I discovered the You Suck at Craigslist blog about six months ago, and have been reading and commenting on it pretty frequently since. The premise is fairly simple–find awful, painful (for whatever reason) Craigslist postings and hold them up to public scorn and ridicule. Like all successful blogs that have been based on similar ideas, the author’s commentary and the comments left by its regular readers are what really make it. As was the case with Mom’s blog, I knew next to nothing about YSaC‘s author (drmk), to the extent that I even weirdly assumed (apropos of I-don’t-know-what) that she was a he.

Fortunately, she let my embarrassing faux pas slide with good grace and agreed to do an interview. Read on!

Hey there, mysterious “You Suck At Craigslist” guy. I read and comment on your blog nearly every day, and yet I know next to nothing about you as a person. Are you involved with humor writing in the wider world? Are there any details of your life and history outside the website that you feel comfortable sharing? Do you think it helps or hurts your blog that you don’t reveal much about yourself to your readers?

The first thing I think I’d like people to know about me is that I’m female, not male. For some reason everyone assumes there’s a guy behind YSaC; I’m not sure why that is! (I’m not offended by it — I just think it’s interesting.)

I’ve shared little bits in the comments about myself, but I’m pretty careful about what I say. The reason is that I teach at a university, and since this is ‘extracurricular’ work I’m not sure I want the whole world (and especially my tenure committee!) knowing I’m behind it. Part of what I’m expected to do for my job is writing and research — the “publish or perish” model — and I don’t want the committee to look at this site and think, “Well, she had enough time to do THIS, why didn’t she publish more articles?”

I’ve mentioned my husband, Dan, on the site; he’s helped me brainstorm commentary for posts in the past, and he recently offered to write some as well. I’m hoping he’ll keep doing so, as it’s time-consuming and my day job keeps me busy.

I hadn’t thought about it, but it probably hurts the blog that I don’t reveal much about myself — it probably makes it harder for people to relate to me as a person. It’s just what I’m comfortable with right now, though, and what I think is best for my real career.

If you were magically to be made CEO of craigslist, what changes would you make to it, and why?

Mandatory spellcheck and electric shocks via built-in cattle prods.

Ack, that’s actually a really good question. I’m fortunate enough to remember Craigslist back when you had to chisel your ads on stone tablets in San Francisco. Back then, Craigslist was a small and select group of people — basically, if someone had heard of Craigslist, they were someone you could trust. Now it’s full of scams and spambots, and that makes me sad.

I don’t know what changes I would make to it, other than getting rid of the scammers and spambots. I think that Craigslist, Inc. do a great job of providing the service they intend to provide. It’s a shame that there have been so many negative things happening recently (“Craigslist killer”, etc.), but I think that comes with the territory and popularity of the service.

Do you have trouble getting enough submissions? Do you still trawl for listings yourself? Why do you think your site is so popular? What about it do you think has made it successful?

As the blog’s become more popular, I get lots of submissions, which I really appreciate (and need, so don’t stop!). The more submissions I get, the more I can pick the best/worst of them. Things almost seem cyclic — there will be periods where nothing coming in will hit me quite right, and I’ll start getting worried, and then there will be a run of some really good ones and I’ll be rushing to get them up on the site.

The site started because last summer I was checking Craigslist regularly for furniture in my local area, and I came across SO many poorly written listings that I started collecting them on a personal blog aimed at my friends. I realized it was a potential blog, found out that nobody else was doing it, and started it. I had to look for listings for the posts towards the beginning; some are from my local area, and I would branch out to major metropolitan areas to find other posts.

I don’t have to look for listings that much anymore, although sometimes I’ll search for ones to accompany other ads. For example, the post with the multiple misspellings of the foosball table started because someone had sent me two or three links to ads in their local area, and I decided to see what other misspellings I could find out there. Ditto for the “ottoman” posts and the “papasan chair” posts. I do search for “French Prudential” or “Prevential” furniture listings occasionally, as that’s one of the running gags of the site.

I think part of why it’s popular has to do with schadenfreude; I think it’s the same kind of thing that makes FailBlog or FMyLife popular, or even television shows like Maury Povich or Jerry Springer. I think we take a little bit of pleasure in the misfortune of others. Also, I think a lot of people have experienced reading Craigslist ads that are subpar, so it’s a sort of cultural touchstone at the moment.

I try to avoid posts that are TRULY unfortunate. There are so many desperate people right now, and I find no joy in making fun of people who are actually in trouble in their lives, because that’s not a situation that can be laughed at.

There was a recent post that caused a bit of controversy, and one of the things I realized as that post ran its course is that my intent for the site is to mock actions, not people. I also realized that I haven’t always been true to that intent, probably because it wasn’t necessarily a conscious realization on my part. As I said on that post, there’s a difference between saying, “Hey, this person did/said a stupid thing,” and “Hey, this person is stupid.” I really try to aim for the former, and that might be a reason that the site resonates with people; it’s snarky, but not mean. I think.

I also think the site is successful to the degree it is in large part because of the regular commenters. I’m routinely amazed at how smart, funny, and clever some of the regular commenters are. I can’t count the number of times I’ve found a link to the blog that says, “This post is funny, but be sure you read the comments.” Sometimes I feel like I’m just playing the straight man on the site, setting up the jokes so the commenters can knock them out of the proverbial park.

What’s with the sammich obsession? More importantly, what’s your favorite sammich filling?

Hah! I belong(ed) to a forum community where that was a private joke, and it sort of accidentally came out here, since the blog started as a friends thing. I think it’s good advice, though! Who doesn’t love a good sammich?

Favorite sammich filling? Duh. Bacon. With extra bacon.

Here’s an obvious one – among the craigslist postings you’ve featured, which is your personal favorite, and why?

I was afraid you were going to ask me this. It’s like a Sophie’s Choice! Do I really have to pick just one? One thing I’ve noticed is that the posts I think are hilarious usually aren’t the ones that others latch onto!

Okay, here’s just a couple favorites:

YSaC, Vol. III — this is the post that made me decide to start the blog in the first place. This one was local-ish to me, and since I was checking Craigslist every day I was able to see this ad come up each day with the changes, each more ridiculous than the last.

YSaC, Vol. 321: Meta-hilarity ensues: I love this one because it required two different levels of sucking at Craigslist to occur.

YSaC, Vol. 333 and the recent video update: I thought this one was pretty funny when it first appeared as Vol. 333, but then someone took the ad and made it into a video. I’m stunned that I’m inspiring people to make their own creative works.

In general, my favorite posts are the ones that took some work, or some sleuthing, or some time & effort on either my part or the part of the submitter. (I also like the one recently about the guy who continuously posts in Missed Connections, because it shows a pattern of behavior that makes it all the more mockworthy/creepy.)

What are your future hopes/plans for the blog? Anything else you’d like to add or mention in closing?

My hopes are that I can keep it going! It’s time consuming, and I spend more time on the site than I should. As far as plans go … as much as I hate to admit it, I’m trying to figure out a way to make a little money from the site. I’ve just added a “Donation” button, and I’m looking into ways to incorporate ads into the site without it being obnoxious and intrusive. I’m also trying to come up with some t-shirt designs and some fun things. I’m a complete novice at all of this, though, and so I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like this was some grand business plan; it was a hobby that somehow or another became kind of popular, and I’m routinely amazed that anyone reads it in the first place.

And now for my Oscar speech: I’d like to thank everyone that has ever submitted anything, even if I didn’t use it — the entire blog depends upon people submitting ads they’ve found, so that is the most important thing. I wish I could take the time to reply to each person who submits something, but if I did I’d never get anything done. And again, a huge thank you to the regular readers and commenters; the site wouldn’t be what it is without them.

Keep reading, and keep submitting! Thanks!

Quick Summary:

Hookup potential: 4/5 Features: 3/5 Design: 3/5 Content: 3/5

• Basic-but-effective dating, and FREE!
• Google Ads galore, although inoffensively placed
• No-nonsense, simple design

The Full Story:

Mingle2 is pretty much a “starter” dating website. They try to keep everything simple. You can do a basic or advanced search or scan through who’s online, and you can search according to the interests you put in your profile. Once you find someone you’re interested in, you can IM her through the website’s chat, email her, or send a “nudge”. A nudge is a cutesy way of letting a person know that you’re interested in her without saying anything.

One unusual and slightly quirky feature that Mingle2 has is “Mutual Match”. In keeping with the “starter” feel of the site, Mutual Match is like flirting for kids. If you’re interested in someone and you don’t want to be the first to email, instant message or nudge, then you can perform a Mutual Match. Through the MM interface, you are asked whether or not you think someone would be a match with you. The other person will answer the question also. If both of you answer ‘yes,’ then I guess it’s a good lead-in to an initial contact. Of course, some may feel that this is a bit juvenile. Why not be upfront and just start communicating with someone, right? But I guess it’s cute and different so why not.

Aside from this, there’s nothing else that really makes this free dating site stand out. The members are pretty average. Some are hot, some aren’t. Some put a lot of work into their profiles, some just make do with the essentials. It’s the same anywhere. If anything you really have to work to communicate with the members on this site that you’re interested in in order to determine compatibility. And the site (to its credit) offers good tools for doing this.

There’s nothing spectacular about the site design visually although I like that the website’s very spacious and clean. There are no frills or gimmicks; what you see is what you get. There are, however, a TON of Google ads. I guess I just haven’t gotten used to service sites like dating websites that are riddled with such ads. I wonder why these sites think it’s such a great idea to show ads of direct-competitor websites (in this case, mostly Mate1′s). Why lead traffic away from your website to a competing service, right? I suppose this is the cost of keeping free dating sites free. Why am I complaining about it? I guess because the idea reeks of bad business. If a site has to survive through ads, why not sell the ad space yourself and select only non direct-competitor ads?

There was one thing that really impressed me about Mingle2. The community. Here, the community focus is a forum wherein members can talk about anything under the sun. One might think that since this is a dating website, no one will bother posting. Well, that’s very untrue. A look at the forum shows a very active and diverse community within Mingle2. It’s actually quite surprising. I mean, doing a simple search will get you some results – those close to your locale and those that fit the filters. But the forum gives you a better idea of just how many members are actively using Mingle2 and how many get online regularly. A dating website can easily set up a forum page, but it’s not easy to get it populated by active users. If anything, having an active forum assures new members that their callouts for friends and what-not will not fall on deaf ears.

Overall, Mingle2 does the job it sets out to do. It can definitely help you to hook up with people, especially if you participate in the forum discussions. The features are basic but sufficient.

I would definitely recommend checking out this website. Its simplicity is its main draw. Mingle2 offers the potential for quality interaction through their search and community features. And you won’t want for interesting, if not intriguing, results. Of course if what you’re really after is a hookup, you’d probably be better off going with a site like GetItOn.

1. Sex lion dies of sex exhaustion.
2. Uganda to outlaw female circumcision.
3. Vintage sex education tape.
4. What women want from porn.
5. Sanity prevails in Canada.
6. Teacher sends students home with homemade porn DVD.
7. Porn outlawed in the Ukraine.. unless it’s “medicinal”.
8. New website names and shames people with STDs.
9. Guess her muff.
10. The French. ‘Nuff said.

Founder of online dating consulting service E-Cyrano and author of several popular books on online dating, Evan Marc Katz has established himself as America’s leading dating expert. I first encountered him some months ago through his retardedly popular blog, and found his no-nonsense, no victims, pragmatic and realistic approach to people’s dating problems immensely attractive. I was thrilled when he agreed to do an interview with us – the online equivalent of running a school newspaper and having the President agree to drop by and answer a few questions.

Hey Evan, thanks for taking the time to do this interview. I know you’re insanely busy and have a huge backlog after your recent vacation. We sincerely appreciate you making time for us.

I’m guessing it might have seemed slightly odd to you that someone running an “adult dating” blog would request an interview, but honestly, before I sent you an email I sat down and pondered awhile. What I realized was that most people don’t stay on the casual scene forever. Most of them, eventually, decide for whatever reason that what they really want is what you help people to get. So I think having our audience exposed to your voice here is valuable and worthwhile.

One thing I really like about the advice you give is that it’s unfailingly pragmatic and realistic, sometimes brutally so. Here’s a quote from one of your recent blog entries to illustrate: “. . . the people who do best in the world we live in . . . are not the ones who try to rewrite the rules of society, but rather, figure out how to navigate them successfully.” Now, I know from following the comments on your blog that sometimes people get quite worked up by your candid analysis of situations and relationships. Why do you think that is?

I just read somewhere that people will do anything to preserve their worldview. It doesn’t matter if that world view is effective or empowering or whether it’s negative and hurtful – we will try our hardest to justify what we already believe. If a woman’s worldview is that men are scum, she can certainly find enough evidence to support it. The problem is that she will never find love with that belief system.

So even though I write a dating and relationship advice column, I almost feel like I rarely offer my opinion. All I do is attempt to find a solution for what’s not working – whether or not it supports what I believe. Which is why it’s pretty useless to argue with me, because I’m rarely expressing my own point of view – I’m just pointing out how the world works. Men can be pigs. Women can be emotional. What are we going to do in spite of these realities, instead of pointing the finger and telling men to stop being pigs and women to stop being emotional?

And, almost invariably, that means that WE have to change. We have to accept the flaws in the opposite sex, in Match.com, in our others’ pickiness, hypocrisies and commitmentphobia. Shouting that the world isn’t fair doesn’t suddenly make the world fair – which is why my advice almost always points the finger at the person asking the original question.

Seeing as I know you’re old enough to remember the World Without Internets, just wondering if you agree with the statement “ The Internet has revolutionized classified personals ads,” and if so, how do you think it has?

This is taken directly from my answer to Honey and Lance in an interview:

Online dating has leveled the playing field for men and given them a great deal more power than they’ve ever had before. This is a classic double-edged sword. The good news is that men who aren’t comfortable in the pick-up scene have a greater opportunity to succeed, as do older, divorced people who aren’t as likely to be hitting on strangers at bars. The bad news is that the perception of unlimited choice has enabled us to think that the grass is always greener. Online, there’s always someone younger, cuter, smarter, richer. Yet we ignore the fact that younger, cuter, smarter, richer doesn’t always make for a healthy relationship.

You can’t build anything when you’re always moving – and online dating – for all of its merits, turns both men and women into unintentional players with unrealistic standards.

In terms of the actual work you do: writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting, what’s the most enjoyable for you? How do you feel you’re doing at balancing the different roles and responsibilities?

Speaking lights me up more than anything, because you can see the immediate impact you’re having. You can see nodding heads and smiling faces. You can get a roar of laughter. You get to shake hands afterwards and connect and hear people’s stories and their takeaways. I never feel like I reach more people than when I’ve got a microphone in my hand.

However, my day-to-day is far more consumed by private dating coaching, and there is an immense satisfaction in watching the personal growth of individuals who put their trust in me. To see self-awareness and confidence blossom, week after week, until my clients find themselves in happy relationships, well, that’s priceless. I love the closeness and vulnerability of getting to know people intimately though our coaching sessions.

And yet, I undoubtedly reach more people with every blog and newsletter I send out. I just don’t get the satisfaction of making a personal connection. If I had my way, I’d do a lot more live events and group coaching, for the best of both worlds.

Have you ever had cause to regret any advice you’ve given anyone? Are there any things in general that you used to tell people that you feel foolish about now?

Undoubtedly, although I’m not the type to wallow in regret. But logically, I’m a very different person than I was when I wrote my first book at age 31 and I’d never had a relationship over seven months. Now, I’m 37 and married, and have learned an immense amount from my dating coaching experiences. The purest record of my advice can be seen in “I Can’t Believe I’m Buying This Book” and “Why You’re Still Single”, and while I wouldn’t retract most of the material, it all seems a little bit immature. I’m much prouder of my Finding the One Online CD Series, for example, than I am of my first book – although my first book was much funnier.

If you’re looking for one thing that I know I’d take back, it’s telling people to respond to a detail in another person’s online dating profile. It’s not that the advice is bad – it’s that it’s half-baked. Most people say things like “You like skiing? I like skiing, too! Let’s go on a date…”, which is a pretty crappy pick-up line. I give much more specific guidance on how to communicate powerfully in Finding the One Online.

Congratulations on your recent marriage. Has married life surprised you? Do you have any advice for married couples you’d like to share?

After eight months, I’m no expert in marriage, and don’t expect to be dispensing marriage advice for a good, long while. What I can say is that getting married was easy – moving in together after the wedding was a bit scary, however. My wife and I both work from home, so it took a few months for me to feel truly comfortable having someone around all the time. But every day, I feel more and more validated in my decision to get married. Perhaps it’s because I’m a dating coach and hear so many negative stories, but I’m extremely appreciative at how patient and understanding my wife is with me. She sets the tone for how to be a great partner – all I have to do is follow her example.

And finally: what are your future hopes/plans for your businesses? Anything else you’d like to add or mention in closing? Thoughts, comments, projects or events you’d like to plug? The floor is yours.

Private coaching is still the best part of my job. If you struggle with the opposite sex, there’s no better way to learn than to make love a priority in your life. I only work with a limited number of highly-motivated clients, so if you’re interested, just go to http://www.evanmarckatz.com/dating-coaching/ and fill out a short application.

If dating coaching is out of your price range, you can get all the benefits of 7 weeks of coaching with my 7 CD series, Finding the One Online: http://www.findingtheoneonline.com/.

And if you’re just looking for a new way of attracting more high quality people online, my profile writing company, E-Cyrano.com, is having a sale – 33% off regular prices: http://www.e-cyrano.com

Finally, if you just want to stay in touch and read some amazing free advice, sign up to get my special report, The 5 Massive Mistakes You’re Definitely Making in Dating and How to Turn Them Around Instantly. http://www.evanmarckatz.com/newsletter.html

Otherwise, I just want to thank you for inviting me to talk today, and thank your readers for their interest in improving their love lives. I’m very lucky to get to do this for a living and I bring that appreciation to every single coaching session.

Best wishes and many thanks.

Quick Summary:

Value: 4/5 Design: 2/5 Quality: 4/5

• Decent selection and quantity of performers every time you log in
• The color scheme is hard on the eyes. Bad site design! Bad!
• Payment system is a bit deceptive

The Full Story:

This is one hot webcam site, literally–when you go to the website, you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about. The site design is so glaringly red-dominated it hurts the eyes. I really wouldn’t want to look at it longer than I had to. The homepage itself is a confusing mess of text. It’s supposed to tell me which performers are on, and their lineup of ladies. If it’s supposed to impress, it doesn’t. I wouldn’t even bother to straining to read it. Come on guys! There are more colors in the web design palette!

When you sign up as a member, you’d find the internal pages more interesting. They’re still all red, of course, but in this section of the site at least you get a preview of the girls, including the ability to check out the vaunted 69’s Team (the site’s most popular webcam girls). You can also pay to watch prerecorded cam shows, and free “teaser” chat with girls is available.

And are the girls hot? Yes, most of them are. And their specifics are sufficiently varied that you shouldn’t have any problem finding one that you’d be interested in. The free chat lets you video chat with whoever is online performing. This is good because it allows you to figure out quickly if you’d like the girl and if she’d be up for whatever your kink is. I had reasonable success finding one who was up for mine. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself!)

One “off” thing is the payment system; particularly how it works if you want to watch more of the webcam shows. Clicking on on “Buy Credit” to watch the full show leads you to the buy page, which is sorely lacking in appropriate navigation. For one thing, there is no “back” link in case you change your mind. Not having this may confuse those who aren’t used to LiveJasmin’s web interface. Or it could lead to unknowingly clicking on “Buy” because you want out of the page. The site already has your credit card information from when you signed up, so one click is an instant purchase.

This potentially creates a problem for those who don’t really want to watch and may just have clicked on the Buy button by mistake. There’s no back link and, even when you click on the browser’s back button, the Buy page (helpfully) refreshes itself. You have to do this about three times to effectively get out of the Buy page. A person might just give up and click on Buy just to get out of there. I mean, this is probably what the site owners are counting on.

Other than this, the site delivers. The free video chat is a good way of engaging the viewer. It’s also good that they have warnings on the video chat feeds of performers who have problematic Internet connections. I means you can estimate how long you’d spend in private viewing and decide whether or not to move on to someone who has a better Internet connection.

LiveJasmin can also boast a decent search function,  similar to those of other sites in the same niche, but a little better than most, I think. I really liked that they made theirs so powerful. You can specify down to the granularity of hair color, length, and eye color. Details like these are important, especially for webcam sites with thousands of performers. You won’t have to go through a gamut of performer profiles just to find one you’d like.

In summary, if you’re a fan of camsites or camgirls in general I’d recommend giving LiveJasmin a go, or at least signing up for a free account and having a look around. It’s not cheap, but it’s certainly gratifying.

Top 10 links for week beginning 07/19/2009

1. Tips for engaging in casual sex.
2. Pasty geek wanted for OH LA LA.
3. “I want my vagina to have call-waiting.”
4. The Japanese: Still Crazy.
5. Most badass tattoo EVAR.
6. Eyes Wide Shut. Apparently a true story.
7. Hot crockery. Thanks, Grandad.
8. The case against post-menopausal in vitro fertilization.
9. Russian brides: before and after “styling”.
10. Busted with a camwhore. O the horror.

I’ve been following the Honey and Lance blog for some months now and have found it not only an intriguing concept, but, perhaps counter intuitively, a successful one. Briefly, “Honey and Lance” are pseudonyms for the authors, a man and a woman who used to date years ago, but who now lead separate lives, while remaining friends. The topics the blog covers range from everything to anything, but there’s a soft focus on dating and relationships, with a lot of material drawn from the authors’ personal lives. Both Honey and Lance are sharp cookies, and while they often disagree, whatever advice they’re dispensing is usually at least worth listening to.

I sent them email asking for interviews, and to my delight they both agreed. Honey’s up first:

First off, Congratulations on your recent PhD, Honey. Well, DOCTOR Honey I guess, now. What attracted you to Composition and Rhetoric? What do you enjoy about it now?

I always knew I wanted to be an English major, but I also knew I didn’t want to be a Lit major. My BA and MA are in creative writing, and I worked in a writing center during that time. I loved my job and learned that my boss had a PhD in Composition and Rhetoric, so it was off to the races! While my current day job isn’t as a professor, I am working in administration/student services at a large university. I got coursework and hands-on experience in administration in grad school, so I felt very prepared for my current role, and honestly, it’s nice to not have to grade papers every night! I get to work with department heads and deans, and since everything’s “rhetoric” to me now anyway, I feel like it was a great degree to get. You can analyze and talk about pretty much anything with that background. Including relationships!

What inspired you and Lance to start the blog? What do you think has made it successful? What future plans do you have for it?

After I forgave Lance for being a jackass when we broke up, we were great e-mail buddies and sent each other super long and analytical e-mails about dating and relationships, so we decided to put it up in a public forum. I love the community we have of other bloggers – everyone has an interesting and slightly different perspective. It is definitely a process – we have been at it over a year and a half now, just building content and community. But since I moved to Phoenix to be with the BF, I don’t have a lot of friends in-town and this blog was really helpful from a sanity standpoint. I think one of the unique things about it is that we have the guy-girl perspective (and we don’t agree on quite a lot!) from two people who used to date, and therefore know each other well, but who don’t date anymore for a variety of reasons. I haven’t seen other blogs out there with exactly that approach. Long-term, we would like to find a way to make some money off of it (who wouldn’t?) both so that we can afford to devote more time to it and so we can provide more services to our readers. Not sure yet what form that will take or what timeline we’d be working with.

You’re often pretty, uh, explicit on honeyandlance.com with regard to your sexual relationship with your partner. I’m just wondering how he feels about that? Do many of the important people in your real life know about your blog and read it? What sort of reactions do you get?

Well, the BF knows what I blog about, but it’s a big help that he doesn’t read it – both because I think he would get embarrassed even though I use a pseudonym and because then I can use the space to vent sometimes when he’s a jerk and I really only want validation for my feelings at the time. In the beginning, I ran things by him before posting quite often, but he never cared so now I just post what I want. I do tell him when I post about how great he is because it makes him feel good! I can count on two hands the number of people who know that I have a blog under a pseudonym, and I can probably only count on one hand the ones who know the URL of the site. And I don’t think any of them actually read it. Which is fine with me! I have a family-and-friends-friendly blog under my real name to catch people up on the real news in my life and spare them my sexcapades.

I see that you and your boyfriend are anti-breeding (snap!)— curious to hear what you think about a theory a female friend of mine shared with me recently: “It seems likely that the ‘estrogen kicking in’ thing is a myth. My Mom’s generation was always told that it would kick in at 25 (“nearly too late” back then) and then it got pushed to 30, and now people say 35. I think it is the power of suggestion.”

I think it has a lot to do with how you were raised, not in the sense of being raised well or poorly, but of how much you were around kids. My sister is close to my age, I was never a baby-sitter, I’ve never changed a diaper, been alone with a child under 5, etc. I just think some people are into it and some people aren’t, and the number of people who “kick in” (i.e. go from feeling very strongly one way to very strongly the other way) are very, very rare. I think there are TONS of people who *say* they “kicked in” or even that they always wanted kids and really they’re faking it because they want to seem normal. I also think there are TONS of people who say their kids are the best thing that happened to them and they’re lying because, well, the truth would be received very, very poorly in our society. The BF and I are both very headstrong, very cerebral, and I don’t think that we’d do well with a child. The older I get the more I object to childbearing from an ethical standpoint. Also, we’re each at risk for some nasty genetic things that we wouldn’t feel right passing on (even if we don’t suffer from them ourselves). If I ever did feel differently, I’d want to adopt a Chinese baby (Asian baby mohawk! So cute!) but the BF is opposed to adoption for a variety of reasons, and since I think I feel more strongly than he does about not wanting one at all, it’s kind of a moot point.

What makes you laugh?

The LOLCats on Icanhascheezburger.com, the BF (he really enjoys puns so we are always trying to come up with really good ones to see if the other person notices), really really good dialogue and obscure literary or historical references in tv shows (I laugh every time I watch the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Principal Snyder calls Xander an “airborne toxic event” because I think, how many other people who watch this show have read White Noise by Don Delillo?). I used to hate comedies but somehow I grew into them. I like movies like Superbad and Away We Go. I also laugh at our animals pretty regularly. I totally get why they make you live longer – our big cat terrorizes our tiny dog, and it makes me laugh because I can totally see how much PLANNING the cat puts into it. I mean, he really thinks about how he can scare her! The dog is also just pretty hysterical (as I think most dogs probably are) because she has NO DIGNITY. She ran face-first into our hearth the other day because she was trying to look back at me over her shoulder and run in front of me at the same time. It was awesome.

Anything else you’d like to add or share with our readers? Any upcoming projects you’d like to plug? Thoughts, comments?

We’ve always got new ideas cooking but welcome feedback, suggestions, and relationship questions from our readers. On a personal note, the BF and I talk about marriage all the time though we can’t afford a ring or a wedding at the moment. He’s pretty invested in it being a surprise, though, so it should be a shocker to our readers as well! I think it’ll be interesting once that happens because from what I hear the stress will make for some interesting stories. Relationships are work, though with the right person they’re worth it – I often feel like my relationship is really tidal. We have some ooshy-gooshy “I wuv you, snuggle bum” times and some “OMG I’m so pissed I could scream” times, but most of the time we have a really solid partnership because we communicated our needs so explicity when we first met. It’s really, really important to know what you want!

Quick Summary:

Hookup potential: 3/5 Features: 4/5 Design: 3/5 Content: 3/5

• A legit dating site, with a wide membership base.
• The design is too compressed. There’s a lot going on within each page so there’s very little “white” space left. It’s hard on the eyes.
• Some functions are redundant and don’t work correctly.

The Full Story:

This site presents itself first and foremost as a browseable database of “available” people – a HUGE browseable database. And I think this represents the germ of my main problem with it.

It is always great for a dating website to have so many subscribers. It’s great for the site owners, and it’s great for us, the users. They get their income, while we get a lot of choices.

But the fact that there are so many results should not affect how the website is laid out. At Mate1, it seems like they’ve adopted the presentation strategy of cramming as many results as possible into just one page. A typical results page is a 6 X 5 grid of results. Meaning there are six people (with pictures) per row, and five rows for each page. The allotted space for the results is about 500 X 700 pixels, which is like, only half of a typical monitor screen.

Now, imagine being the user and going through each one of these results. You’d want to read up on the interesting-looking ones, right? The problem is that there isn’t much space allotted for each person in the results page–at least not enough to include information you might want, such as occupation or orientation. It gets tiring on the eyes. There’s just too much visual noise.

Most everything else about the site is decent. There’s the requisite flirting options for each profile–you can say “hi” or send a personal message to anyone you’d like. You can even chat if the member happens to be online. There’s no fuss about this. And not much by way of restriction either. There’s no need to be in someone’s “buddy” or “allow” list if you want to chat with her.

One funny thing about the site is that it beats you over head with the idea that you should be here to “search.” Why? Because three of the five main links on the top of each page are (redundantly) pointing to “Search.” There is Search (according to your parameters), Popular Search (according to popular parameters), and In Your Area (local search). Now, if anyone comes in here and complains about not knowing where to begin looking for dates, then maybe it’s poetic justice that he or she doesn’t get one. Duh!

I tried using the Advanced Search option where you can specify certain details, such as non-smokers only, spiritual persons etc. I also specified that the results should only include those that are at a maximum of 25 miles from where I am. I used the Search section on the left side of the screen. And lo and behold, I was given results that had women from other countries! Hello?!

I decided to attempt a little troubleshooting. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the Search section on the left? Maybe I should’ve used the one on top? (Yes, there is a search section right below the three main search links, and right next to the Search section on the left panel screen.) This search section was oddly not updated when I previously tweaked the search parameters.

So I searched again, and this time my search yielded more suitable results. Gone were all the out-of-the-country results (although some of the women on the list were still way beyond my specified radius).

Still, if one were to employ redundancy in a site layout, there should be a meaningful limit to it. It can get confusing to the user to have so many search options in one page. With Mate1, there’s about five Search links on every single page.

And, more importantly, the functionality of the whole website, especially the redundant features, should cohere with everything else. If I change my specification in one Search section, the others should update their values too. In the case here, I had to update each time I used a different site search option.

Oh well. I suppose this is the price you pay for having a deluge of choices. In the final analysis, the logical loopholes in this dating site are tolerable. A hot hook up is certainly possible, so it’s all good.

Wow, wouldn’t it be awful if this guy was actually insecure with regard to the strength of his publicly-exhibited urinal stream…

Top 10 links for week beginning 07/12/2009

1. How casual sex is like temping [VID]…
2. 5 second one night stand confessions.
3. Porn abandons plot and dialog. The horror.
4. The NHS decides it is in the business of giving bizarre advice to schoolchildren.
5. Regularly eating semen for perceived health benefit. Are they even serious.
6. Advice for pornophobic women.
7. Yoga cures homosexuality. True story.
8. Love is worth £163,424
9. Can’t get funding for your Olympic dreams? Open a brothel.
10. Couple make bad choice about public sexiness.

Unless you’ve really been living under an e-rock you’ll have heard of I bang the worst dudes (Sorry, Mom); a popular forum for remorseful women to bewail their horrendous hookup decisions and post unflattering and only partially-obscured photos of their lamentable lays, accompanied by cringe-inducing (if frequently hilarious) justifications for their lapses of judgment. I check it out most days, but realized recently that I know next to nothing about the mysterious author of the site, an enigmatic individual known only to her supplicants as “Mom”.

In hope of satisfying my own curiosity, I conducted the following interview. Alas, Mom turned out to be a more elusive quarry than I feared, though a more engaging and jocular one, too…

Hi Mom. I was going to start by saying that I read and comment on your blog nearly every day, and yet I know next to nothing about you as a person other than that you live in NY. Are there any details of your life and history outside your website that you feel comfortable sharing? Do you think it helps or hurts your blog that you don’t reveal much about yourself to your readers?

That and what is included in my about page is about all I’ll divulge comfortably. Most people where I live know who I am at this point, and I’ve had to face the obstacle of trying to date guys when they know I run the site – I think they imagine I have banged a lot more of the worst dudes in question than I really have, so it makes for some pretty awkward conversations pretty early on, but if I wasn’t comfortable with my history I guess I would’ve never started the site in the first place. I think it helps to have “mom” as this sort of non-specific person behind the curtain. Or so I’d like to think.

I notice that there are a quite a few entries where the dude in question is a member of a well-known band—do you know why that is? Are there a lot of groupies out there who are secretly sorry-mom.com minions?

It’s because band dudes are fucking scummers, duh! And I know a lot of people who work in the music industry, so the site made the rounds in that milieu pretty quickly.

Do you have much trouble getting submissions? Why do you think your site is so popular? What about it do you think has made it successful?

The submissions have really slowed down lately because I think some of the initial excitement of the site has passed, but I think the site is popular because people love reading about other people’s misery. It’s the whole car accident/onlooker effect – you don’t want to read but you can’t help yourself.

Your bio says the following: “Mom loves bearded men, Texas, bad tattoos, beanies year-round, cheap champagne, cross stitching and crystal clusters.” Is that just a joke reference to the kind of guys that seem to dominate your site, or are some (all?) of them FOR REALS?

Well I had a pretty well-known beard/flannel/beanie fetish for a loooong time and the rest is all true, god damnit! I wouldn’t lie to you, baby.

Any favorite or particularly memorable posts?

Oh god, I put some together for a book proposal once. I love the gruesome pee/poop/vom stories because I am 8 yrs old, mentally and the ones where the girls really put forth efforts to be funny/witty. The diaper one was pretty awesome, way early on. And I like my posts, of course, but I will never tell which ones are mine.

What are your future hopes/plans for the blog? Anything else you’d like to add or mention in closing?

I had two book offers that fell through (because of the pictures issue, umph) so I’m supposed to get started on a novel/short story format for the stories that started the site. We’ll see if it ever actually happens though. Anything else? Be careful out there kiddies!

Quick Summary:

Hookup potential: 3/5 Features: 3/5 Design: 5/5 Content: 5/5

• Beautiful clean, clear design.
• Excellent matching, search, filtering, messaging, video, and communication tools; no obtrusive advertising.
• Database isn’t heavily populated yet, so membership participation in some areas is at a low level.
• Doesn’t have as much functionality as some competing sites, but does what it does brilliantly well.

The Full Story:

Get It On is Adult Friend Finder’s foray into “scientific” adult dating. It is also a response to criticism of their flagship “Adult Friend Finder” site as being cluttered, gaudy, ugly, suffering from featuritis, et cetera (criticisms I discussed in my earlier review of it, here.) It is my opinion that Get It On has largely succeeded in what it set out to accomplish.

To sign up to the site (free!), you have to fill in a reasonably long questionnaire. The idea here is to give the site’s software a good idea of what your sexual preferences are and what sort of sexual experience outcome you’re trying to achieve. This information is then used to build your profile and sort through available people in your area; the site will present matching profiles to you when you log in, with a “percentage sexual compatibility” rating next to them.

Once you’ve got your list of prospective compatibles, you can simply click through to any one of the profiles and start communicating with the person using the site’s tools; email her, flirt with her, hotlist her, whatever. Get It On will also lets you record and upload personal introduction videos, and view the saved and broadcasting videos of other members, videos that–no surprise–mostly involve the indicated individuals busying themselves in acts of self-pleasure (some things never change.)

The layout and design also really deserves a mention. Visually, the site is the acme of minimalist/Zen beauty. Clean, clear, no fuss, no mess, and best of all everything just works. Entirely gone is the “Christmas tree” design of yore, replaced by a delightful and contemporary Web 2.0 composition. One thing that particularly struck me was the complete absence of upsell advertising—the site doesn’t seem to be trying to sell anything except for memberships to itself! This may be because the site is relatively new and AFF don’t want to frighten away new members, but I hope it’s more of a long-term strategic decision than that.

I should also point out some possibly-negative features. One is that because the site is fairly new, the size of the membership database can’t compete with those of AFF’s older, established sites. This doesn’t seem to meaningfully affect the search results or matches, but definitely has an impact on things like the number of member videos broadcasting at any one time. I guess there might be something to be said for joining early and scooping up all the hotties, though, hah.

There’s also an obvious lack of a member’s forum, real-time chat, and cam-to-cam functionality. While this might turn some people off, I don’t think it should. Get It On is quite deliberately “stripped down”, with the idea of turning it into a lean, mean, hookup-finding machine. It’s not about sitting around and e-socializing all day with probably-distant Internet strangers (there’s a million other sites you can do that on, and most of them are free), it’s about finding someone with compatible perversions sexual preferences who lives within an hour or two’s drive of you and then hooking up with them to make the beast with two backs.

If that sounds like what you’re after, I’d definitely recommend giving Get It On a shot. Given the marketing muscle that AFF have, the site’s only going to become more popular, and quickly.

Get in on the Get It On ground floor now.

I think–and I might be lying–that I first came across Monica’s humor blog after reading a comment she’d left here. However I ended up  on her site, I soon found myself  impressed by the technical quality of her writing and the fact that she’s freaking hysterical, so decided  to start commenting on her blog semi-regularly.  When I came up with the idea of doing an interview series it didn’t take long for me to realize that she’d be a great candidate for inclusion. One mildly astonishing positive response to my email later and we had this. Enjoy!

I can see you have a lot of irons in the fire. Your online bio would indicate that you’re something of a Renaissance woman, with work activities encompassing writing, acting, public speaking, and social media consultancy. What’s your preferred kind or kinds of work? What are you happiest doing? What would your dream role or project look like?

I like the spin you put on my life. Others might call me scattered – but I’ll happily go with your assessment. It’s hard to determine what I like best, because I enjoy all these things for different reasons. I love the speaking because it’s fun to teach people about the internet – something I am tremendously passionate about. And I think it’s a good place to inject humor. (One of my favorite teachers, is also a tremendously funny guy – with a dry wit and the same sense of frustration about how things “ought” to be.) I think it’s easier to learn – and absorb – when things are fun.

Coming up with ideas, researching and marketing in creative ways, is something my work in social media allows – so I get to feel smart. I certainly enjoy acting but I didn’t enjoy the lack of control that went with pursuing that as a career. That said, I do some YouTube stuff, and perhaps an independent project will come along that I can fit into.

I guess a dream project would involve something creative where I could participate in a number of things – including act/write/promote online – and work with a great team.

The fact that you work in a number of different roles and cross-media must mean you’ve learned a lot about how different industries work. What advice would you give to people who want to make a living writing? Acting? Public speaking?

I do think that’s true – I am able to see elements from different angles. In terms of advice: I think you need to take responsibility in terms of marketing yourself. Find unique (but non-deranged ) ways of promoting your work and establish yourself as a brand, so that there is more potential of people knowing who you are by what you’ve done. Network online and in real life, even if by nature you aren’t “that type”. Like everything, it gets easier the more you do it – and you find ways of meeting the right kind of people for you. By doing that, you establish yourself, and feel less like your in a supplicating for a job and in greater control of your path.

Given that I never made a living acting, asking my advice on that is akin to asking a convicted felon how to stay out prison. That said, I offer the following: Have a very, very strong idea of who you are. It may not always help get you roles, but it will keep you more sane. Also, I am convinced that the internet can help you market yourself – but again that comes with really understanding who you are – not who you want to be or who others peg you as.

I particularly enjoy reading your humor blog at yourdoseoflunacy.com. I’m constantly surprised at the stuff you turn up there, and usually long before I’ve seen it anywhere else. What prompted you to start the blog up? What are your strategies for finding fresh material? What plans do you have for the blog in the future?

Thank you so much! I really love writing it. I actually started the blog because I had made the decision to go into technology in some capacity and I understood that having a blog was essential. I had no idea what I would write about. I had a few stories about my (many) wacky encounters and figured I’d write about those and perhaps a few other things (rants etc.) Soon enough, I realized that weirdness could actually be the theme.

I started another blog for the business stuff and focused the initial one on oddities in general – sometimes my experiences, but most often about strange items I come across on the net. I don’t have any specific plans for the blog itself – for now, I’ll be continuing, overall, with what I’ve been doing. (See next answer)

As for how I find these things, I’m not always sure. I am brutally unobservant when it comes to details about most everything – I would make the worst witness. The other 8 witnesses would say “The getaway car was a silver Honda with a white midget driver in a red cape and I’d be the one stamping my hand on the table positive it was a Blue Jeep with a sumo wrestler wearing a tux. On the other hand, I have a strange ability to notice the weird things and I tend to read everything from the instructions on canned products to minor details on advertisements. I happen to find many other items by accident, by researching another topic. It’s amazing how much oddness you can turn up when you spend a large part of your life lurking on the internet.

Do you have any upcoming or ongoing projects you’d like to take this opportunity to discuss/share?

Great timing on that question! I recently read some excellent memoir-type books – A.J. Jacob’s “The Know it All” and David Sederis’ Me Talk Pretty One Day – and, in a moment of extreme arrogance, I got to thinking “You know, I have funny stories too… ” So I’m working on an E-book now. I’m not sure what form it will take, but it’s an exciting project.

On a semi-personal note: I was reading your resume and OH MY GOD you were really in Underworld: Evolution—you played the newsreader, right? That’s one of my favorite films. What can you tell us about that experience?

That’s hilarious! Yes, I was the Hungarian newsreader. The experience was great – albeit it nerve-racking. I was terribly nervous since my mainstream acting jobs were few and far between and I’m a perfectionist. One of the funny things was getting my makeup done for the role. The makeup gals immediately assumed I was playing a vampire (I’m a pale girl) and when they realized I wasn’t, I think they spent considerable time trying to make me look less like the undead.

I waited in my trailer to be called, trying to convince myself that I wouldn’t screw up. When they brought me onset, the assistant director told me that Len (Wiseman, the director) would come right down. I guess I had gotten used to directors being somewhat older and maybe director-looking (I think a beard used to be de riguer). Instead, when he came down, it was all I could do shake his hand not say “Uh… uh… Wow…” Simply put, he’s gorgeous. Intimidatingly so.

Luckily, everyone on set was really supportive. For those who haven’t seen the film, one of the characters watches me on tv and then throws up violently. Everyone’s a critic.

Anything you’d like to say in closing? Shout outs? Parting thoughts?

Shout outs:

1) Just want to thank the hilarious people who read my blog – and often make me laugh with their responses.
2) And big thanks to my amazing boyfriend, loving friends and the wonderfulness of the Vancouver social media community. I am forever grateful for how quickly they welcomed me into the community and how incredibly supportive they’ve been.