknesses and strengths. If we can identify our weaknesses and laugh about them we become more approachable. This strategy is the opposite of defensiveness. No one wants to deal with others’ defenses. Show me someone who does and I’ll show you a devoted peace maker or a martyr. Jokes have targets. Situations and our own selves are the best targets. Targeting others as in “Polack” jokes is offensive. Self deprecate your weaknesses as in the quip “I am a legend in my own mind.”

Occasional self deprecation not only makes you more approachable to clients and others, it is a wonderful coping mechanism. It actually helps reduce stress. When we cry, we acknowledge the pain we are in. When we laugh, we acknowledge that the pain is over and we have perspective. Self deprecation creates a sense of human vulnerabilities and acknowledges that we are ready to laugh at the absurdity of everyday life. After all, life is full of paradox. One event seems like a disaster one day and may be a God send another. Think of Oprah who was fired for crying on the TV news, and now her sensitivity is news. She is now able to make self-deprecating comments about “Oh gosh, the tears are coming again.”

Here are some more hints about using humor in business discussions:
1.If you have something humorous to say that helps make the point do so but do not use a joke or a one liner to impress. It will not unless it supports your position as in the following. “This proposal will solve three of our main problems but it doesn’t guarantee we will win the lottery.”
2.Humor is like a conversation lubricant. When words feel tense, a little humor can relax the atmosphere. Rather than criticize others, tell a self-deprecating and brief story that “demonstrates” what you learned. “That reminds me of a time I was going to change my colleague. I learned that all I could change was a dime for two nickels.”
3.When selling a product or service, give specific facts about it and keep your humor in the background. Perhaps the benefit could be humorous. Comedy mechanics teach us to use threes. The first two are the truthful details while the last is the surprise. “Our slicer/dicer makes food preparation easier, helps you create gourmet looking meals and keeps you up with the neighbourhood slicer/dicer Jones.”
4.Business creativity can be increased by letting go and brain storming off the wall ideas possible. Fooling around has allowed products such as Post-Its to be invented. They were glue that went wrong.
5.In your daily work, make fun of stressful situations. Use exaggeration, reversal and spontaneity. Exaggeration: “Woe is me and my business. That prospect said No and I’m doomed for bankruptcy.” Reversal: “Lucky me! That prospect said No so I have time to make some cold calls.” Spontaneity: “That prospect said No. Now what creative move can I make?”

Business meetings don’t have to be dull. Consider some of these ideas:
1.Add silly ideas or words to Meeting Agenda.
2.Arrive with fun food—licorice or a cake, for instance.
3.Play perky music as attendees arrive. I love “I Feel Good” by James Brown for such occasions.
4.Meet standing up, especially if you want a brief meeting. No, I didn’t say dressed in your briefs.
5.Have speakers be in the nose. Pass a silly nose to the speaker of the moment.
6.Give a standing ovation to those who come up with great ideas.
7.Make a big deal about ending on time. “We did it!”

There are a zillion ways that we can inject more humor into our work spaces to help sustain the long hours. To save you from frolicking exhaustion I’ll only list a few ideas:
1.Start a humor bulletin board.
2.Start the day by reading the comics. Cut out your favourite ones and tack to your humour bulletin board or mail to an appropriate client. Do you remember the envelope and stamp routine?
3.Play fun and upbeat music. I like the oldie goodies like Rock Around the Clock. Sounds like your work day, eh?
4.Have fun pens and other office tools.
5.Collect objects for your office that bring smiles. I have little statue of our prime minister holding on to a Maple Leaf flag. He sure does “hold on.”
6.Pass on fun email messages. Push “delete” on the heavy, moralizing ones.
7.In the washroom have some fun items to see and read. Uncle John’s Bathroom series are a delight to have handy.
8.Drink your herbal tea or water from a funky mug with a cheery image.
9.Make yourself a workaholic sign “Thank God It’s Monday.”
10.Other signs might say “The little engine that could, did. So can I.”

Enhance your business. Put on a happy face, see the craziness of seeking perfectionism, make yourself the humorous target, find joy in being human and make a million doldrum free moments.]]>

Jarvis Stevens

I was on holiday in Blackpool when I picked up my first advice on finding love. While waiting for my sister to recover after her stomach churning rollercoaster ride, I stuck 20p into a Love-O-Meter outside a sports pub. After my coin clicked down the pegs, the fiberglass female’s face flashed and shook like the washer-dryer under my sink, before requesting I stick my thumb into a gooey gum-filled finger hole. A strip of yellow paper popped from the slot.

“8/10. You’re hot, but not too hot, big boy! But that’s enough for some lucky lady!”

A top twenty percent score surely meant I’d meet a world-class soul-mate. But here I am fifteen years later in London, and after a few serious (and several scary) relationships, I’m still waiting for that mechanical maiden’s prediction to come true. Only two months back, after ending a three-year relationship with my former flat-mate’s sister, I re-joined the nation’s throng of nine million singles. Strangely, it was the ex’s womanizing brother that helped ease me back into the dating scene.

Davis had the mastered the art of pulling women on dating sites and had been working them well before they became socially acceptable (three years ago I wouldn’t dream of hitting the online personals). But after ‘playing the virtual field’, David found his dream girl, dated her for five months and has since booked his white wedding at Farnborough Castle for next year.

Given the amount of talent he could choose from, I wasn’t surprised to hear that he put Lisa through a fairly extensive evaluation process. What I couldn’t believe was that he hooked her up to some sort of voice machine to test her sincerity.

“You gotta screen ‘em before you meet ‘em. If you can’t tell if she likes you, put her through the Passion Meter.”

I was curious to see how love-testing had evolved since my Love-O-Meter experience. The only problem was that I had to hit the online dating scene to find out. When David told me to go to try the Passion Meter at www.datingdonut.com, I was sure I’d find fake photos of fit females and fabulous men concealing some sad lot secretly stuffing themselves with pies, chips and (of course) donuts.

I first decided to do a bit of online research and quickly discovered online personals had become the most popular method for singles to meet in this country. According to the Times, 3.6 million Brits used an online dating site in 2005 and the online dating market in this country is set to grow to around £50 million in two years. Incredibly, already over 65% of single people now used the internet to meet people and half of them believing they will meet a suitable partner on the internet. And (not surprisingly) over 30% lie about their looks or personality in their profile. So how many honey-dipped hotties would secretly be jelly-filled jollies?

On first impressions, www.datingdonut.com looked like all the other dating sites. After clicking past the beefy bloke posing with a bombshell brunette with a perfect smile, I was offered up the standard photo-album quality close-ups, various mug-shots cropped from bikini beach holidays, and a few grainy granular images sent in on flashy 3G phones. I was pleased to find the website did hold a lot of dating profiles in all age categories, and while there were a disproportionate number of 26-35 year-olds, I was particularly amazed with the number of over 55’s who had either dumped their spouses, or were now living out some sort of post-retirement cyber-cheating fantasy.

In the end, I was able to get what I wanted done on the site pretty quickly. The client registration and search was simple to do, the WAP site on my mobile actually showed me several full-photo candidates, and I was able to send off some SMS messages to some prospective dates on the first attempt. But most importantly, I found Jenny, a 28 year-old heath care manager from in Hampshire, who would be my subject for testing the Passion Meter.

I dialed in to the Passion Meter then phoned Jenny’s number. As soon as she picked up, the technology was supposedly analyzing 129 emotional layers in her voice including excitement, confusion, stress, concentration, anticipation, eagerness and passion would be then analyzed to capture Jenny’s feelings. Passion Meter was developed in Israel and was originally designed for the secret security services industry before being approved for commercial use here in the UK. All I had to do was call and ensure I kept Jenny on the line for five to six minutes to ensure the service had enough data to analyze.

Jenny was an absolute gem of a girl. After plowing through the where-you-live, what-you-do, what-you’d-really-like-to-do routine, I found her clever, interesting, chilled out, and (most importantly) keen to have only a casual relationship. In the end, I was so engaged that I’d completely forgot about the Passion Meter.

When my mobile beeped after five minutes, I struggled to come up with a strong reason to hang up on her in 60 seconds without her thinking I’d lost interest. I certainly wanted to speak with her again. I decided to tell her my boss was on the other line needing some contact details (this showed my sense of loyalty, my level of professionalism, the fact I had a job).

Based on her tone and interest level, I thought she was keen enough to meet me, but not desperate enough to use my number which undoubtedly showed upon on her mobile screen. Two minutes later a call came summarizing her confidence, concentration, expectation levels and overall passion rating. Although the final report sounded like it was coming from some anorak systems analyst was moonlighting as a love doctor, the results certainly matched my impressions of Jenny’s interest level.

“Embarrassment level was ‘Normal’. Although your friend was embarrassed from time to time, this is only expected in long calls. Your friend’s concentration level was VERY HIGH during this conversation. Normally, this is a very good indication as it means that your friend is 100% with you during your call… If you can’t think of any reason why your friend will be angry during the call, this indication is very promising…! Anticipation level is HIGH - Your friend was expecting something to happen during this call… if other indications are negative, it might be that your friend was too busy to speak now, but if love level is high, maybe it is time for you POP THE QUESTION??? HIGH EMOTIONS WERE DETECTED THROUGHOUT THE CONVERSATION and this means, most likely, that LOVE IS DETECTED! - Our advice? Proceed with caution! Be polite, and try to make the move!”

I decided I would indeed “make the move” and have since planned a coffee meeting next weekend at my favorite North London gastro pub. But I’m left with one final dilemma; do I reveal that I had put her through a CIA-style clearing procedure before deciding to blow a £1.50 on latte for her? I guess I already have secrets to keep from my dear dating donut….]]>