Flash Gordon Haiku

I was listening to Jim Rome this morning, and he was discussing the conviction and sentencing of former MLB player Ugueth Urbina for apparently capturing a group of men on his property, dousing them with gas and threatening to kill them with a machete. A friend of mine, that I used to partner up with for fantasy baseball, also e-mailed me to note that I might not want to draft UUU this year (maybe drafting him isn't such a bad idea though - would, say, Rick Vaughn's stats from the California penal league have counted in fantasy?). I digress, however, as I am wont to do. One of Rome's listeners e-mailed a haiku regarding the UUU situation. As I remember it, it went as follows:

Hey, who are those guys?
Get the machete and gas.
Don't swim here again.

This reminded me of a haiku phase I went through. I posted a few haikus to a movie web site (it was www.countingdown.com, not sure if it still exists) when Star Wars Episode I was coming out. I think I submitted something like the following:

Phantom Menace? Bah!
The real countdown is to when
Portman turns 18.

I don't think it won any awards. This further reminds me, however, of a Flash Gordon (the excellent film starring Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless) haiku contest I had with my friends over e-mail. Granted, this was not as exciting as the game of hearts we played over e-mail, but pretty riveting stuff nonetheless. I submitted the following haiku, which I think should have won (Weaver was the winner, though I don't remember what he wrote at all):

Voice: "Halt, lizardman!
Escape is Impossible."
Look! A fried lizard.

In completely unrelated news, I posted an online dating profile. At this point, it is only words, maybe more of a thought experiment than anything else, but I took some time and tried to write something thoughtful and clever. Perhaps I will post it here. But I don't intend to contact anyone, as that would require (i) subscribing, and (ii) effort, but I am curious to see how many hits I receive. I doubt I will follow through and post a picture, though I understand this would considerably increase my odds of receiving responses. For purposes of this experiment, a "wink" (which I guess is an invitation to send an e-mail to that person) or an e-mail are being considered responses.

What are the results? After 24 hours, my profile has three winks and two e-mails. However, my profile indicates that it has been viewed only one time, so there might be something fishy going on here. I can't read the e-mails without subscribing, but the winks all appear to be from real people. Ages 26, 35 and 37. Looks like one of them is a single mom from San Diego (odd, I recall my profile as saying I would not date someone with kids). The others are from San Diego and L.A. Based on what I see, I don't think I would go out with any of them. I guess I am a little spoiled - I haven't gone on a lot of dates recently, but the dates I've been on were with very attractive girls. I don't think I would put any of the three winkers in that category - I'd say they are probably average looking.

There are probably a lot of reasons I got the responses I did. First, without my picture also posted, there is no baseline upon which to judge whether we match up, attractiveness-wise. Second, the girls I would want to go out with will generally be getting plenty of offers and probably won't be on a dating site (hard to explain away Y-man's wife this way though - maybe she was just really busy and didn't have time to meet someone in the traditional ways. Not that I would want to go out with Y-man's wife. Or that I would admit as much, in any regard). Third, who's really going to take the time to read a profile without a picture? Wouldn't you assume a person that isn't posting a picture is hiding something? So, I guess the fact that I have from 3-5 responses is a testament to my writing skill if nothing else. I'm not sure why I won't post a picture. I guess I am embarassed in general that someone I know will see it on the site (and in particular that an ex would see it). I probably also don't want to admit that I would need to do online dating - I still believe that, if I feel like it, I can pretty much go out and meet someone suitable to go on a date with any time I want. The problem is, I "feel like it" less and less often when I go out. Perhaps it is time to change that.