Café de Nuit

Good job.

I have an online dating profile. Last week, it got only a few visits. This made me sad.

I also frequent forums. One forum talks about dating advice and lets you post your dating site profile for critique.

I posted my profile link for critique and asked them how I could improve my profile.

About half a dozen people visited my profile and then posted their thoughts. A few of them suggested minor changes, but almost all of the responses said something like "Your profile is fun to read and well-written. No need to change it. Good job."

After that, I got an increasing number of visitors to my profile. Almost all were male, and none lived near me. I suspect the thread's positive feedback has resulted in male site users visiting my profile in order to see what I've written and draw inspiration from that.

Well, I guess I've technically solved my initial problem of not enough visitors. Somehow this has not addressed the underlying problem at all!

I am editing an html page for my law firm in notepad.

I lay out all the tags nearly on their own lines with helpful indent spacing to document what's going on.

I save the file. Turns out I saved it as a .txt file.

ALL INDENTS AND PARAGRAPH DATA LOST HAVE A NICE DAY.


I am clearly a moron.

How not to impress your mother

CitiesOfGold, an old flame of mine, had a younger sister, SisterOfGold. Contrary to her name, SisterOfGold was a very earthy person. So earthy, in fact, that she was a bit of an ecological nut, and would routinely scold people for not reusing disposable cups and stuff.

SisterOfGold had a fairly sad event in her teenage years. She grew up in a fairly conservative family, and had not had a boyfriend at the age of 16. By that time, several of her peers in school were already mothers. They gave her a hard time about it, saying there was no way a girl who looked the way she did could possibly still be virgin. This literally left her in tears on more than one occasion.

Some inscrutable cog turned in SisterOfGold's brain, and she evidently decided that if she couldn't shake her reputation, she might as well live up to it. She consummated the prophecy with a passing acquaintance from school in the dubious privacy of a car. However, she had one advantage over her schoolmates: she took the necessary precautions to stay childless.

Or, more specifically, she made sure her friend did.

Her friend evidently did not possess the same ecological concern as she did, because he threw the evidence out the window of the car.

This enraged SisterOfGold, who went out of the car, picked it up, and put it in her purse for safe disposal later.

...

Disastrously, SisterOfGold then forgot all about this.

...

SisterOfGold's family has three daughters and one mother, and all four women routinely rifle through each other's purses in the neverending situational quest for cosmetic products.

...


This story ended poorly.

I don't think I'm an art critic or anything, but I will say that one of the main drawbacks of the genre of midget porn is its inherent lack of depth.

That is all.

HuManBing wrote:I don't think I'm an art critic or anything, but I will say that one of the main drawbacks of the genre of midget porn is its inherent lack of depth.

That is all.

So, last night I found this topic and started reading. I swayed consistently from laughing so hard I was afraid I'd wake the wife to eyes wide with cool chills. I'm still reading at this point. But this is simply awesome!

Weight loss success

Two months ago, my ex told me I look just like I did when we first met.

I met her in our early 20s, when looking good came easily. Ten years passed, and life gave me its usual ups and downs. About two years ago, I realized my face was quite fat. The big moment came when I looked at a photo of me from my early 20s, and I realized I was yearning for my lost youth.

And it's far too early to be yearning for lost youth when you're in your early 30s dammit.

I started eating more healthily, and cooking my own meals more often. I joined a Krav Maga martial arts class. I hate exercise and I never get an endorphin rush (part of me still believes they're just a myth that gym nuts perpetuate as a Jedi mind trick), but I've truly found an activity I love and which I do for its own enjoyment in Krav.

Over the last couple of years, I've "only" lost about 10-15 pounds overall, but I've converted a significant amount of fat into muscle. My face looks as trim and as sleek as it did when I was fresh out of undergrad.

And two months ago, over drinks on a rooftop bar overlooking the city, my ex and I were chatting about life, about love, about careers, and she looked at me and said "You've definitely lost weight. When I look at your face now, I see the same guy I dated ten years ago."

No sex but we totally high fived.

I just had a real life horror check when I watched this video. Put this on my list of things that I will only do if my life is on the line.



This is no amount of money...

Well, there is an amount. But I'm sure someone would do it for cheaper than I would.

A story for the ladies

My gaming group is playing a GURPS game where they're in a West African location. Recently they encountered a matriarchy, where the oppressed men had all thrown down tools and weapons, and gone on strike outside the city. The women still inside the city didn't have things much easier, either - for some unknown reason, the ruling elites were forcing all the adolescent girls to undergo a very specific gender-based surgical procedure that was completely unnecessary. Their rationale was "we don't want girls turning into boys".

The PCs eventually managed to discover why this was happening. A high-ranking noblewoman's daughter had unexpectedly begun developing masculine traits at adolescence. The tribe was unfamiliar with the concept of intersex individuals or genetic conditions, so they believed some evil spirits had gotten into the girl and was converting her into a boy. The surgical procedure was their crude way of ensuring all the girls grew up into women.

The PCs managed to accomplish a number of quests in the city. They found the city's Heir and confirmed that s/he was intersex. They convinced him/her to return to the city. They helped defuse a male rebellion against the matriarchs. And they mended fences and made everybody peaceable again.

One thing they couldn't solve, however, was the female mutilations. The female members of the players (who make up 60% of my gaming group) told me they were eager to return to the matriarchy and complete their unfinished business. They wanted to put an end, peacefully, to the unnecessary surgical procedures and deliver a generation of girls from oppression and maiming.

Last week I had unusual insomnia, and I spent most of my sleepless hours on the Internet, writing and creating stuff. I decided I would revisit the matriarchy and see if I could write in an adventure arc that would allow my players to put an end to the female mutilations in the city. After four days of brainstorming and thinking, I came up with a quest that would allow them to do this. Even better yet, it was a strictly non-combat quest, involving NPC interviews, mystery solving, and logical deductions. It would essentially fall to the PCs to interview relatives of the Queen, and eventually to deduce that she had inadvertently taken her own first cousin as a concubine, roundabout the time her Heir was conceived. Moreover, her cousin was descended from ancestors who had also inbred, and who were also the ancestors of the Queen. Once the PCs can prove that this accidental inbreeding was responsible for the Heir's gender anomalies (and not some "evil spirits of the air" or similar superstition), they can put an end to the surgical procedures and finally deliver the matriarchy's young women from an unnecessary and oppressive ordeal.



I was very excited by this breakthrough and I told my brother about it.

He sounded skeptical.

"I hope this isn't a LARP or something," he said dubiously.

...

HuManBing wrote:I don't think I'm an art critic or anything, but I will say that one of the main drawbacks of the genre of midget porn is its inherent lack of depth.

That is all.

I dunno, Luis DeJesus had a certain something to him.

*claps* Well played, sir, well played...

I often get prospective clients fresh from mainland China. They often do not understand Western legal systems.

All these conversations took place in Chinese so the translation is more following the spirit than the literal words.

Conversation 1 wrote:HMB: What is your case concerning?
Female client: I'd like to sue a guy.
HMB: What has he done to you?
Female client: He got me pregnant.
HMB: Okay, when did all this happen and how old is the child now?
Female client: OMGwefirstslepttogetheronthisdayofthismonthandthenagainwhenhiswifewasoutoftown. ThenonthatdayofthatmonthIfoundoutIwaspregnantandhecutoffallcommunicationsandwouldn'teventext. Icalledandcalledandtextedandtextedbuthewouldn'tanswerandhewouldn'tevenpayforthedamnabortionwhatkindofaguyisthatIaskyou?
HMB: Wait, back up a second. So there is no baby?
Female client: Of course not. It was aborted.
HMB: ...
Female client: ...
HMB: I hate to say this, but your chances of getting money from the guy would be much greater if there was a baby still around.
Female client: What? American laws are ridiculous! I mean, I lost something due to him and I get nothing?
HMB: You can't claim child support if there is no child still alive to support.
Female client: Well, next time round I'll do things differently.
HMB: Yes, quite.

Conversation 2 wrote:HMB: What is your case concerning?
Female client: I'd like to sue a guy.
HMB: What's he done to you?
Female client: He promised me he'd marry me and divorce his wife...-
HMB: Uh, I think you mean "divorce his wife and then marry you".
Female client: Oh, okay. Yes, anyway he has not kept his promise.
HMB: So... what? Is his wife making threats against you?
Female client: No.
HMB: Are they getting divorced and she's trying to pin legal liability on you?
Female client: No, nothing like that. I just want him to pay me for my troubles.
HMB: And you think he owes you money for this, how?
Female client: He promised to marry me! And I gave him my company and virginity! That's worth something isn't it?
HMB: Not for the last 100 years of American jurisprudence it's not. I'm sorry.
Female client: Wait so in America you get nothing in exchange for your virginity?
HMB [pondering this]: ...a little bit of wisdom perhaps...?
Female client: *hangs up*

HuManBing wrote:I often get prospective clients fresh from mainland China. They often do not understand Western legal systems.

All these conversations took place in Chinese so the translation is more following the spirit than the literal words.

Conversation 1 wrote:HMB: What is your case concerning?
Female client: I'd like to sue a guy.
HMB: What has he done to you?
Female client: He got me pregnant.
HMB: Okay, when did all this happen and how old is the child now?
Female client: OMGwefirstslepttogetheronthisdayofthismonthandthenagainwhenhiswifewasoutoftown. ThenonthatdayofthatmonthIfoundoutIwaspregnantandhecutoffallcommunicationsandwouldn'teventext. Icalledandcalledandtextedandtextedbuthewouldn'tanswerandhewouldn'tevenpayforthedamnabortionwhatkindofaguyisthatIaskyou?
HMB: Wait, back up a second. So there is no baby?
Female client: Of course not. It was aborted.
HMB: ...
Female client: ...
HMB: I hate to say this, but your chances of getting money from the guy would be much greater if there was a baby still around.
Female client: What? American laws are ridiculous! I mean, I lost something due to him and I get nothing?
HMB: You can't claim child support if there is no child still alive to support.
Female client: Well, next time round I'll do things differently.
HMB: Yes, quite.

Conversation 2 wrote:HMB: What is your case concerning?
Female client: I'd like to sue a guy.
HMB: What's he done to you?
Female client: He promised me he'd marry me and divorce his wife...-
HMB: Uh, I think you mean "divorce his wife and then marry you".
Female client: Oh, okay. Yes, anyway he has not kept his promise.
HMB: So... what? Is his wife making threats against you?
Female client: No.
HMB: Are they getting divorced and she's trying to pin legal liability on you?
Female client: No, nothing like that. I just want him to pay me for my troubles.
HMB: And you think he owes you money for this, how?
Female client: He promised to marry me! And I gave him my company and virginity! That's worth something isn't it?
HMB: Not for the last 100 years of American jurisprudence it's not. I'm sorry.
Female client: Wait so in America you get nothing in exchange for your virginity?
HMB [pondering this]: ...a little bit of wisdom perhaps...?
Female client: *hangs up*

East vs. West?