Change

I still remember how excited I was moving into my first apartment in Rondon. I was so happy, that I jumped on my bed and broke the slat (which I duct taped back together the other day)! I still remember shopping for one small pot and one small bowl (just enough for Mee Goreng) with B :)

After 3 and a bit years, our crazy/psychotic/zen oriental landlord has sold the place. B and I handed in our notice, packed up, and days before leaving the country, we moved. For a minimalist, I had a lot of crap to pack up :P

Today, I left 3 sets of keys on the table, hugged the porter J goodbye, and walked away.

Strangely, I'm not sad about leaving the place. I always knew it wasn't permanent, and I never really made an effort to make it feel like my home. I'm more sad about leaving the area. The local pubs round the corner, the close proximity to the center of Rondon, Regents Park in my backyard, the weekend visits to Marylebone High Street, the evening drinks with friends who all lived around me... I think the best thing about living where I did, was that it was just so easy :)

Like B said, after 3+ years, it's an end of an era.
Hotel Beenikster is now closed.

*Shudder*

I left my account up on Speed Dater for a few days. Just out of curiousity. After 4 days, I've deleted it. I got the heebee-geebees. Here's why. On first inspection of my profile, I seem to be doing quite well:

6 votes, average of 4.8 out of 5 (someone obviously didn't want me to get a fathead ;) ). I've been "officially" rated as a "Honey". Lots of messages from other members. All looks good.

Like everything in life, everything *always* looks good on paper :P My ego was humbly deflated when I dug a little deeper. In reality, here are the people who rated me:

Call me superficial if you must. Just tell me if you were in my shoes, you'd find this a compliment :P

It's not just that, everytime I read the profile of someone who's messaged me, I'm sooo turned off. They can't spell, mainly because they can barely speak English. Some of them _are_ English! It's a joke when a guy claims to be "inteligent and hansome" :P Some of them seem so dodgy. Some of them think they're god's gift. Some of them are just very large and very old. I find the very large and very old factors disturbing. It seems lecherous for someone 50+ to like me. It makes me think that these are the ones who go to Asia and bring back wives. I have no evidence, it's just a very awkward gut feeling.

It's not that I don't date older men. Truth be told, I've dated someone approximately 11 years older than me. However, I met this guy IRL, we had an awesome time together, and we had a lot in common. We spent loads of time talking about everything and anything. This feels different. This feels like someone picking me as a mail order bride. I guess I look like a lot of fun in my profile pic, and as you can see, that's all that's on my profile. Nothing about what I'm like, or what I'm interested in. So what exactly does a 50-something year oldie, or even the fatty, think he has in common with a 30-something year old who looks like she goes clubbing a lot? It's just strange that I'm getting quite a bit of attention from the same demographic. Do I look like a "safe" bet?

When my gut tells me it's wrong, I listen. *DELETE ACCOUNT*...

Oh dear

Quality:

To be fair, the picture's already a bit weird because I've blotted out his eyes so that if you ever bump into him in the whole-wide-UK, you'd never be able to point at him and go, "OH YOU'RE THE ODD HIGH-TALKER AT SPEED DATING REENIE WAS TALKING ABOUT!"

The point is, and I really don't want to be mean, however, regardless of who you are, if you're trying to pick up, DO NOT post a profile pic with a double chin! :)) Not attractive! Does that really need to be explicit?!?

The other thing is, unless you're a hottie with a six-pack and oh, personality and a sense of adventure I guess, DO NOT use the line, "How would you like to see what's missing from your life?" on your profile! I'm sorry, but I don't need an extra chin.

He was truly the only guy in the group that I struggled to chat with.

I think I've found the perfect career for myself - Teaching guys how to look good and pick up. Not that I've ever tried, but I can't believe how clueless some guys are. It's not like I'm great at picking up, but there are some really *obvious* things guys should already know. Take me out on a date for two hours, and I'll point out every creepy/weird/annoying thing that you do. For no extra cost, you can also listen to me rant about what's right to do on a date ;)

Those who have so far ticked me down as a "date" match, are the Italian who couldn't speak English very well, the creepy guy who stroked my flower, and two very young guys. I don't think I'm ready to be a Cougar yet though, hahaha! :)

(Note to Mollow: I'm proud of you, I've been hearing very good reports back about your bill-calling *grin*)

3 mins

Huh.

The top 3 questions asked of me:
#1. "Where are you from?"
IF (guy.speaks(ENGLISH))
{reenie.println("G'day Mate");}
ELSE
{reenie.imitate(kangaroo);}
#2. "What do you do?"
IF (guy.senseofhumour())
{reenie.println("I sharpen pencils in a factory");}
ELSE
{reenie.println("I work in IT as a Business Analyst");
#3. "What do you think of tonight?"
reenie.println("It's been... interesting");

Huh.

I did meet a couple of fun guys, where 3 mins of my time just seemed to fly by :) I also met a few guys that were just a little socially awkward and were more effort. I met one who was just _odd_. Very very _odd_. He had a higher pitched voice than me, type of _odd_. One guy who was creepy. He was the only guy who reached out to start stroking my fake blooded flower. I immediately advised him to keep his hands to himself and not to try the same trick on the next ladies. He was also the only one who said I was "fit". Drunk perhaps? ;P

I feel sorry for blokes. It does seem like they have a harder time. I think a lot of it comes down to honing their conversational skills. When every single guy ahead of you asks the same 3 questions above, you have to think about what's going to distinguish you from the rest. Gawd, am I the only one who bothered to do my homework?

To make things more interesting, my Partner-in-Crime for this event and I gave each other five words to use in conversation. His choices for me were:
:: Bamboozle, Bugaboo, Shadoof, Discombobulated, Gubernatorial.

I think the only one I didn't use was, "Gubernatorial". Mainly because I had issues pronouncing it :P You can tell PiC is an American, can't you? ;)

My words for PiC were:
:: Syphilis, Foot-fungus, Chlamydia, Fart-tastic, Hoochie-momma.

To his credit, he used "Foot-fungus" on a Kiwi girl who was apparently a nasty piece of work *grin*

I also took this chance to perform a survey.
Me: "So, have you seen Total Recall? You have? Ok, would you date a chick with 3 b00bies?"

Guy 1: I didn't ask, because he didn't speak English very well. I feared the question would get lost in translation.
Guy 18: "NO." (Looks at me like I'm a freak and I can actually see the relief wash over him when the bell rings. English prude. I didn't ask anyone who didn't seem to have a funny bone after that.)
Guy 17: "YES." (Proceeds to stick two hands up and tongue out in such a way that I burst out laughing. You can always rely on Aussies to have a crude SOH :) )
Guy 12: "4 boob minimum!" (Italiano, of course ;) )
Guy 7: "Yes, but only to find out what it's like. But I wouldn't take her home to my mother." *lol*
Guy 3: "Sure, why not. I'll take 3 boobs. But 4 boobs max. I wouldn't do 5."

Results - 3 No'sus, 5 Yes'us, 1 Maybe :) There ya go.

So yeah. "Interesting" is the best adjective I can muster up for this experience. Would I pay to do it again? No, because it's bloody expensive at 23 squids a pop. Not to mention the bar charged me 5 squids for a BEER. Extortionate!!! Really. I can't say I'd recommend Speed Dater at all.

I guess, what I took away from tonight, is errr... more proof that I really _can_ talk sht to anyone these days. "So... If I were to give you a million pounds, but you had to sleep with someone infected with syphilis, would you do it?" :P

T -03:00:00

So, do you think I'm going to pick up at Speed Dating tonight? *lol*

Maybe I forgot to leave some nice clothes out before packing and moving all my sht to my new abode. Ah well... Might as well make the most out of my Halloween flower...

"What is a kernel?"

Me: "I can give you another name for it. It's a shell... It's that *thing* that... (*argh*)... connects directly to the processor..."

(>_<)

FAIL.

Where to look? (NSFW)

Warning: This post has an explicit picture at the bottom and probably shouldn't be viewed at work :P

A long time ago, I posted (beware, link has pic of large glass dild0 :P) about girl-friendly sex shops in Rondon. The ones on a proper high street, with warm bright lights inside. I also wrote about having to go shopping for Babsy's hens gifts last year.

Recently, I've had to do some _more_ shopping, this time for Ms K's door games and T's hens night. This time, I visited the seedier shops in Soho, Rondon's redlight district. I seriously think I've been to about 80% of the sex shops in Soho. The other 20% are probably hidden from view and I haven't found them yet. The most suprising shops I found were the ones which looked like a proper, normal, bookshop upstairs, but were actually fully stocked sex dens downstairs.

Shopping for a candy bra and stripper shoes might seem like easy tasks to complete, but you'd be surprised. It's quite unnerving actually. Everytime I stepped through the discrete doorway at the back of the shop, or down the stairwell to the basement, I was guaranteed two things:
:: I would be the only female there and all eyeballs would swivel uncomfortably in my direction;
:: I would be absolutely *surrounded* by wall-to-wall hardcore pr0n DVDs. Wooo, "Council Estate Skanks" looks good :P

It's very hard to act natural and nonchalant when all I see are men with pr0n DVDs in their hands. I'm not a pr0n connoisseur, but from what I've watched, these aren't Mills&Boons romance stories :P

The thing that strikes me as strange (besides the perfumed "Chinese doll" designed to smell like a real woman displayed above me), is finding someone who's of grandpa age browsing the DVDs. I would've thought guys grow out of pr0n. Eventually.

I felt lame asking for a candy bra when there were all these massive silicone pee pees right infront of me.

The sex shopping experience though, wasn't as bad as having to walk into a professional print shop (these guys did a great job) and ask the guys there to print out giant board posters of naked men for "Pin the Willy". Yes. I'm now the proud owner of two giant naked men. One who bares a resemblance to Borat. I use to be a proud owner of a giant pee pee too, but that went missing on the hens night.

MIA: Has anyone seen this hanging around Covent Garden?

Me: "Are you going to charge me for the p3nis?"
Printer: "No, you can have the p3nis for free."
Me: "Aww, that's so sweet! A free p3nis!" *grin*

The pervy things I do for my girlfriends.

PS: Want more reason for me *not* to use my lappy when inebriated? After 2 long island ice teas, copious amounts of red wine, then vodka, I took the above pic using Photo Booth, and proceeded to email it to a couple of my aunties with the subject, "c**k" (>_<) OOooh yeah, everything's a good idea when drunk...