At least once a month I get a million dollar idea. Ok, if they were really million dollar ideas I would be a millionaire by now -- but a good idea. I don't know why I haven't implemented this one before, but I think it's time has come.

I have read countless m4w posts on craigslist, and let me tell you, the men of San Francisco could use a makeover if they want to reach the women of San Francisco. Seriously! And who better to do it than moi?

At the very least I could take a decent picture of them. Holding a camera in front of your face might be cute when you're out having a crazy night on the town. But when you're home alone writing a personal ad in the wee hours of the morning, it just makes you look awkward at best / desperate at worst. And photos with the ex-girlfriend cut out are NOT a good idea.

Even if you don't include a photo with the initial post you're gonna need one to trade if you get a response. And with (e:Twisted)'s warranted GetADate!® methodology, you are (almost) guaranteed a response!

As for the rest of the ad, I don't even know where to start. Which is why these guys need me so much. I honestly don't think some guys realize how they come across in these ads. There can't be THAT many obnoxiously pompous or socially clueless guys out there, right? Don't answer that. Now I'm not going to portray some arrogant a-hole as a supportive, emotionally-available sweetheart. That might be good for business, but not fair to the female population. But if I can find some redeeming quality and at least soften the arrogance with a little self-deprecating humor, some desperate chick out there might take him. If the picture is good enough.

And some of these guys are already very close to being contenders. A little tweak here and there could make a big difference. Naturally I'll have to monitor their response rate and help with any high priority exchanges. Which will give me a chance to see what works and adapt accordingly. Did I mention how brilliant this idea is?

I'll have to start slowly so I can refine the GetADate!® (patent-pending -- you saw it here first!) methodology before rolling it out on a larger scale. Some of these guys are so desperate they'd probably pay $xx just to get a practice run in with me. (I'm talking email exchange people! I'm not signing on as a sex surrogate, although I hear that can be lucrative too.) I think it's better if someone as compassionate as I am shoots these fish in a barrel before a more cutthroat opportunist comes along.

And if one of these guys turns out to be a diamond in the rough, I get first crack at him. How perfect IS this business plan?

Plus, I can finally live my fantasy of whipping some sense of reality into the rest of them. I'm going to card every 40-year-old who claims to be 35 and says he "looks much younger" than that to delude himself into actually feeling justified in only dating 25-32 year-olds. Get over it buddy! Everybody in the Bay Area "looks much younger." It's the freakin' fountain of youth out here. If you can't deal with a girlfriend who is your exact age, that simply means you're in denial about your age. It's only a number. Get used to it.

And I'm sure I'll get to hear plenty of horror stories about what it's like on the "other side" of m4w, which may very well have contributed to why some of these ads are so defensive. I can understand why that might happen, but if you don't want to attract the b!tches of CL, don't write for that audience. You've got to write as if you believe she's out there. Oh, I am going to be so good at this!

Figures I finally get around to it just when I'm about to start that full-time contract in San Leandro. That is going to be a shock to my system. It's been a long time since I had to get dressed to go to work. Don't anybody steal my idea while I'm gone.

I seriously scored the best parking space EVER tonight, right in front of the tour bus.



I REALLY have to get a better cell phone camera. And I wish they would keep those trees trimmed so you could read the marquee! Snow Patrol at GAMH. It was a really good show.

I found a handyguy to fix my bathroom heater/fan. I probably could have fixed it myself, but I'm skittish about anything involving electricity, so I kept putting it off. My temporary twist-tie fix was holding up pretty well - that is to say, keeping it from falling on my head. But showering with no heat was getting old, what with the Victorian idea of central heat being a coal-burning fireplace.

He arrived via motorcycle with all his tools packed in this carry-on size suitcase. That is handy.



He's cute too. And not just his butt.



Good thing I have a ladder. I don't think he could have fit that on his motorcycle.

(e:Paul,4243)'s post about looking for a rocking chair reminded me. I've clocked a few hours at Charlotte Douglas International Airport between flights, and was very, very happy to watch the world go by from one of the rocking chairs scattered along the main concourse. What a brilliant marketing strategy. Nothing like being jam-packed on an airplane to make you really appreciate a good seat. If I could have bought one to sit on during the next leg I would have.

Speaking of brilliant marketing strategies, I was taken in by one recently. I desperately needed a haircut before the Bark & Whine Ball, but with my car out of commission, making the trek to my regular guy in Alameda was out of the question. It seriously had been like 3 months, so I couldn't even coax it into some semblance of style for one night. So I went onto yelp.com looking for: cheap, close by, likely to take me at the last minute, and recommended. Not finding a definitive winner, I popped over to citysearch to see what they had to say. Finally settled on a place around the corner from my gym. $10 off your first cut, and they could take me that afternoon with just enough time to walk back home to have lunch with my friend Leslie who was in town from Connecticut, then off to the Ball. So...

The cut was ok, no horror stories. I was happy when they gave me an appointment with Joey, since most of the reviews were about her. Also overheard another new customer appointment being made for her when I got there, and she had a backlog of new customer questionnaires already on her table when I gave her mine. Now I'm getting suspicious. Who has time for all these new customers unless you suck so bad no one comes back? I figure maybe she's new, and sure enough, she just started there last September. So my suspicions are somewhat allayed until she finishes my cut. There was one thing she did that I absolutely hate. I thought about asking her to change it, but the clock is ticking and I've got to beat Leslie to my house. Besides, I like to give people some creative license, so I figured I'd live with it a few days and see if it grew on me. Long story short, I doctored it up myself about a week later.

But that's neither here nor there. Here's the crux of my story.

She rang me up with the $10 off, THEN came the innocent exchange that solved the mystery. "How did you hear about us?" I tell her SFCitysearch. She says, "oh, we get a lot of new customers through them. In fact, if you write a review about us, print it out and bring it with you the next time for another $10 off." Ah HA!!!

I wish I'd known that beforehand. That would explain why there are 96 reviews for them on SFCitysearch and only 7 on yelp.com, and why they're more likely to be positive. Duh! That should have been my first clue. If you want to get another cheap haircut, you don't want to piss off your stylist with a bad review. And if you don't want to go back anyway, you're not as motivated to write a review. Brilliant.

Live and learn.

There are certain unmistakable signs of Spring, and I couldn't help noticing one while window shopping along the block of my local laundromat today during the 28 minute wash cycle. It was almost immediately substantiated during a brief glance at the craigslist m4w postings. (Hey! I had another 32 minutes to kill during the dry cycle! What else am I supposed to do?) As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I am of course talking about the San Francisco Fetish Ball tonight. I can't believe it's that time of year again! Several shops had the poster in the window, and I'm not just talking about Dark Corset although they did seem to be doing a brisk business today.

And no, I'm not going. I don't really have any fetishes per se. At least not that I know of. Not by San Francisco standards. And if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell you. Oh who am I kidding, you know I tell you everything. ;-)

p.s. - Happy Birthday again Matt!

Hey (e:Leetee,145), you know I would travel to the far ends of the earth to see the Buzzcocks! I have not yet heard of any confirmed US tour dates, but they are sure to play the Bay Area so maybe you could come here! And of course (e:Uncutsaniflush) is welcome too. ;-)

In anticipation of that happy day I changed my usersound to my personal favorite Buzzcocks classic. (Which is not the one in my title - although that is another goodie, and seemed appropriate for this post.) Enjoy.

Larry & I were just talking about the Buzzcocks last night after dropping off his 2 boxes of CDs/DVDs at Amoeba. (He got $461 for them! And could have taken $615 in credit.) Larry's been scanning the 100s of photos he's taken at concerts over the years. He sent some early Pete Shelley shots to the Buzzcocks' secretpublic.com fansite - they said they're going to post them later this week. I'll send you a link or post a preview here later. I'm jealous of some of the shows he's been to, but it's cool to hear about them second-hand.

Speaking of only getting to experience something second-hand -- let me take this opportunity to wish a Happy St. Matty's Day to all who celebrate it! (And who the hell doesn't, after all?) I wish I could join the revelers in person tonight and wish (e:Matthew) a happy 25th anniversary of the occasion of his birth, which we all thank our lucky stars for! You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be celebrating it here, though. Happy Birthday (e:Matthew)! Have fun!

I finally made it to the Rainbow Grocery co-op. It's about time, since they've been around for 30 years.

It's actually really fun to shop there, although it's like negotiating a minefield. Some stuff is very reasonably priced, and other stuff is like, holy sh!t! Nothing quite as extravagant as the truffles at Wegman's, but for some reason the "sea jerky" in the pet aisle caught my eye. Holy mackerel! Sure, with all those omega-3's I'd have the shiniest coat and the fishiest breath at the dog park. But $23 bucks! For a dog treat? I don't even spend that on treats for myself.

You can also pick up a nice assortment of hair colors. Some of these are pretty tempting.



And there's tons of gluten/wheat-free items. The soy sauce aisle alone was mind-boggling. Matthew, if there's anything you're having a hard time finding there, let me know I'll see if they have it here. Everyone out here has sworn off one food group or another, it seems. Apparently Californians have very sensitive constitutions. We should be called the "canary in a coal mine state" considering how many substances have been found to "cause cancer in the state of California" long before the rest of you catch on.

In other news, Larry is continuing to purge his apartment. I should be doing that too, although I'd have to get all my crap out of storage first. The last two weekends I drove him to Green Apple Books to unload four boxes of paperbacks ($240) and three boxes of hardbacks ($150). I'm really excited about tomorrow's mission though. Hard-Fi is playing a free show at Amoeba, so Larry's going to unload the first round of vinyl, CDs and DVDs. I get first crack, naturally. This is not helping my cause.

New usersound: Cash Machine by Hard-Fi

p.s. - Rainbow gave me 10cents off for bringing my own bag. Safeway never does that!

p.p.s. - I stand (partially) corrected. Safeway does give a 3cent credit per bag! I never noticed before.

Being at the gym is fine. It's coming and going that's dangerous.

You already know about the cashew [inlink]twisted,312[/inlink] den of iniquity next door to my gym. I decided to see just how many pounds of cashews I was going through in one week, then quickly called my own bluff. Some truths I can handle, but that's not one of them. So I decided to see if two 8.5oz cans (that's only $4.00 worth of cashews!) would last me a week. That seemed reasonable. It was hard, but I stretched them out. It'll just be easier if I don't have cashews in the house at all, no matter how much of a bargain they might be.

So I bought some soy flaxseed tortilla chips from Trader Joe's to satisfy the occasional crunchy / salty craving. For something so damn healthy- sounding, those things are pretty tasty. But not as addictive as cashews, so I guess they'll fill the bill.

Then on my way to the gym today I noticed a sign at Burgermeister's that Monday is half-price on wings! That's 12 wings for $3.46! 24 wings for $6.24! Hey, there's no law that says I have to eat all 24 wings at one sitting, but a bargain is a bargain.

It's funny because when I joined this freakin' gym they did the whole evaluation thing, and I told them my "goal" was to take yoga and pilates to counteract all the time I spend hunched over a computer. Weight loss? Not necessarily. Weight redistribution would be nice. Eat healthier - lose 6-8 pounds would be great. But mostly, firm/limber up, etc.

Well, they poked and pinched and weighed and came up with their master plan for the perfect me. Ok, I'll play along, god knows I could use improving. According to their printout, I weigh 118 lbs now, and my "goal" should be 116 lbs. So I ask if that's in 2 weeks? 1 week? what's the ultimate goal here? They say, oh no, 116 is the ultimate goal. WTF! 2 pounds! That's not a weight loss goal, that's a diuretic pill! Ok, whatever. It's ridiculous. I don't care how much more muscle weighs than fat, I definitely need to lose more than 2 pounds to be the ideal me. Whatever the hell that means.

It'll be ironic if I actually gain weight now that I'm exposed to all these tasty enticements on my way to the gym. I was probably better off stuck in from the computer with next to nothing in the 'fridge. I would gladly relinquish all authority for food aquisition to someone else. (Notice how I make it sound like a perk? Now if I could just find someont to fall for that, I also have a fence that needs whitewashing, haha.)

BTW, I love my Tues/Wed yoga instructor, Jehfree. Forget for a moment the oh-so-California spelling of his name and the fact that he's gayer than the Castro on Pride week. I unconditionally, unequivocally, love him. (Those short-shorts he was wearing my first class when I sat right in front of him certainly didn't hurt.) I love him without reservation, and I know he loves me too. Why else would he hold out hope week after week that I might actually contort myself into a one-legged pigeon balancing pose? That is so not going to happen. But he doesn't give up, so I keep trying. Oh yes, we're in it for the long haul.

Did you ever get hung up on a little thing and then it becomes a big thing? I do that every once in a while. You'd think I'd see it coming by now, but apparently not.

The latest instance is really stupid so I'll be brief. I had to fill out an application for Pacific Gas & Electric and they want you to fax it back to them. I don't have a fax machine any more, plus I have some questions about the application and I want to pick up some info about solar power incentives. So I figured I'd just drop the damn thing off at whichever of the two huge PG&E buildings is the right one downtown and actually talk to someone about the other stuff while I'm there. Ha!

It's taken me three days, four PG&E offices that "don't handle" my type of application - each one incorrectly directing me to the next address - to finally give up. The icing on the cake was the last office where visitors needed a security escort just to enter the building. The sign on the door helpfully gave the extension to call security, so having come that far, I plugged the four digits into the house phone mounted outside the main entrance. No answer. Eventually, a voice attendant asked me to enter the extension of the party I was trying to reach. Well, I'd already done that, but I tried entering it again. And when that didn't work, started over and didn't enter anything new. Same result. The infuriatingly pleasant voice attendant came back with, "we're sorry you're having trouble. Please try again later." Yeah right! Next time I'm looking for an excuse to go postal, I'll do that!

So I faxed the damn thing after all. It would be easier (and faster) to deliver a first-born and give it to them. But I don't have time for that either.

Even if you are one of the peeps who may have been mildly interested in my Arctic Monkey stories to begin with, you're probably sick of them by now. But here's one more. I'll throw in a real-life example of the law of supply and demand to spice things up.

Even after three hours of milking my way through Kathy's birthday afternoon [inlink]twisted,333[/inlink] drinking binge, I managed to stay conscious for Arctic Monkeys AND made damn sure we all got there in time for the Spinto Band. Knowing this was going to be a sold-out show, Larry bought four tickets. The lucky winner of the extra pair was Larry's friend Dave and his wife Pascal. Well, turns out Pascal had a really bad experience at the Franz Ferdinand show last October, so they decided she better not take a chance on another sold-out show. WTF! I was at that show, and it must have been a really, really bad experience to cause that much of a negating effect! Anyways, the back-up lucky recipient turned out to be Dale, who works for a recruiting firm (if anyone ever needs to find a job out here) and was also writing a review of the show for some local music 'zine. So he was writing down every damn thing we said about the show/bands. Naturally I talked up the Spinto Band, since I had already seen them the day before at Amoeba and again that night at Cafe du Nord. (Does that make me a groupie?)

The show was great, so I won't even go into that. They ended with "A Certain Romance" (currently my usersound if you want to hear it) and NO encore. That's the second show we've seen recently with no encore. I hope this is not a trend. Speaking of encores, I'm really glad I got to see the Spinto Band headline their own show. They do an awesome cover of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" which they squeezed into the Amoeba set and again at Cafe du Nord, PLUS a cover of The Motors' "Airport" for the encore at Cafe du Nord. And you know how I love my 80s tunes. Anyways ... back to last night's show.

We started chatting with these two British guys (Larry's a real anglophile, so he can pinpoint exactly where they're from and which bands originated from nearby and all that sh!t). When the guys went to recycle their beers, one of the British guys confided to me they had paid $260 on eBay to buy their two tickets for the show. Whoa! When Dale got back, I figured he'd be interested in that little tidbit of information for his story. I mentioned it to him and out came the notepad.

I thought I'd better check the facts myself. Looks like with shipping that was the going rate:



I think the lesson here is clear: Scalping can be damn lucrative! No wait, that's not it. I mean: Buy your tickets in advance!



My $13 ticket even included a complimentary Spinto Band kazoo. Who doesn't love a band that plays the kazoo? Maybe if I start practicing now there's still time for me to become a rock star. ;-)