I recently read something for one of my graduate psychology course that covered this interesting phenomenon called the “matching effect”. 

What it basically means is that we tend to look for long term partners similar in looks to ourselves because that reduces the chance of rejection and dissatisfaction.  If we aim for someone too high we have a higher chance of rejection whereas if we aim for someone too low we have a higher chance of feeling we could do better.

As you might have guessed, I began relating this back to myself and as much as I don’t want to admit it I feel I have indeed fallen for this effect all my life.  Consciously or not, I have ended up dating people that were similar in physical attractiveness as me and when I attempted to see people that aren’t I have felt doubts of the potential future with that person.  Right now, I can think of at least one specific example where I ended up breaking someone’s heart due to this matching effect.  Yeah, not something I’m very proud of.

Fortunately, personality is still key and my readings even stated a good, strong personality can override this matching effect to an extent.  That, however, made me ponder some more questions that I’m wondering some of you could answer.

First, rate yourself based on your physical attractiveness on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most attractive.  You don’t have to tell me your rating.  Of course all of this is very subjective and in the eyes of the beholder, so rate yourself whatever makes sense to you. 

Now here’s the part I’m interested in.  Based on how you rate yourself, do you feel that plays a significant factor in who you would go after for a long term partner?  To put in a different way, can you seriously see yourself going after someone that’s a few rating points above or below yours, or would you generally stick with chasing after someone around your perceived physical attractiveness rating?  Could a great personality sway your decision to go after someone say 5 rating points above/below yours?  Be honest.

Alright I’ll end my psychology mode for now, but I’m genuinely curious on how people answer those questions.  Let me know below!

*I mean that in the most caring way possible.

Let me share with you all a funny/sad story about my little brother.  A few years ago he was still in middle school and I was in my senior year of college.  I had been away from home for almost two years at this point due to college and as a result I had not been keeping track of how he was doing in school.  My mom, on the other hand, did take notice of what was going on and called me up one day to explain the situation.  She told me that my brother was getting Ds (!!!) on his report card, which as you know is one of the deadliest sins in a typical Asian family.  Anyway, she made it clear that I needed to intervene ASAP or else she was going to hurt him real bad (again, in the most caring way possible).

I came home and began talking to my brother about what he was doing in school.  I wanted to get a gauge of what I had to work with, so when he told me he was studying social studies, specifically about the United States, I began asking him some simple questions related to that subject.  Well, questions I thought were simple enough.  This was basically our conversation.  Let me note, he was responding to my questions seriously.

Me:  Who was George Washington?
Him: *Thinks* Isn’t he on the penny?  No wait, didn’t he chop wood?  Oh, he discovered America!
Me:  …He was the 1st president of the United States.
Him:  Oh, right.

Me:  Okay, here’s another one.  I know you went over this in class already.  What is the capital of the United States?
Him:  *Thinks* Is it…America?
Me: …No.  This is getting really embarrassing.  Go look it up online and come back with the answer.

(A couple minutes later)

Him:  I got it!  It’s Baltimore, D.C.!
Me: *Fighting off the urge to slap him* It’s Washington, D.C.  WASHINGTON.  Please, PLEASE answer this next question correctly!  How many states are in the United States?
Him:  There are…50.
Me:  Actually, yes!  Good job!

I was starting to gain back my faith in him, so I asked him this one last question.  I probably shouldn’t have pushed my luck.

Me:  Here’s an easy one.  Can you name me just ONE state?
Him:  *Thinks* …. ….. ….er, India?
Me:  -_-
Him:  Canada?
Me:  -___-
Him:  No, Mexico is one, right?
Me:  -______-
Him: Um…America?
Me: *Falls on ground, anime face fault style*

Alright, you get the point.  I most certainly had some work to do.

In case you’re wondering, he’s much better now.  I spent the next year or so intensively working with him on his academics, making sure he spent ample time studying and making sure he was visiting the library often.  I am happy to say he is currently getting As and Bs, mostly As, on his classwork.  Most importantly, I think he now believes he’s an intelligent boy, something I don’t think he saw himself as before. 

He sure has come a long way since that dumbfounded conversation!

Somebody was asking me when I would go about making an entry about this, so here you go.  These are most, although not necessarily all, of the traits I find myself attracted to in a girl.  Don’t worry, I don’t expect people to be perfect and have all these traits.  It’s just an ideal.

If you don’t really care (which is probably a lot of you) just go ahead and skip the video.  If you’re curious though, click below:

I wasn’t kidding about that last part

Hmm, I wonder if I should continue doing vlogs like this in the near future.  We’ll see!

Sometimes, I look back at myself as a kiddo and really wonder how I ended up rationalize things the way I did.  I think overall I was a decent boy, but wow did I make some poorly thought out choices!  The following lessons I learned seem like common sense in retrospect, but I guess my dumb younger self had to understand them hands (and feet) on.

Obvious Lesson #1:  Don’t throw rocks at people’s faces if you want them to play with you.

That’s about the real life size of that fateful rock.

In first grade, I met up with two neighborhood friends to play.  However, when I met up with them they decided they wanted to play tag and I was automatically it.  I told them I didn’t want to play, but they weren’t listening and kept on avoiding me.  After a while I decided to sit down and pout, tossing rocks into a pond out of frustration and anger.

They both eventually came back to see what was wrong.  All I wanted was for them to stop avoiding me, so what did I do?

I chuck rocks at them, that’s what.  How I figured that would help the situation I’m not sure, but unfortunately for me one of the rocks hit one of them in the eye.  He proceeded to run home to tell his mom, staining the sidewalk with his eye oozes (ewww) as he went.  I totally ended up doing what any responsible boy would have done after this; I ran back home, into my room, locked the doors, and ignored every phone call and knocking that whole day.  Out of sight, out of mind!  That strategy worked until a couple of days later when his mom decided to sue my parents, but that’s a whole other story.  It did get resolved in the end, although I’m not quite sure of the details.

Needless to say, my relationship with that friend and his mom were strained for years to come.  That relationship certainly didn’t get better after the next thing I did…

Obvious Lesson #2:  Commanding your dog to grind up on someone is not going to make you new friends.

I taught my dog some wonderful tricks!

A year or so after that incident, I got this German Shepherd that was quite awesome.  I taught him many different commands such as sitting, laying down, and humping.  Wait, what?

Yes, I apparently taught my dog how to hump on command.  Fascinating what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it!

Eager to display this new trick, I decided to show it to a random neighborhood kid.  By “show”, I mean ambush him as he walked over to my other friend’s house one day.  By the way, that kid happened to be the same kid as the one I threw a rock at.  Whoops.  Anyway, he did not find being grinded on by a dog as big as he was amusing and stopped talking to me after this incident.  I really don’t blame him.

I also don’t blame my grandmother for always bringing up to this day this last incident I’m going to describe below.

Obvious Lesson #3:  Don’t EVER kick your grandma!

I thought it was cool, but she sure didn’t…

I took Taekwondo from age 7-10.  I eventually learned this move called a jumping side kick.  It became one of my favorite moves to do and I was eager to show my family this when I got home after being taught it.

That I did…by performing it on my grandma.  While her back was turned.  Um, surprise!

Fortunately she wasn’t seriously hurt, although she said she couldn’t move for a while after I kicked her.  After the guilt and MASSIVE punishment I received from my parents I never tried anything like that again. 

I’m sure reading about my experiences has totally enlightened all of you.  You may thank my dumb young self later, but for now learn from his poor decisions.  Throwing rocks, siccing humping dogs, and doing flying kicks on unsuspecting people are all frown upon and should not be encouraged!

Knowledge is power!

She wants one of these…

…and for some reason, I’m actually entertaining the idea of getting this for her.  However, these things don’t come cheap!

She really wants one though and mentioned that her birthday was coming up in November, which would be a good time to give her this.  While she’s definitely a cool girl and deserves to have a Flip cam, even she understands that is quite a lot to ask for from a friend she technically only met in person recently.  As we kept on talking about it, we started working out a deal that could lead to the both of us getting something out of this (as you can see below).
 

With Oxygene08 as the witness, we made a deal.  No matter what, I’m gonna get her something for her birthday, but if she wants that something to be a Flip cam she has to in turn do something special for me.  She has until the week before her birthday (which gives her about a month and a half) to come up and do whatever she thinks would warrant a Flip cam gift from me.  If I’m satisfied, she gets what she wants.  If not, I’ll get her a t-shirt or something more of that caliber for her birthday instead.

This is where I could use some ideas.  She suggested things such as making me a vest, wearing a picture of me for a week, or dedicating a post to me, but I’m not sure if that’s the best she can do.  If you were in my position, what would be something she can do that would be good enough to justify me getting her a Flip cam?  If you were in her position instead, what would you be willing to do for a Flip cam from me?  FYI, we live on opposite coasts, so keep that in mind.  I await your suggestions!

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(To be honest, I’ll probably end up getting it for her anyway, but I feel like there’s potential for some lulz here that I want to capitalize on.  Muhahaha!)

*Note: Don’t scroll down if you don’t want to see me do something foolish (yeah yeah, what else is new?)*

The other night I was reading the news online when I came upon this interesting looking article.  The article was titled “Very Serious Scientific Study Asks: Which Dance Moves Drive Girls Wild?”  Catches your eyes too, right?  Basically, some researchers studied a bunch of guys dancing and put their moves into a computer generated 3D avatar.  They then showed these avatars to women to see which dance moves they would rate as being the most attractive.

When they were done, they put out this video demonstrating what was considered “good dancing” according to their study:

I don’t know about you, but when I first saw this video I was completely baffled.  Were they seriously suggesting guys should dance like that to effectively court the ladies?  Really?

Somehow, my tired self that night decided that it would be a funny idea to try to reenact that video.  Bad idea?  Probably, but I ended up doing it anyway.  As you will soon see, it was as silly looking as I expected it to be:

By the way, I threw in a few extra moves just for funsies.  I figured hey, I’m already looking like a fool doing this, so why not make it even more ridiculous?  Also, it was totally a fluke how well the music I added later on matched the timing of my dance.  What a coincidence!

So, did my dancing (or whatever it was I just did) in my video drive you girls wild?

I dare you guys to videotape yourself reenacting the “good dancing avatar” video too!  Who’s up for the challenge?

I’ve heard some people say I’m a ladies’ man.  I’m thinking it’s mostly due to the perceived amount of female followers I have on here.  When I hear that term being said about me, I don’t think that description is accurate at all.  Why?  First, look at exhibit A:

See?  Nothing alike!

Okay but seriously, what does being a ladies’ man actually entail?  According to Urban Dictionary (which, as everyone knows, is the best source for definitions!  … ) a “ladies’ man” is 1) A man who spends much time with women, or is in the constant company of them, 2) A man who is able to pleasure women in most any manner, 3) A man who tends towards female friends, rather then male friends, and 4) A man who the ladies love, easy to talk to, or love being around. A man who has the respect of them and well doesn’t need to kiss and tell, they do it for him.

Alright, while the 2nd description is undeniably factual (hehe) the other definitions are much more questionable.  I wouldn’t say I’m in constant company of females nor do I have a tendency to have more female friends.  In fact, when I think about all the people I’ve hung out with recently they have been overwhelmingly males, so there goes the 1st and 3rd definitions. 

The 4th definition I can kind of see being related back to me, but it only tells a part of the story.  Maybe it is true that, generally speaking, a lot of females feel comfortable talking and being around me, but I don’t think it’s specific only to them.  Overall, I feel that most people I interact with (whether they’re male/female, old/young, etc.) feel that I’m an approachable guy.  Of course I’m not foolish enough to think everyone is fond of me, but in general I feel I interact with people pretty well.

Now having said all that, I think a better description of me would be one given to characterize a “people person”, which Urban Dictionary describes as “someone who is friendly,warm and kind to strangers and people from all walks of life”.  For me, I really just try to treat and respect people as much as I would like them to treat and respect me.  Quite a simple philosophy to follow.  When I hear someone describe me as just a “ladies’ man” or a “nice guy” I feel those classifications really sell me short of who I actually am.

Oh labels.  I suppose of all things that could be said about me being depicted as a ladies’ man isn’t so awful.  It’s just not true my friends!

Last night, I was getting ready for bed when I heard a couple housemates yell out, “Come quick!  Look at this loot we found!”  As I walked over to see what they were talking about, I see them bring in at least 6 bags full of something in them as well as a small trash can filled with what looked like movie posters.

Curious…

After some questioning, I found out that they were just at a bar when they were tipped by the bartender that the video store nearby was closing and they were throwing away a lot of their inventory.  Hearing this, the housemates went over there to find what turned out to be bags containing at least 600 still wrapped movies!!!

Whoa!

Before we got too excited though, we soon found out that a great majority of the DVDs were either B movies, movies from the 1970s that noone has heard of, cheap martial arts and horror flicks, or cartoon Bible stories

Anybody recognize any of these?

The “good” pile, as in movies that either looked newer than 1970s or had an actor/actress that we recognized

That’s not The Wizard of Oz I remember

Guess not too many fans of Firehouse

Remember earlier how I mentioned they found movie posters too?  Well they were movie posters alright, just not exactly the kind of movie posters I had in mind…

Here’s one of the more clothed posters of the bunch.  Most of the other posters left um, little to the imagination.

There were even a few posters signed by actresses!

“Filmed in Surround Pound!”  Isn’t that exciting?

There was healthy among of gay porno posters too.  Here’s the most SFW one.  My other housemate took all the other ones somewhere…

Anyway, of all the stuff that was brought in I ended up keeping just these three DVDS:

The OH in OHio since it has people in it that I recognize, Rocky Balboa since it was the only fairly recent A movie of the pile, and Popeye & Friends because come on, Popeye is frickin’ awesome!

Now here’s the big question; what are we going to do with all these DVDs???

Sell them on Ebay (and make maybe a penny per DVD)?  Give them as housewarming gifts to guests?  Use the DVDs as coasters or frisbees?  I welcome any ideas!

As tough as it was to make the oh so difficult decision to cut this intro out, I felt like it needed to be done.  I hope you see why:

P.S. This is most definitely a joke video 

P.P.S. We were actually all sober when this was filmed at our hotel during my latest CA trip, although it was around 3 in the morning.  That sorta explains how this came about.  Sorta.

P.P.P.S.  I’m giving SonyChak, FlipGuy31O, and sumoneoverthere credit for the existence of this entry.  They really, really, really wanted me to post this silly video up. Your wishes have been granted.