Just check anything but black...

I joined Chemistry.com earlier this month. I've joined most online sites at different times in my life: Yahoo, eHarmony, Match. So I decided to give Chemistry a try and it's okay. Like eHarmony you can't search profiles, the company sends them to you. Like all dating sites, many of them men don't take time to actually write a decent personal statement, but the ratio of decent statements to crappy ones is fairly high.

Chemistry.com, however, needs to fix their search algorithms. On dating sites you get to pick the ethnicity of the people you're interested in. (I check no preference.) Chemistry keeps sending me guys who are interested in the following:

American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
White/Caucasian
Hispanic/Latino or Spanish origin

Notice what's missing? I've written Chemistry twice letting them know that they keep sending me guys that aren't interested in women of my race. I've received two stock answers: "Please trust we are currently working on this problem and hope to have any trouble resolved soon. Thank you for your patience."

The "ethnic preference" info is at the bottom of profiles so you read through the whole thing before realizing that the guy doesn't want black girls. I've taken to scrolling to the bottom first so I can archive them right away.

It's a pain (and painful) and I'm not going to renew my subscription.

My friends and I joke that they should just create a check box for "Anything but Black." That way there won't be any confusion.

Good Products

Amazon.com MP3s
I suppose that Amazon's download store is not really a product, but I have spent so much money there I have to talk about it.
Unlike the rest of the world, I don't have an iPod. I have a Creative Zen Vision:M which means that I can't use iTunes without going through a whole lot of mess. (Download song. Copy to CD. Upload song. Copy to Player.) So I was thrilled when Amazon started it DRM-free store. It doesn't have as much music as iTunes, but everything is reasonably priced.

If I'm really honest with myself though, my favorite thing about the store is the Specials. Every Friday at they have 5 for $5. Every day they have some ridiculously low priced album in the top right hand corner. I bought Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved a Man for $1.98 the other day.

Sometimes entire albums are free. Granted most people probably aren't excited that Naxos Very Best of Early Music is free but I am not one of those people. (The Kyrie eleison Christian-Arabic Tradition from Lebanon is sublime.)

The whole thing is a money sink. I should really stop.

Oh look, Bernstein conducts Gershwin...