I'm so vain, I probably think this blog is about me

Ever since Christmas, work has been boring. The few customers who do come into my department are pretty adament about "just looking". Emphasis on the words "few" and "customers". This has left me with a lot of time to fill. Part of that time has been filled with watching shows like Mythbusters, NEXT, Real World Denver, and the History Channel. Even more time has been devoted to reading. I'll read magazines like mental_floss, ESPN The Mag, Sporting News, and as of yesterday, GQ. I'll read my textbooks for school (though this is where I usually decide to watch television instead). Other times I'll go print of sports articles by Mike Kahn, Charley Rosen, and Bill Simmons and read them. But what has become my favorite reading material is the "I Saw You...." section at the back of City Weekly. It's so great. Sometimes it's pathetic. Sometimes it's creepy. Sometimes you can tell that if the person who was seen ever reads the plea to be seen again, they will not only not answer said plea but they will never frequent the place they were "seen" at.

I wonder how one feels when they realize that they are the one being talked about. Is it the ultimate compliment, or the ultimate horror?

Here are some of my favorites (whether specific or general):

• Those that proclaim 'love', even though the two people have, in most cases, not even officially met.
• Those where the "seeing" happened at the gym (if by a boy, it usually tells of him staring while she was working out and/or includes the word 'chick'.)
• Which leads us to: those that say the word 'chick'. How stone age is that? I really like to picture the people who write the ads. Whenever the 'chick' is used, I picture a kid who can't doesn't grow a lot of facial hair with a dirty goatee, big thick hoop earings (whatever those are called when boys wear them), an oversized white Adidas pull-over jacket with navy blue trim, a "spouse beater" underneath said jacket, and dirty white Nike Airs. The kid hasn't showered for two days, but he does have a better than average body. While writing the ad the to the chick, he was listening to Fifty Cent. He could also use some Proactive. I hate to stereotype (okay, I love to stereotype), but some people deserve it.
• Any meeting that happened in a coffee shop. This is my favorite to hate. Didn't Tom Hanks have a movie where he met a girl in a coffee shop? If so, 'nuff said.
• One of my all-time favorites was a kid who wrote the ad from the University of Utah's Marriott Library (where I sit right now). It went something like, "I am sitting next to you in the Marriott Library. You are so beautiful....." and then he went on to describe him and her. Another one from a public library told of the time that both were on the computers and the time and finished with, "I'll be on the same computer at the same time for the next to weeks if you want to meet."

In honor of that, I will now write my own "I saw you..." to the fellow next to me at the library (if there was a girl, I would write it to her, but since there isn't.....):

Hey dude. You are sitting next to me in the computer lab. Wanna meet?