Among online daters, there is a rising sense that it's not so easy to download love.

The idea that Internet dating is passé is nothing new but what did catch my interest in this article was this paragraph:

Lately, she has turned to a service based in nearby Royal Oak, Mich., called Table for Eight, which organizes intimate dinners of four women and four men, about 70 percent of whom have had their flings with online services, said Regina Stocco, the company's president.

So what interests me about the above service is not the dating aspect, but just the idea of meeting new people. I eat out almost every day, and as a group we probably eat out together three times a week. If only once a week we got mixed up with another group of randoms, I could imagine that it could be quite fun.

Though the idea of eating dinner with a bunch of random people is nothing new to us. For instance when we travel we do it all the time. We wouldn't think twice about inviting ourselves to sit down with another group of travellers at a travellers restaurant. But oddly, once we all return home the regular rules of social engagement apply and we stick to our tightly knit groups getting increasingly frustrated with each other, not because we really are, just because we spend too much time together.

Said with much false enthusiasm, Seattle's strictly platonic here we come!
11:19:50 PM   []

• Read this Saturday's Globe and Mail
• Read last Saturday's Globe and Mail
• Craved sushi, made mental note to go out for a sushi dinner
• Read today's New York Times
• Played with DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter, and AutoGK.
• Tried to understand the difference between AC3 and DTS
• Watched American Beauty without really meaning to
• Watched Maria Full of Grace
• Though about, but did not actually blog about:
  • The two days of training I had last week
  • Blogging advice for my manager
  • Boing boing post about HBO expiring content
• Contemplated coming up with a gym plan since I can no longer claim that I am slim.

My manager hates these kind of weblog posts; the ones without any critical analysis or insight. She simply cannot fathom both why anyone would want to post the mundane details of their lives online and why anyone would want to read them. Good fathomings, but the world is filled with exhibitionists and voyeurs and the Internet brings us together.
2:47:51 PM   []