Rice and Potato on the Same Plate

Last night I recorded an interview with John Ong for Ongline Podcast.

It’s quite personal, revealing, funny, silly and serious all at the same time and you can find it here: Ongline #172 Rice Queen from Swanlake.

I think there is another show coming, maybe another one after that. John is such a good interviewer and I had so much fun doing the interview, I don’t think there will be a better one with me ever. Check it out!

Video: Eat Me Out

Thought I’d have some Chinese food to get me in the mood for my interview with Miss Penang.

This is dedicated to Andy Melton, who likes his food. He asked for photos of me eating, but gets this instead.

Forgiven

Mostly!

Pervs and Stalkers

I’ve had to update my Flickr profile, thanks to an influx of pervs and stalkers lately. It must be all that skin.

Guess What!

Fuck you.

Repeated attempts over the last 18 months, dear reader, repeated attempts – even by the Apple Europe Product Manager.

I refer you to a previous post, if you don’t know what I’m on about.

He Was Called Michael

I may as well come out and say it.

You know how I thought the problem after the weekend would be tiredness and that I wouldn’t get any work done? Not a bit of it, I haven’t flagged once while my friends have variously snoozed/puked/died temporarily. I may have had the shakes the day after our night out, but I still got us the 250 miles home flawlessly (although the credit should go to Audrey), posted my photos, answered my support emails, fed the cat.

I think I know why, but there’s just one problem. I keep drifting off into daydreams. I still see his face, the way he danced, how fit he was, when he looked into my eyes and what a kisser! The hottest guy in the club, by far. Too bad he was taken, not that he seemed to mind… sigh!

Photo updates: Purrplechick has all the rude and funny ones, Swingnut is artastic, my mind was clearly elsewhere.

Not one of Michael, unfortunately. Normally, I can’t do anything without having a lens shoved in my face. Typical.

Crazy

Party Babydaddy originally uploaded by steveharris.

The weekend of my dreams was that!!! All the right ingredients, served up on a bed of rice.

I forgot to take the video camera, so alas, no decent video to post. Oh well, we’ll just have to do it again sometime soon.

Out and about photos here – something for everyone there, arty photos here, more from friends soon.

Song of the weekend, rings true, but I don’t care (since I’ve been there, done that, come back): Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

Just the Essentials

A quiet geek is a busy geek. Been developing software (as you do when you’re an indie software developer) to release next week after this weekend away in Brighton – gay capital of the UK. Expect some silly videos.

It’s amazing the things a girl needs for two nights away. I’m much the same. Incredibly, I managed to go to the US last year for two extra days with half the luggage. Maybe because I only needed to take the straight half of me. I have one bag for my laptop, chargers, cables, etc, a camera bag with two cameras in it plus an extra lens, batteries, charger, etc, another bag full of Jack Daniels, Coke, Diet Coke and Brecon Carreg water, my glasses and contact lenses (daily disposables), and finally a larger bag with about 5 outfits in there, makeup (!) and all my toiletries. Sigh.

That’s enough clothes for two evenings (dinner and stuff), two nights out and two daytimes with some mix and match going on, making allowance for shorts / non-shorts depending on the weather – when you dress like we do when we go out, you can’t really wear the same stuff to a restaurant as a nightclub and the daytimes are an entirely different matter.

While the alcohol bag is a shared resource, now I have to see if I out-luggage purrplechick. Probably, since all her clothes are tiny, although the purrple corset may be interesting to pack and what about those shoes… oh, those shoes…

Caught

Caught

Originally uploaded by Franticsmurf.

Damn paparazzi! I was caught in Starbucks today, without permission from my coffee and frappuccino guzzling friends by a fellow Flickr snapper.

I’d just been for a haircut and to get my highlights done when Dave came in, whipped this tiny slim little camera out of his shirt pocket and shot me in the act. And to catch me all hot and sweaty too. Tsk!

Crash Confessions

“Crash delays traffic”

Originally uploaded by swingnut.

It was nice of the paramedics to make it sound like he was almost dead. OK, maybe they didn’t, but when they call from an ambulance and don’t say much, you tend to think the worst, hoping it will be better. Thankfully it was. I spent last night in A&E not watching BBC One, waiting. Here’s why and here’s l’il Miss Purrplechick’s version of events.

And now for an exclusive blog confession about old me.

I trashed a rental car at 90mph in the middle of nowhere, Spain, six years ago. The good thing about that was it wasn’t mine, I was fine, nobody else got hurt and a local policeman named Paco came along (fortunately after I’d finished my spliff) to help me get some water and keep me company while I waited for the recovery truck. We talked for hours in my broken Spanish and his non-existant English with the help of a bilingual dictionary and I’ll always remember him for that – a true saint. I told everyone that I was tired and that it was a silly mistake.

It took me 6 years to confess the absolute truth of the situation to Ade. I’d fled from horrid Benidorm where I was on a cheap week’s holiday with him and his friend Alex, to see an old friend of my own in Malaga, 350 miles south, while they stayed behind in some English bar (probably). Nigel was a made guy with a crap name and the morning after an evening of fab food in La Carihuela (famed for having the best fish and seafood in southern Spain), wine, absinthe and joints smoked in his swimming pool, I set off again. So, perhaps, I wasn’t really in the best shape to drive the 7 hours back.

At the time, I had just started taking anti-depressants to calm me down (the intense stress of my job had made me hyper), but since you can’t really drink while you’re on them, had laid off them, and since you’re not meant to lay off them, returned to my former hyperactive self. And so, of course, I drove like a crazed fool through the addictive switchbacks and bends as the road weaved around the coast. I always wanted to do it in a decent car, like my own.

And I was stupid, screaming along in the outside lane on the autovia doing 100mph in a car that probably should never hit 100mph. The cigarette lighter I so desperately needed had fallen on the floor, I reached down to get it and when I looked up, I was an inch away from the centre barrier. I turned, maybe a little too sharply, and the tinny little car pirouetted as though only on one wheel. It crashed into the barrier, the airbag deployed (horrible), I lost a contact lens and with me half-blind and completely stunned, the car miraculously steered itself onto the hard shoulder not getting hit by the huge truck that was in the inside lane at the time or any of the other cars around.

That accident changed me because it could have been a whole lot worse. If that truck had hit me, I would be probably be dead. Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly grandma behind the wheel but I keep my distance, leave my temper at home (actually that temper of mine packed up and left for good soon afterwards), don’t take risks and, er, have big fuck-off brakes. It’s ironic that the safer cars are the faster cars because they can stop, corner and take off again really quickly.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: if you must, crash a car without getting too hurt. It’ll be good for you in the end.

And I’m very glad, Mr Swingnut, that you made it out of this one OK.