Fifteen years later, I've upgraded to broadband, kind of wish I still had the AFHV t-shirt, and still like to use the internet for everything possible. The realm of "everything" has expanded well beyond poetry contests, though, to include more grown-up pursuits such as watching cat videos and dating. In fact, I have regaled many a dinner party with my collection of OKCupid horror stories and victories (the victories occur less frequently). But no matter how many times I am forced to listen to a date sing MGMT at karaoke after six shots of vodka (this happened), I'm always open to trying the latest online dating platform, because hey--you never know.

So, when I was recently invited to attend an event a new online dating startup, Meetmoi, was hosting, I jumped. As it turned out, this wasn't your typical startup event: I wasn't expected to select an outfit that exudes professionalism yet joie de vivre, show up at a venue, put on a nametag emblazoned with my Twitter handle, and get to mingling. Instead, I was instructed to turn my phone on, sit back, and wait. 

Unlike other online dating communities, Meetmoi doesn't ask users to filter through potential matches based on their preferences ("You're a Scorpio with an average build who likes but doesn't own amphibians!? ME TOO"). In lieu of active searching, users install an app called MeetmoiNOW on their smartphones. They don't hear a peep until matches that meet their pre-specified guidelines wander into the vicinity. Then, and only then, MeetmoiNOW sends an alert, which arrives in the form of a kitschy heart inscribed with a compass-like arrow in the notification bar. If both users indicate interest by "accepting" the match, a chat functionality is enabled and they can figure out how to meet up right then and there.

The company had cooked up a special promotion, entitled "Drinks on Us," whereby if two participants met up at a predetermined bar suggested by Meetmoi via email, their first round of drinks would be on the house. Free things appeal to me as a general rule, and I was also intrigued by the spontaneous nature of the mission I'd chosen to accept. There's something a little sterile--and perhaps a little reminiscent of junior high--about instant messaging with a potential date. Dropping into a corner cafe at a moment's notice, on the other hand, is downright serendipitous! And it's appealing in the way that a Lifetime Movie Network feature starring Jennie Garth is appealing. A little farfetched, but likely not without entertainment value.

In practice, though, my attempt to land a date NOW proved a bit more difficult than anticipated. The freeform event lasted for a week, Monday through Friday. Monday, I was out of town. On Tuesday evening, back in the city, my phone buzzed--potential matches were within range.

Surprisingly, these men seemed normal, and so, purely as a matter of professional curiosity, I began chatting with them on my way to an industry event (the New York Tech Meetup--sweet irony).

A conversation with one clean cut, criteria-meeting bachelor trailed off. But another, with a soulful-looking guitar player (musical hobbyists, my Achilles heel!) got to the point of discussing location. I was walking past Washington Square Park, hoping we wouldn't have to meet at Josie Woods, when my potential date dropped the bomb that he was all the way over in Midtown East. Close as the crow flies, but not close enough for an immediate drink. I headed into the NYU auditorium to distract myself with my personal favorite geek panacea: tech demos.

When Wednesday evening rolled around, I felt the now familiar vibrating signal that indicates a nearby match. Another viable candidate popped up. But there was no reason to engage--I was already on the way to meet friends for drinks and couldn't take a detour to an impromptu meeting. By Friday, my proverbial battery--not to mention my cell phone's--was exhausted from the missed connections. A match came along, and though he seemed like a gainfully employed, dashing fellow, I couldn't stomach the 10 year-plus age difference, and I declined. 

And just like that, the week, and the offer for free drinks, had passed me by. Still, the application hadn't failed exactly--it had put me in contact with people I actually sort of wanted to meet. But now, in the "matches" tab, there was a graveyard of pictures marked "expired"--the connections I wasn't able to act on in time. I was the one who had failed, hesitating when I should have been prepared to meet someone NOW.

Despite the undeniable efficiency of most online dating sites, I still find myself—and many other single New Yorkers I know—kvetching about the inorganic nature of paging through all those disembodied profiles. But if we weren't so overscheduled to begin with, maybe we'd have time to meet people IRL, if you will. MeetMoiNOW aims to facilitate those in-person meetings, yet it was still so easy to pass each other by. We're booked.

Don't get me wrong--I love OKCupid. But anyone who's ever tried to sift through their matches, listlessly sorting people by language spoken (I prefer dates to speak English, but did you know that C++ is a possible selection too?), knows that having the right person sent directly to you like a mobile gift is an enticing proposition. Yet in order to let spontaneous matching work its magic, I knew I'd have to carve out some more room for spontaneity itself in my life.

Several days after the Drinks on Us event had ended, the telltale heart showed up in my notification bar. This time, I was ready. The suggested match fit the bill--tall, dark, and handsome enough--and I accepted right away. And waited. And waited. Perhaps stuck in the subway, or in a meeting, or just uninterested in a 5'4" Sagittarius with a petite build, my would-be Romeo was taking his time. After an hour, a message showed up below his username: "He didn't respond in time." I accepted the dose of electronic justice and vowed to keep on trying, free drinks or not.

alindow [at] observer.com

@annalindow

We found Waldo. He's hailing a cab to get outta the public eye.

This iPad case...Costs $7,000!

There's something really special about a photo of Janette Sadik-Kahn and David Yassky with P. Diddy's image lording over them.

The publisher of Richard Branson's new iPad magazine: "We wanted to say, it's the world's best monthly magazine, every day."

What's that? You miss Four Loko? Don't worry, there's a whipped cream with booze in it, called "Whipped Lightning." Flavors include amaretto and white chocolate "whipahol," and it apparently contains 18% alcohol. Eddie Huang, are you out there?

Or, for the classier reader, here are a few cool-looking holiday alcohol bottles.

A Columbia employee stole $4.5 M. from the university. When confronted, his whiz-kid excuse was to say that the money "appeared" in his bank account. Yup.

Miss New York wanted to end her reign "with a bang." When following in the footsteps of beauty queens like Carrie Prejean and Vanessa Williams, storming a float seems like child's play.

Beef. It's what's for dinner. From Pat Boone's new steak company!

The easiest thing in the world to do is say "Wall Street is evil" and throw every hedge fund under the bus.

I've read a lot of news reports overnight and virtually every one of them adopted the same populist cry. I even saw Inspector Kemp interviewed on this topic, where he said, and I quote, "A riot is an ungly thing... undt, I tink, that it is chust about time ve had vun!" 

Earth to Matilda -- not all hedge funds are evil. The majority of the industry is comprised of good people making honest livings, or at least they were considered honest when free market capitalism had a positive connotation.

Don't get me wrong; if someone crossed a legal line, throw the book at them and demand restitution but let's not try the industry in the court of public opinion and assume they're all criminals. That's misplaced anger and endemic of a broader shift in social mood.

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I don't know what the Feds have on the folks involved in this tangled web of information. My gut says there were wiretaps involved and again, if wrongdoing is proved beyond a reasonable doubt, let's rinse the industry so those operating within the letter of the law rise to the top as they should. I will offer there are shades of gray involved and that's worthy of a mention. "Channel checks," once considered hard work and due diligence, are now being fingered as proof-positive of wrongdoing. 

In 2006, we published The State of the Art and offered that the "trick" for the financial industry was to proactively adapt before the trade passed them by. Indeed, we've been openly critical (sans acrimony) of banking and bankers when warranted, as evidenced by our proactive stance years before the crisis erupted. Many of those dynamics remain in place -- FASB 187 would still sink the system, if passed -- and yes, we need better enforcement if we're to safely traverse the financial crisis.

As a proponent of financial literacy and a champion of individual investors, I applaud efforts at increased transparency and proactive regulation. As a twenty year veteran of the financial industry and a citizen of the United States of America, I can't help wonder if The War on Capitalism has officially entered the next phase.

There are structural issues to consider as well. Hedge funds provide necessary liquidity as market-makers such as Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan (JPM), and Deutsche Bank (DB) wrestle with their own regulatory demons and black box trading dominates the flow. That unintended consequence is not an insignificant point; without liquidity, there are only so many natural buyers and sellers, unless you include the United States Government.

I'm not here to defend those who cut corners. If trading is a zero-sum game, their profits came at the expense of the rest of us. At the same time, the populist should be careful for what they wish, for if the hedge fund industry were to disappear, the specter of free market capitalism will be forced to endure an entirely more profound pathway.

Good luck today.

MORE > Inside Five of the Most Pervasive Investment Scams

Pete Hamill says keep dreaming, boys and girls, for the future of The Internet: "The youngsters I meet at NYU have true passion. They want to do good, solid, reported work. I think they will get the chance. Soon." Kind of great.

This Harry Potter stuff has gone too far. A fake subway station sign leading to mythical Hogwarts land is some fakakta nonsense.

It's a shoe. It's a bag. It's a shoe and a bag. Don't try to understand this on a Monday.

We're big suckers for the "monkey and parrot become friends" trope, and this is no exception. Never gets old.

- Ever wonder what it's like to be on the party circuit in New York? Well, now you can find out. Hint: you can wear Forever21 clothing to meet Marc Jacobs, and no one will notice.

- The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills came to New York, wreaked havoc, and made up the word "machiavellic." The only thing that could have made the episode better would have been a showdown with the Real Housewives of New York.

- Layoffs coming to the DMV. Because, you know, service there is so speedy. We don't need all those employees just bustling about and providing assistance at a moment's notice. No, no, none of that.

- Mario Batali's Eataly makes up its own holiday: White Truffle Day. We like this holiday. 

- No. NO! A bedbug on a subway seat! No one is safe. At all. Ever again.

- Guns don't kill televisions. Men who hate Bristol Palin's dancing so much that they shoot the screen, kill televisions.

- Google will now control the way you buy clothes with a new site called Boutiques.com. Give it up; they control everything.

- Yikes. Could New York state really get itself into a billion dollars' worth of debt? 

- Remember when we said that thing about the Kardashians shirking their party responsibilities? Well, maybe they didn't. Page 6, you got some 'splainin to do.

- Poll says people think Andy Cuomo is gonna be one swell politician. Hopefully his girlfriend will make him some celebratory cakes in honor of this occasion.

- Some dude in Australia is going to sit in a store window with a bunch of spiders for charity. Forgive us for asking but...why? Just why.

- Great news for trinket lovers: there's a year-round Christmas store in midtown. 

Picard faces a hard deadline on filing suits before Dec. 11, two years after Madoff's fraud became public. As US Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland said from the bench Wednesday: "Clearly, we are getting close to a rock and a hard place."

Picard is supposed to be recovering money for victims, so why is he trying to extract money from them? His actions stem from the nastiest words in bankruptcy court: the clawback. His view is that if the investors took out more from their accounts over the years than they actually put in, then they need to give the money back because it could only have come from other victims of Madoff's scheme.So while an investor's statement may have showed capital gains and profits, it was meaningless Madoff fiction. The best estimates by investigators are that Madoff's victims actually gave him about $20 billion in cash and their statements showed alleged assets of more than $65 billion.

RELATED > Inside 5 of the Most Pervasive Ponzi Schemes

Sitting in the audience at Bankruptcy Court Wednesday in Manhattan while other lawyers handled arguments before Lifland, Picard told Minyanville: "We desire to get something done and encourage people to come in and talk to us, as many have." 

Indeed, to date, many terrified Madoff victims have been afraid to talk to the bankruptcy trustee for fear that he will demand money back. Now they face The Big Squeeze that will prove that sometimes silence isn't golden.

Until a victim details his woes to the trustee, Picard's view is he can not use his discretion to make any adjustment for people who have gone broke, face huge medical bills, foreclosure, or countless other problems. In contrast, Picard says some people who have already talked to his team have been dropped from his target list because they clearly cannot pay the money back. 

Marc Hirschfield of Baker & Hostetler told the judge investors must realize that the trustee may only know what has been found in the account records of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. "The trustee understands there needs to be a balancing to what the trustee has done. He has invited people to come forward. There are literally hundreds of lawsuits that might have been commenced that have not been." 

Warning about the hundreds of lawsuits that will be filed by Baker & Hostetler, Hirschfield said: "With a lack of information about hardships. We clearly have no choice but to go forth with these actions." 

In 19 complaints already filed against hedge funds and large investors, Picard is seeking $15.5 billion. His firm has recovered $1.5 billion in settlements so far on behalf of SIPC, the Securities Investors Protection Corporation. Investors have $5.7 billion in claims outstanding that have been ruled valid by Picard.

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Meanwhile, those numbers may soon change dramatically. Sources tell Minyanville that Picard may soon receive a settlement of more than $7 billion from the estate of Jeffry Picower, the investor who got at least $5 billion more from Madoff than he gave him. 

Other possible sources of revenue from litigation could include suits here and abroad that Picard has not yet filed, including against large institutions such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM), the bank that handled much of Madoff's money. The trustee has told the court that nearly 90 cases against financial institutions and funds are being contemplated abroad.

With Picard's huge team of several hundred lawyers poised to race to the courthouse with more lawsuits, speculators who buy investors' bankruptcy claims for pennies on the dollar are watching this case closely. One source says Madoff claims are trading at somewhere between $0.28 to $0.31 on the dollar now. The trading is so brisk apparently that it prompted Judge Lifland to remark: "I don't want to see anybody victimized twice."

While Picard's team was busy in bankruptcy court, the US Marshals Service and auctioneers Gaston & Sheehan were previewing the last sale of Bernie and Ruth Madoff's possessions for the press. 

When the final hammer comes down on Saturday, Bernie's custom-tailored suits, shirts, and shoes, Ruth's 10.5-carat diamond engagement ring, their grand piano, a half dozen watches worth at least $500,000, as well as used lawn furniture and other junk may bring in another $1.5 million.

At the last auction, the customized New York Mets jacket that Bernie owned and was given to him by the Wilpons, his friends/victims/partners who own the Mets -- brought in $14,500 -- 10 times more than expected. This time, the hot keepsake, predicts Roland Ubaldo of the US Marshals Service, will be Bernie's black velveteen monogrammed slippers.

RELATED > Inside 5 of the Most Pervasive Ponzi Schemes

This article was originally published on Minyanville.com and is reproduced here with permission. 

-Heh. Camel markets to Brooklyn hipsters. Next up: American Spirit smoking lounge to open at the Bedford stop on the L.

-If you got shot near the groin leaving a deli, do you think you'd finish the sandwich before going to the ER?

-A reporter lingers around the entrance to the Manolo Blahnik sample sale and buys a pair of gold heels off the makeshift Blahnik black market. The price? Less than $100. Well played.

-No plans for Christmas? How about visiting Santa? At the North Pole!? You can do this for $50k.