Tag Archives: azerbaijan

Drinkies @ Azerbaijan!!!

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We had a wee anti-festival drinkies last night… and by wee… I mean wee!!   There was barely 8 of us… but we were a fairly committed bunch… intent on making up for all the serious amounts of lost drinking we were foregoing by not attending festival this year.  And I must say… judging by the bottles this morning, we made a fair dint on that goal!

For special fun and torture, I inflicted my some of my oldest friends on my newest friend…  And I must say the results weren’t as disastrous as they usually are when you throw someone new into a well established social group…. the new friend held up tolerably well, and the old friends (for the most part) behaved themselves.   So we had a pretty good night…  🙂    Shame that the Darkman and his gorgeous little KissGirl couldn’t make the party….. but that, no doubt, could have led to a very different night indeed!    😛

Losing the Battle of Cobbler Peg.

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There’s a small paved path that goes from my laundry door, past the living room window, to the clothesline.  A small and insignificant little paved path that is of little use and of no particular import in the world at large.  So how did it come to piss me off so badly!??!?!

Answer:  It rained.  Yep.  It finally rained… we’ve been pretty much living in drought for the last few years (since before the paths very existence) and the wee paved path wasn’t a bother for the duration.  It’s been so dry here, that the weeds are struggling to survive, let alone the plants you’re trying to keep alive.  So when it finally started to rain about 6 weeks ago, (co-incidentally about the same time I started working) the weeds have just gone out of control.  So much so, that the path in question is barely discernible under the grasses and cobbler pegs that have sprung up in between the pavers.  I’ve nearly gotten the cobbler pegs under control a few times, but they always come back… as my neighbours aren’t bothered to dig them out on their side of the fence.

I’ve tried a number of different weed killers, and in the past, have spent hours pulling the weeds out, but now I don’t seem to have much time to pull damn weeds, and fairly small amount of motivation to find the time required considering how hot it’s been out there lately.  Every time I look out the living room window, all I can see is cobbler pegs, grasses and weeds growing in the path… and I despair of ever getting rid of them… it’s making me twitch!!!

What to do … what to do…  maybe I’ll just keep the living room curtains shut!  😐
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Dinner Monkey

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WANTED : DINNER MONKEY

Must be an excellent conversationalist , have vast life experience and plenty of interesting/appalling tales with which to regale his dinner companions. Ability to easily converse on numerous topics, including (but not limited to): movies, international politics, psychology, BDSM, religion, tyres, music,  historical embroidery, mushroom recipes, art galleries, medieval history, books, technology,  photography, tequila, travel,tattooing, unemployment, and Izzardisms will be considered a bonus.  A fine appreciation of the absurd, a combattive verbal style and a tendency towards a dry/sarcastic sense of humor also required. Prefer… a not too fussy eater who comes with nice dry reds.  References may be required. 😉   Apply via email… all bribes accepted.

Yep, I think we need a new Dinner Monkey. I’ve barely had 2 or 3 dinner parties in the last 12 months since my Dinner Monkey left town… who would have thought he’d be so difficult to replace!  I imagine there would be any number of willing and available bachelor types (you know guys… who don’t/can’t cook) out there prepared to be the entertainment for the evening in return for a home cooked meal… but alas…. this seems not to be the case.  🙂

Perhaps my previous Dinner Monkey, MD, set the bar a little too high huh?  HdM has tried to valiantly to fill the vacant Dinner Monkey shoes, but is soon to come with time consuming girlfriend attachment, so not so useful a Dinner Monkey as one might hope for!!!   lol


my pet!

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Shopping Fairy or Consumer from Hell?

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Having decided to accept the inevitability of a nasty coffee machine festering in my kitchen, I likewise decided I could be magnanimous about it’s impending arrival and assist Mr K in getting a good price for it.  Over the years I’ve developed quite the reputation for being a tenacious shopper – I can’t stand browsing the shops just looking at ‘stuff’ but when there’s an agenda… I’m usually pretty good at squeezing the price down.   I’m also one of those consumers, who wont be ignored when I’m unhappy  (Just ask JJJ how I helped her get $1500 back from United Airlines when they tried to mess her over).

Two shopping mottoes:  "Never pay full retail"  and  "the squeaky wheel gets the oil"  ….!!!  In the past I’ve saved $450 when buying my first digital SLR… saved $580 off a fridge…. saved $180 off a washing machine…. and numerous other largish purchases.  Dont get me started on car shopping!  🙂

Anyway the jumping off price for the coffee machine was $799, which is what is appearing in most of the catalogues etc.  So I rang around afew retailers doing the "Hi.  i am going to buy one of these coffee machines this week, Retailer X said they could do it for $729, can you do a better price than that?"  and so on and so forth.

Did pretty good with that approach – got the price down to $599.  Then it was time to hit the consortiums.  You ring them, tell them your best price and they find someone who will beat it.  So you give them the lowest quote you can find, just means they have to work a bit harder to do better.  So I called Consortium1 (online guys)…. they came back with $563…. not bad… tried Dad’s old API Shoppers consortium… $550 even… hit BigSal’s Union Shopper consortium and came back with $530.00.  Think we’ve bottomed out with that one.

Not too shabby … About a dozen phone calls all up, and $270 saved.  🙂  Now I just have to tell Mr K about my cut of the savings  🙂

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The Great Coffee Aversion

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I’m not particularly fond of coffee you know?  Alright that is a gross understatement.  I hate it.  With a passion.  Anyone who has known me for any length of time ends up hearing about it eventually… normally the information is imparted in response to a ‘Would you like  a cup of coffee?’ type question.  To which I invariably reply in a mild tone, ‘ No thanks, I don’t drink coffee.’  A statement which is oft greeted with explosive “Oh my god!” type reactions, and “What do you mean you don’t drink coffee’ or ‘I couldn’t live without my coffee!”   It’s a ridiculous and inane conversation I have had more times than I can count, and it usually ends with me defending my choice not to consume coffee like everyone else  😐

Some people of my acquaintance don’t truly comprehend just how much I dislike it….. immediately coming to mind are the Outlaws who came to stay just before I had Angel.  They couldn’t believe we didn’t have a coffee machine in the house, so they went out and bought a cheap filtered coffee machine.   And the damn thing was on the boil all day, every day for the two weeks they were here.  😐   It made my entire house reek of coffee, and the smell of it was literally making me throw up!!  (Well… I was kinda up the duff at the time).  Luckily they took their nasty habit and their nasty coffee machine with them when they left.  So it was this brief, but intensely traumatic, period that cemented my aversion of all things coffee related….

I hate the taste of coffee. 
I hate the smell of coffee. 
I hate foods that are flavoured of coffee.
I hate kissing someone who has been drinking coffee.
I hate it when people get snobby about their coffee (yes Surly that’s you!)
I hate it when people make out they can’t function without coffee.
I just hate coffee goddammit!

Anyway, bearing all this in mind and getting to the point at hand …   you can imagine how thrilled I was when Mr K announced he was going to buy a u-beaut, all singing, all dancing coffee machine this week ……  😐 

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