I haven’t done one of these in a long time so I thought I’d give you Warcraft fans a little treat. I was just poking around at YouTube and found this video that I quite like. Enjoy

I’ve been back in Canada for about a week now and I am still having very mixed feelings about it. Yes, I am happy to see my family and friends, familiar places and favorite local foods. But I can’t help feeling sad at night that I am not next to L33tz0r when I never want to leave his side. I miss taking the train to work … and almost missing it every single day. And I especially miss late night walks to Spar with him.

We did the long distance thing last summer as well and it was double the amount of time that we will have to do it this summer. It was rough and at times I thought we wouldn’t make it but we did. And although we were able to hold it together, I don’t think we always did it the best way we could. I’m sure that there are many many other people out there who have faced the same hurdle. What I’m wondering is, what made things work for you?

Does anyone out there have any tips for me on how to make the summer more bearable? We play World of Warcraft together which is nice because it is something we can do “together” without actually being physically together. We talk on Skype and MSN and I even call him from time to time. These things are good but I’m looking for other options to keep things interesting and fun for us.

I have recently begun employment with a company called Xfactordates and I had my very first shift a few nights ago. To be honest I had no idea what to expect. Basically speed dating involved having 20 dates of 3 minutes each. Each person has a scorecard which is used to write each dates’ name and mark Yes, No, Friend and a comment about the person. After the event each person takes their scorecard home and enters the details onto our website using the username and password they had already set up. The site will then make the Yes or Friend matches and will email the participants with the contact details of any matches. My job title is “Ice breaker” so basically I greet people as they come in and make small talk with anyone standing alone to make sure that everyone is comfortable and not too nervous. I wasn’t nervous seeing as I wasn’t one of the people who would actually be participating but I think I was more curious than anything. I wasn’t sure what type of people would show up.

My boss told me the key demographic for the evening would be professionals between the ages of 25 and 35. Ok, so there weren’t going to be any vagabonds looking for a home via love but would they be social failures who aren’t able to meet people through work or friends? Would they be geeks whom no one would give a chance if they didn’t have to sit down and talk to them for 3 minutes? That might sound harsh but I had never been exposed to an event such as this before so I really had no idea. Much to my surprise as our participants began to arrive they all looked like normal people! There seemed to be a trend in that most of the women arrived in groups of 2 or 3 friends where as most of the men arrived alone. I’m wondering if that is because men don’t normally discuss their dating issues with their friends and tend not to rely so much on the support of other males in a situation such as this where they might feel nervous.

The people who participated were all normal looking people with normal and fun personalities but just had very little time outside of work to meet people they want to date. Many of the women I spoke to said they do enjoy going out to clubs with friends but the sort of men they meet there aren’t the type of men they would be interested in dating. One of the men told me that he wasn’t necessarily looking for a wife but he enjoys speed dating because it’s a different way to get out and socialize with people his own age and stage of life and it’s better than sitting at home alone. There were also quite a few people who where at their very first speed dating event but came with an open mind and were curious as to how it worked. I found that alot of the people weren’t desperately seeking a partner, but more of a way to socialize and make some friends.

It was even quite enjoyable for me because I was able to get out of the house and talk to interesting and fun people who I normally would not have met. I had a few free drinks, some good laughs and got paid for it! I think that’s a pretty good deal.