Shoe Shine, Car Shine and Sex in the City

So after gym I am so deur die blare (through the leaves) that in the parking lot basement at work, in the process of trying to create the leaning tower of my dairy, access cards and my lunch, I manage to throw out a small container with my lunch over the passenger seat...and beyond. It basically looks like someone just hurled mince, and mushrooms, and pieces of pepper and onion over my handbrake, gear shift and inside those little tracks that the chairs run on. I try to pick up grubs of meat, but the damage is done. Small curls of steam emerge out of both ears. When I get back my car is gonna smell like beef stew. STOOOPID.

So in my lunch break I went to a valet service at a great garage in Lower Houghton, and had the thing completely cleaned. Even played a bit of golf on a small green nearby. While I was standing there some kid offered to shine my shoes. Why not?

After work I was stuck in a gargantuan ruby traffic jam - I think we left at about 5:45pm and got there at around 7pm. Lots of people, famous names (don't ask me to mention any, I just heard a few gasps), some nice free drinks and goodies. The Sex and the City Premiere was well attended. The movie itself was...let's see...funny, heartwarming, witty and sexy. It's a chick flick, but there's enough porn and hot chicks to make it worthwhile for the guys. Umm...scratch that. It's a chick flick that feel like 4 episodes crammed into one. It's a good movie, good story, but it would have been great if they could have sliced one episode's worth out. I think we went in at 8pm and came out at 11pm. We didn't even stay for dessert. Sarah jessica reminds me so much of my sister.

Classic line, Carrie: I need to get out of this Mexicoma. There's more witty dialogue, I'm just to sleepy to remember any of it clearly. But I like the idea of getting married in a court building, something modest and un-traditional. Oops. I think I've spoiled it for you now. But then again, who in their right mind gets married in the first place? I guess...people who really love each other, that's who.

What's The Point Of A Blog?

A blog is a chance to get a detailed behind the scenes picture of your favorite writer, celebrity or normal person. It's more detailed orientated than Facebook, it's more personal than email. In my case, when I have stuff appearing in publications, it can be viewed first here, with bonus footage/content. Also, while we may be used to a one-way flow of data (from a page through our eyes into our brains), a blog allows the opportunity for the reader to respond. Increasingly, you might find a curious detail and want the writer to expand on it. Or, as is often the case, you want to show/tell the writer that you are more intelligent than he/she is.

I started to appreciate the power and usefulness and thrill of blogging while living in Broadband Heaven - South Korea. I had read what I thought was a rare and astutely insightful book (The Long Emergency - by Jim Kunstler)and then was referred in the epilogue to his blog (www.kunstler.com). It's not the best design, but he writes well, has in the millions of visitors and it was fascinating following his commentary on events (updated daily and a column weekly), and seeing how predictions and reality became increasingly congruent. I have also emailed the author a few times and received several interesting responses, which is something you could never do until modern times. The same thing occurred with Weston DeWalt, author of The Climb, who actually contacted me via reading my blog.

It is amazing that we have the capacity now to read one another's minds, and for one person to infiltrate millions of minds, and for those millions (I almost said 'minions') to respond en masse. Kunstler says he wades through masses of emails each day.

The point of a blog, for me, in the beginning, was to provide a place for those people who wanted to get in touch with me, to visit (instead of sending group mails and getting 5 irritated responses each time). I am still shocked, surprised, awed, weary of the fact that what is published on the web can be read by a little girl on a computer in Australia, or a hairy nosed scientist at the North Pole, and everywhere in between.

I only worry that few of us take this technology seriously. So much - the majority by far - of what enters the public consciousness is drivel. And drivel begets drivel. Drivel and our fascination with drivel (rather than what is necessary) is what has driven us to where we are as a civilisation, and we know it is not a safe, happy, sustainable or even sane place. Blogs - if enough people experience a koo koo moment - may be able to reverse this effect, this mental malaise. Change begins with a change in mindset, and blogs can do, I believe, plenty to shift the zeitgeist to a more meaningful level of functionality.

A Guide to Embracing Life as a Single (Without the Resignation, That Is)

For some singles at New Year’s Eve soirees tonight, the minutes leading up to midnight will be agonizing as they ponder whom they’ll be standing next to at the pucker-up moment.

Sherri Langburt, a founder of SingleEdition.com, a Web site on navigating life as a single person without the drumbeat of dating advice.

But a new Web site, SingleEdition.com, wants nothing more than to embrace them. And unlike dating sites that treat being single as a predicament, this one celebrates flying solo, and offers shopping, financial and other advice to help them do so with pride.
“If you Google the term ‘single,’ all that comes up is dating, dating, dating,” said Sherri Langburt, a founder of SingleEdition.com. “But what we’re saying is there’s a whole other realm of things that go on for a single person that are not dating.”

Articles on the site give advice on how to entertain in small apartments (have cheese- or chocolate-tasting parties instead of sit-down meals), how to cook for one (try freezing homemade soup in ice trays to simplify defrosting single portions) and how to select gifts for other singles (perhaps an audio book or a G.P.S. device to help a solo driver).

More.

NVDL:I said to a friend once, who is married: 'The difference between us is that you have too little time for yourself, and I have too much.' But I become increasingly convinced that not getting married and not having children is an altruistic and necessary act. I see it becoming a sensible trend, a choice, for an increasingly conscious set of the population. It is good for the individual and society, with the proviso that the single person can at least maintain some kind of connection/long term relationship with groups and individuals within society. This isn't always easy. Older singles can develop bad habits, become brittle and selfish. Maintaining openness, a fresh and flexible attitude is the best way to embrace change. Can individuals deal with change better than families? In extreme scenarios, I would argue, yes. And especially scenarios that severely erode wealth, and could mean losing your job and home.

We are living in a world with too many people, too few resources, and some critical, painful and austere issues facing us. To then get married hoping to live with a brood happily ever after is, I think, delusional. Perhaops get married but don;'t have children? What is the point of that? Of course, what if things unravel in the generation after mine? Should I have partied on and made the most of my life (assuming getting married can be assocaited with 'getting the most' or is it the best and worst out of life), leaving my children with a messed up world?

Doubtless I am outnumbered in this assessment, but this ought - unfortunately - to change, and it is changing.
Also read: The Marriage Myth