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...

Creepy little people

Lately, I've been hanging out at RnB clubs on Friday nights *cringe* Mainly because I want to spend time with my mates who happen to like RnB. So I put up with the bad-on-my-creaky-knees "dancing" for the company.

Straight out - I don't find oriental guys attractive. So walking into a club filled with them exasperates me. Just because there are certain stereotypes about oriental guys that just ring too true. I'm not saying all oriental guys are like this, but the ones I've seen in clubs lately are:
:: DORKY looking with their gelled-up Dragonball Z locks, and triad-style Rick Astley vests;
:: REALLY SHORT to the point where I can see over them when I'm wearing heels;
:: INCREDIBLY STUPID when it comes to the art of picking up women.

Scenario: Me having a good time dancing with my Hotty Friend. Along comes an oriental shorty who starts grinding in close vicinity. *Gee*, that's not creepy at all. We give him the cold shoulder, to no effect.

To be fair, I'm pretty cynical when it comes to guys picking up. A lot of guys in dance clubs have tried the lamer line, "Are you having a good night?" on me - to which I'm internally thinking, "Wtf do you think I'm here if I'm _not_ having a good night?"

So! Imagine what I'm thinking when all the oriental shorty can think of saying to us is, "What's wrong?"

Hotty Friend: "What's wrong? You don't speak Australian."
Me: "What's wrong?!? STOP. Get your hand off me. You're fcking too close."

You'd think this would be a sign for him to go away. However, he persists for a little longer until he's approached by his "wing-woman" and advised to leave the set.

Creepy little people... they exist in RnB clubs :P

Antony Micallef

I'm fast becoming a lover of Lazarides gallery. Remember how I'd love to own a piece of Antony Micallef? Lazarides is currently exhibiting his work :) It's not a big exhibition, it's just a powerful one. In the 15 minutes I spent perusing his work, the word I'd use to describe his work is raw.

I love it. I wish I could pay for it.

The romance

That picture in my head... Of a lovely, airy space... Filled with funky chairs and couches... The aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans wafting with the open breeze...

...Is dead :P

My first week as Rondon's oldest tea lady is over. ME - the seasoned Queen of all-night Doof-Doof raves, a hardcore mid-week drinker, a jetlagged-jet-setting globetrotter, an insomniac vampiric nightowl unphased by daylight - ME! Heartily admits I was knackered out by the end of my second day of manual labour :P

Killed by the overzealous mopping I've had to do over the past week. Did I mention how HUUUGE Yumchaa Soho is? It's TWO LEVELS. I don't even mop my own 3m² kitchen at home! *Chagrin*

So hard had I worked during the past week, that I spent the entire Sunday in BED. Knocked out. Ok, so I did go clubbing with B till 3am on Saturday. Then had a drink or two with T and Boss Lady after my long Saturday shift. You know what? I didn't even last till midnight on Saturday. Home before the carriage turned into a pumpkin.

Yet, I savoured every minute of my social life *grin*

It's a strange rollercoaster. I wake up in the morning, and it's a good sign at least that I still want to go to work. It's a good sign that I don't dread turning up early on the Boss Man's doorstep and waking him up *grin* (it's just the mopping I dread). It's made me think about, "What sort of shop do I want to open?" Well, for starters, I can tell you it's a SMALL shop which requires little cleanup!

It's made me think, "Why aren't I working this hard for myself"?

It's not mentally challenging, it's just hard physical labour (Wtf, stop whinging about your desk job, I love sitting infront of a pooter all day!). To the point where my right arm was seriously *twinging* on Sunday. My right hand sufferred pins and needles, and today I discovered it actually hurt to write (Wicky! I was filling out your form!). Carpal tunnel anyone? Though Y* thinks it could just be a bad case of RSI ;) I hearts having med friends.

Yup, the romance of owning my own cafe is dead. Well, sort of. I still want to do _something_ of my own. Maybe just not on such a large scale atm... I will need munkey minions in that direction. It's a good thing, it's brought me down to earth.

This week has made me truly appreciate the value of my hard earnt pound. It's also made me value how much I took my social life for granted. It's made me love Rondon's public transport system. Only in Rondon could I travel 5.4-freaking-km from Soho to Chelsea, and then back within an hour break! *phew* When I make promises to friends, I don't break them ;) It's a good thing I've been running at the gym, that's all I can say.

Autobaaahn!

Wheeee!
It's very hard to take pictures inside a speeding car :P

Tea lady!

"Do you need a tea lady?"

Gawd knows how many people I've asked that question recently. I've even asked the door-guy who looks after the apartment building *grin*

So it shouldn't really be that much of a surprise when someone actually took me up on my offer and made me into one! *lol* I'm now a proud employee of Yumchaa :)

My first day's been mixed. Everyone was full of encouragement - even when I was partially responsible for a customer spilling his espresso on his suit... In front of the Boss Lady *cringe* Five minutes later, my sausage-like butterfingers soon followed up on the faux pas, when they let slip a cup full of ice. I essentially threw ice cubes at the customer... Again, all this under the eagle eyes of the Boss Lady *double cringe* I never realised before how much of a klutz I am. Sure, I occasionally trip over my own feet. However, I'm fast learning that the rest of me is pretty uncoordinated too :P

I'm kind of surprised actually, that not only am I still employed as a tea lady, but that I was given my share of the tips at the end of my shift (all 1.70 squiddies of it *lol*).

It's been an interesting day, as I suddenly started equating the cost of everything to how much I had to work to earn it. A coffee? That's close to half an hour's work. Two coffees in a day suddenly seems like a luxury. Something that seemed like a drop in the ocean before, now looked more like a bucket in a bathtub.

Another interesting thing for me, is that I'll be working with a completely different set of people than what I'm used to. For starters, I must be Rondon's oldest tea lady. Though, except for my supervisor, I don't think any of the others I met today realised this due to my youthful-looking, well-moisturised skin *grin* So it's kinda hilarious when the young ones look at me sagely and dose out some advice for the newbie. One youngen, gave me a lengthy explanation on why her method of grilling foccacia was better than mine as she thought I would be upset about being corrected. Aah bless :) It's more likely to take a fat angry man to make me cry. Besides the point - it's a freaking foccacia! Who cares how it gets grilled as long as it gets grilled??

I'm really looking forward to my tenure at Yumchaa :) A long time ago, I use to say that I wanted to open my own coffee shop. This is just one test on whether or not opening my own cafe is something I can be passionate about in the future. I'm planning on writing up some reviews on the teas in the shop to help me with my customer recommendations. They smell and taste sooo good! The tea that is, sniffing the customers is probably a sackable offence :P

Boss Lady - If you're reading this, I may have chased away potential regulars, BUT at least I didn't break a single thing today :) Does that mean you're not going to dock my pay? ;)

Everyone else - Come visit me in Soho, and remember to tip!

Stupid <3

There is and there isn't a guy. He flits very randomly in and out of my life with very little notice. He flits in, we get on like a house on fire. He flits out, and a faint imprint is left behind...

The unspoken rules of "No Strings Attached" (for the BASIC geek in you):
10 Well, you don't get attached for starters
20 You don't ever contemplate the possibility of a future together
30 GOTO 10

(Most people remember their first program as "Hello World". Mine was a green Logo turtle which made an equilateral triangle :) )

Problem is, each time it happens, the imprint gets deeper. Here's where it fcking sucks to be a girl. Most guys I've spoken to about this, can just cut off emotionally. They put it away. Emotions out of sight are out of mind.

As a girl, I didn't care at the start. It's just fun. It's nothing serious. Think of the baggage. BIG BIIIIG baggage.

The tumbleweed sweeps by. It's still fun. We get along *so* well. But hell, different cities, different priorities, it's never going to work. Still thinking of the baggage.

The dust storm rolls in. I start thinking "what if". What if he moves back to this city. He's always talking about coming back. We click. We spark. That's why I forgave when he said sorry. It took a lot for him to say sorry, and I really appreciated it. Now I'm starting to wonder if he thinks about me too. Now the baggage is BIG, but maybe it's not soo BIIIIG if things ever got serious.

Dangerous thoughts. That's unspoken line 20 broken.

Dang hard to resist. It's _especially_ hard to resist when he's been training lots and seriously has the body of a Greek god *grin* It's dang near impossible to resist when someone you want, wants you back.

So now I'm just waiting for the hurricane to hit. I won't know when it'll be.

Stupid heart. I should just cut the strings now.

Bonus: Since I'm being nostalgic, here's pics from the Invader exhibition recently held at Lazarides:

Sometimes

...I wonder, "Wtf am I on?!?" Blogging about drowning bees? Aiyah. Talk about a slow blogging day :P

Which still proves my theory that *everything* seems like a great idea when drunk.

Too soft-hearted

It was a sweltering high of 24 degrees today... You think I'm kidding, but for real! It was a proper Engrish Summer day :) Clear skies, heat, and a nice reminder of how good England can feel when it behaves. It's a day when I didn't want to go underground, and spent an hour walking to my destination instead. When I got there, we plonked ourselves down by the side of the Thames and ordered something refreshingly COLD. For me a rose.

I watch as a bright yellow bee buzzes around my giant glass. Oh dear. I'm too sweaty and lethargic to swat it away.

Surely, it's not a bad way to go... An alcoholic's dream. Besides, it was asking for it. All the space in the world to fly around in, and it chose my glass. The buzzing stops as the bee inevitably sinks into my rose.

Aaah bugger.
I lazily pick up the glass and pour it out on the pavement.
The bee lives to see another sweltering, Engrish Summer day!

My friend looks at me like I'm crazy (fair enough, he bought my drink!).
I still believe in karma. I still believe that one day, I'm going to be stuck in a very dumb situation and I'm hoping I get mysteriously bailed out too. Let's just call this paying it forward.

Which Saturday? (Part ii)

The poll is closed:

What does this prove?
:: That I have a readership of 19 people :P
:: At least 4 of them are my friends ;)
:: The other 15 are likely to be at least a week late if they're meeting me.

"Do you remember"

Me: "... your first time?"
All: "Yes."
Me: "How old were you?"
Him 1: "17"
Him 2: "16"
Him 3: "13"
Me: "WTF, 13?!? How did you know where to put it?"
Him 3: "What do you mean? I still don't know where to put it"

I can understand for girls, it's easy. I *can't* understand for guys. It's dangly, it's out there, it flip flops around, sometimes, from what I see, you guys don't even have control of it. Behave, we're in public! ("Won't someone think of the children?" ;) ) If I pwn'd something like that, I wouldn't know what the hell to do with it.

How on earth do you live with something which just points when it wants to?!?

Tonight's funny thing is, the surprised looks when I wore this:

Yes. HEELS.

I don't think the girls with the surprised looks realised that I only wore heels because I thought that's what they were going to be wearing... Personally, I don't think the guys I met tonight cared 2p what was on my feet ;)

Twitter

It use to be cool. Until I started getting Twitterspam. I don't know what's more insulting:

That I'm getting loads of pr0n0 requests - which would be fine if they were a little less skanky...

OR that these skanks think that I'm a "DORKY GUY".

*hurrumph*

Needs something stronger

Here's the latest work in-progress.

See where it's going?

Unfortunately, UHU isn't strong enough to hold the head onto the canvas. It plops off barely 10 mins later. Boooo... This is taking me forever to finish. Now I to have purchase a glue-gun *sigh*

Hot geeks

I was talking to S the other day, and she mentioned that she's not into geeks. They're just not hot enough *grin*

WELL... On my quest to find something to do with my time the other day, I stumbled across this MAKE video:

Besides the fact that these guys are hilarious, Joe Grand (on the left) is pretty cute :)

There's always David Heinemeier Hansson too. The Google-O'Reilly Hacker of the Year for 2005 :) Also Wired's Hottest Hacker on earth *grin*

To be honest, I find the geeky guys more interesting than the other types of stereotype guys. Smarter than the average bear, and always up for some fun. I think a lot of their attitude comes from their unwillingness to leave childhood behind *grin* Always with the latest toys, gadgets, video games, comics... Hrm, ok, maybe I have a thing for geeks because I like playing with their possessions :P See, I don't just go for looks, I go for material things too ;)