...departed back to Adelaide for the family xmas gathering.
Rather, a series of gatherings since I have such a disjointed family.
I have to say, totally changing the subject at the very start, that sg.msn.com is totally lame. Unbelievably bad. In Oz when I click out of hotmail and get ninemsn.com.au it is informative, it is a reasonable news service, it is reasonably up to date, although the spider drawing story was carried for far too long. But sg.msn is unbelievably out of date, for cri'sakes it is STILL carrying pre-US election stories! I can well understand why Singaporeans pan it so much. Is it too much to ask that one person spend just one hour a day on it?
Anyhow, that is really neither here nor there ('cos it is waaayyyyy over there, in yankee land).
On Monday I fly back to Adelaide for two weeks. My main suitcase is totally loaded with stuff for other people; half of it is taken up by the bag of stuff for Paul and Cheng's baby from her sisters, the other half is xmas pressies for my family. They will all be marked "Have a Happy European Winter Solstice!" since I am so anti-xianity. I will carry a change or two of clothes in my carry-on.
So I am blogging just because I might not get another chance to for going on three weeks (I will be totally pre-occupied with moving to my new apartment when I get back).
Blogs are an accepted venue for whinging, and I have a few whinges of late, but I am far too mature a person to gab about such irrelevancies in public, so I won't. Sometimes I definitely feel like whinging a bit before I log on, but once I am on it seems like they are my problems and there is no need to offload them onto anyone else. So when I do whinge online it must be something that really upsets me. And the HSBC website not accepting my password and locking me out comes into the former category; especially when I suspect that it was the Asus password manager that was responsible. Firefox seems to trigger it whereas IE doesn't so much, and as if I want my laptop recording my financial passwords somewhere on my hard-drive, but in clicking 'cancel' I think it nulled the datastring sent to the server. With the big IE security issue now current I didn't want to use it, but Firefox has its own problems at times. Truth be told, I think Firefox is getting more problems with each new version. Whereas IE is slowly improving; it is good that it has multiple tabs now, but they could have built in tab duplication at the same time. Anyhow, I am just waffling on about browsers because I have nothing better to say.
So I might as well shut up.
Saturday, December 20
Monday, December 15
Didn't you always want...
A place by the sea?
Yes! Of course I do!
And now I have one!
Yes, the important news for this week is that I have a new flat!
I think what is called something like a 2+1+1 here in Singapore; meaning two bedrooms, 1 other room, and one hall. Also they are both what is called here 'common rooms' as in neither is a master bedroom. The 'other' room is a new addition (the HDB - Housing Development Board - is upgrading the estate) called a utility room, it does have a tiled floor, but no water points so it is not a laundry (so why tile the floor?), it is about half the size of one of the bedrooms. And the last 'room' is the entrance hall, which is wide and makes a small living room. There is a real kitchen, not just a small gas cooker (one ring, like a camping cooker) on a small cupboard in the corridor as there is where I am now. No, this one has a two ring gas cooker run from a gas bottle - so, a larger camping style cooker! That seems to be the way kitchens are here, and given that most families are cramped in small apartment and food halls are so cheap is it any wonder that everyone eats out? And that food halls are so busy all day long. No, this kitchen has a raised and tiled platform to fit a clothes washer and room for a large fridge and enough room in that same corner for a separate freezer if you choose, but more likely I will go for a pantry cupboard. And separate toilet and shower. There are metal security doors and windows, aircon in the two bedrooms, and wired for cable with two or three points.
Yes, it is an HDB, that is to say that it is in an estate that is several buildings constructed by the government to provide subsidised housing (that 85% of the population of Singapore live in). The estate is being upgraded, so the apartment has been renovated and is clean and 'dentless', the shops are being renovated, the playground is being rebuilt, gardens and lawns are being replaced.
The ground floor (first floor here, they speak American when it comes to architecture) is all shops and the second floor (which would be the 'first floor' in English or European) are apartments that are linked to the shops. The apartment has the same footprint as the shop below and there is a stairway inside linking the two. The one in this flat is locked. However, the other shops owners don't live in their linked apartments, they use them as storerooms for their shops; which means that I have no neighbours! So no possibility of noisy neighbours - which are my worst nightmare come true here, and also no worries for me about having my TV on late at night since I have no neighbours to bother.
There is a food court below, and although it was full of people when I was checking the apartment and we had the front door wide open, still I could hear nothing. So, very quiet.
Also it gets the sea breeze; as soon as you get one or two km inland here the night air does not really cool down much - I have found in my current apartment that there is no benefit in leaving the windows open at night, it is still hot outside. And I am on the top floor. But there the evening air was quite pleasant! So I will be able to open the windows at night and not live in a permanently air conditioned environment.
And it is only five minutes walk to the beach!!!
How cool is that?
There are two other 'blocks' (apartment buildings) to walk under, crossing a small local road in the process, then there is a motorway but there is a pedestrian underpass without having to go sideways any distance, then on the other side is East Coast Park! About in the middle of the park's length.
So; two bedrooms there to the one here, and they are significantly larger, one living room there that is twice the size of the one here, a kitchen that is maybe six times the space here that is labeled 'kitchen', and another small room. It has to be at least twice the size of this apartment. This one is dirty and noisy and old, that one is clean and quiet and new. This one costs me $2,300, but I think would be $1,500 if I took it on a long term contract. That one costs me $1,800.
The lease there starts on the 5th of January, the lease here finishes on the 9th of January 2009. So I have a few days to move (one suitcase and one box of stuff acquired) and arrange a fridge and maybe a clothes washer - my agent argued they supply one, but it will probably be second hand and only for the first six months, so I will want to buy a clean new one anyhow. My agent (a friend of a friend that has only just qualified - this was her first deal!) was also going to argue for a fridge, but I said not to as I wouldn't like what they got and that I would rather buy one that suited me.
I might get a clothes drier in time as well. People use these bamboo poles, like you see on Japanese anime, and poke them out their windows, and there are holders both inside (on the kitchen ceiling) and outside the kitchen window for these. I will also probably put insect screening on the inside of the security doors and windows, even though it is by salt water and there are probably few mosquitoes. I would like to put built-in robes in the bedrooms (where there are alcoves for such) rather than put clothes cupboards there, but we shall see.
I got a diplomatic clause written into the contract; which is to say that I can break it in six months if I haven't settled down into regular enough contracting by then, with a one month break charge. I have already arranged maid service; the agent / friend's auntie is retiring and would like some cash income, so she will come in once or twice a week for two and a half hours or so to clean and iron. We shall see how much time is needed. The flat is half the size of the last house I had in Australia and my cleaner there (my ex) came in for two hours twice a week. That cost $15 an hour or $250 a month, here we have agreed on $120 a month; but that will probably translate into $30 cash left out for her each week. $250 to $350 a month here gets a live-in maid (depending on her English ability, but plus the $5k a year government tax for employing a live-in maid, so really it is about $750 a month).
I wasn't expecting to get a flat until I came back in January. I wasn't really looking until then, although I had done a couple of web searches I hadn't made any calls. But I had talked to Ivy about it and she asked me a few questions before deciding that I wanted something along East Coast Park area. She only took a couple of days then before she started sending me a txts on new apartments, then sent this one saying I had to see it that night. She had good reason for wanting to be the first to see it, it gave us the opportunity to make offers and close the deal before anyone else got to view the property.
I am so buzzed!
A newly renovated, clean, spacious and airy in comparison to this one, well appointed, good sized, conveniently micro located, wonderfully macro located, reasonably priced apartment!
I think that I am going to love this so much.
Yes! Of course I do!
And now I have one!
Yes, the important news for this week is that I have a new flat!
I think what is called something like a 2+1+1 here in Singapore; meaning two bedrooms, 1 other room, and one hall. Also they are both what is called here 'common rooms' as in neither is a master bedroom. The 'other' room is a new addition (the HDB - Housing Development Board - is upgrading the estate) called a utility room, it does have a tiled floor, but no water points so it is not a laundry (so why tile the floor?), it is about half the size of one of the bedrooms. And the last 'room' is the entrance hall, which is wide and makes a small living room. There is a real kitchen, not just a small gas cooker (one ring, like a camping cooker) on a small cupboard in the corridor as there is where I am now. No, this one has a two ring gas cooker run from a gas bottle - so, a larger camping style cooker! That seems to be the way kitchens are here, and given that most families are cramped in small apartment and food halls are so cheap is it any wonder that everyone eats out? And that food halls are so busy all day long. No, this kitchen has a raised and tiled platform to fit a clothes washer and room for a large fridge and enough room in that same corner for a separate freezer if you choose, but more likely I will go for a pantry cupboard. And separate toilet and shower. There are metal security doors and windows, aircon in the two bedrooms, and wired for cable with two or three points.
Yes, it is an HDB, that is to say that it is in an estate that is several buildings constructed by the government to provide subsidised housing (that 85% of the population of Singapore live in). The estate is being upgraded, so the apartment has been renovated and is clean and 'dentless', the shops are being renovated, the playground is being rebuilt, gardens and lawns are being replaced.
The ground floor (first floor here, they speak American when it comes to architecture) is all shops and the second floor (which would be the 'first floor' in English or European) are apartments that are linked to the shops. The apartment has the same footprint as the shop below and there is a stairway inside linking the two. The one in this flat is locked. However, the other shops owners don't live in their linked apartments, they use them as storerooms for their shops; which means that I have no neighbours! So no possibility of noisy neighbours - which are my worst nightmare come true here, and also no worries for me about having my TV on late at night since I have no neighbours to bother.
There is a food court below, and although it was full of people when I was checking the apartment and we had the front door wide open, still I could hear nothing. So, very quiet.
Also it gets the sea breeze; as soon as you get one or two km inland here the night air does not really cool down much - I have found in my current apartment that there is no benefit in leaving the windows open at night, it is still hot outside. And I am on the top floor. But there the evening air was quite pleasant! So I will be able to open the windows at night and not live in a permanently air conditioned environment.
And it is only five minutes walk to the beach!!!
How cool is that?
There are two other 'blocks' (apartment buildings) to walk under, crossing a small local road in the process, then there is a motorway but there is a pedestrian underpass without having to go sideways any distance, then on the other side is East Coast Park! About in the middle of the park's length.
So; two bedrooms there to the one here, and they are significantly larger, one living room there that is twice the size of the one here, a kitchen that is maybe six times the space here that is labeled 'kitchen', and another small room. It has to be at least twice the size of this apartment. This one is dirty and noisy and old, that one is clean and quiet and new. This one costs me $2,300, but I think would be $1,500 if I took it on a long term contract. That one costs me $1,800.
The lease there starts on the 5th of January, the lease here finishes on the 9th of January 2009. So I have a few days to move (one suitcase and one box of stuff acquired) and arrange a fridge and maybe a clothes washer - my agent argued they supply one, but it will probably be second hand and only for the first six months, so I will want to buy a clean new one anyhow. My agent (a friend of a friend that has only just qualified - this was her first deal!) was also going to argue for a fridge, but I said not to as I wouldn't like what they got and that I would rather buy one that suited me.
I might get a clothes drier in time as well. People use these bamboo poles, like you see on Japanese anime, and poke them out their windows, and there are holders both inside (on the kitchen ceiling) and outside the kitchen window for these. I will also probably put insect screening on the inside of the security doors and windows, even though it is by salt water and there are probably few mosquitoes. I would like to put built-in robes in the bedrooms (where there are alcoves for such) rather than put clothes cupboards there, but we shall see.
I got a diplomatic clause written into the contract; which is to say that I can break it in six months if I haven't settled down into regular enough contracting by then, with a one month break charge. I have already arranged maid service; the agent / friend's auntie is retiring and would like some cash income, so she will come in once or twice a week for two and a half hours or so to clean and iron. We shall see how much time is needed. The flat is half the size of the last house I had in Australia and my cleaner there (my ex) came in for two hours twice a week. That cost $15 an hour or $250 a month, here we have agreed on $120 a month; but that will probably translate into $30 cash left out for her each week. $250 to $350 a month here gets a live-in maid (depending on her English ability, but plus the $5k a year government tax for employing a live-in maid, so really it is about $750 a month).
I wasn't expecting to get a flat until I came back in January. I wasn't really looking until then, although I had done a couple of web searches I hadn't made any calls. But I had talked to Ivy about it and she asked me a few questions before deciding that I wanted something along East Coast Park area. She only took a couple of days then before she started sending me a txts on new apartments, then sent this one saying I had to see it that night. She had good reason for wanting to be the first to see it, it gave us the opportunity to make offers and close the deal before anyone else got to view the property.
I am so buzzed!
A newly renovated, clean, spacious and airy in comparison to this one, well appointed, good sized, conveniently micro located, wonderfully macro located, reasonably priced apartment!
I think that I am going to love this so much.
Monday, December 8
My Second Holiday
You're short a blog!
My entry a couple of days ago didn't make it up. I think that some setting on Firefox was killing the autosaves, and then wouldn't let the site redirect when I hit 'publish'. So all lost.
I went to the post office this morning and it was closed.
Why? I asked myself. I checked my phone, it was after 10 am and it is meant to open at 8:30. I checked the calendar in my phone to make sure it is Monday. (My phone doesn't tell me the day name, just the date.) So I checked the opening times again; the only thing that could make sense was the "closed public holidays".
Lo and behold! Today is an Islamic holiday!
(I have re-downloaded the Singapore public holidays document from the MOM.)
I have to get used to the idea of holidays for other religions.
This is cool, but so very different.
Yes, I was here for Deepavali, but it didn't impact on me in that I never noticed anything shut.
So, I was perusing this list of holidays (as you do) when it struck me that they really had the Christian ones wrong.
Well, to be exact, they have one Christian one wrong.
The most sacred day to Christians is Easter Sunday - not Good Friday.
I know this, I lived in a monastery for a while remember.
Yes, I know that most Christians think that Christmas is the most important day of their religion, but trust me - very few Christians know their own religion very well.
In order the major Christian holy days go; Easter Sunday, Good Friday, Christmas.
Think about it; the weekly holy day is Sunday isn't it?
And why? Because it is the weekly celebration of Jesus' rise from the dead.
For Moslems the weekly holy day is Friday, for Jews it is Saturday, and for Christians it is Sunday. It is not Friday.
This should highlight to you that it is the Sunday in Easter that is important, not the Friday.
However I notice for 2009 that there are three holidays listed on Sundays that are flagged as "the following Monday will be a public holiday" and given that most dedicated Xians would want to celebrate mass on both the Friday and the Monday, I would advise designating the Sunday as the official 'day' and the 'preceding Friday' as the public holiday. Make sense?
Technically, of course, Xians should have two public holidays for Easter and not have one for Christmas.
Truthfully, of course, Xians shouldn't have any public holidays.
'Easter' is the European harvest festival and 'Christmas' is the Pagan Winter Solstice. Xianity stole both. Well, 'rebadged' them and burnt to death anyone who disagreed.
I have been thinking for a while about posting something about girls and guys. Specifically how one thing that I hadn't seen was an Indian girl with a Chinese guy. Well, last night I did.
I had dinner at some little arty restaurant in Little India. The tempeh burger was okay, nice, but like a lasagne - too much of the same, I get bored. The smoothie wasn't that great. The desert was really good, and a lot of effort went into its presentation as well.
So, I have seen a dozen European guys with Asian girls, half a dozen European girls with Asian guys, half a dozen Indian guys with Chinese girls, and now one Indian girl with a Chinese guy. Most of the Asians with Euros have been Chinese, but that is a representative selection of Singaporeans.
I was getting worried, and to some degree still am, that the relationship between Indians and Chinese in Singapore is like that between Northern Europeans (Anglos mostly) and Southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, etc.) in Australia.
Which brings me to another point.
I am not too used to seeing 'Caucasian' all the time on forms, but see it a lot here, on both government and corporate. Seems every form that I fill out asks my race. To be honest, really truthfully honest, I find the term 'Caucasian' insulting. I am not Caucasian. Yes, I am white skinned, with fair hair (born blond, darkening through my life {yes, 'blond', 'blond' is masculine, 'blonde' is feminine}) and blue eyes. This makes me European, or Aryan, it does not make me 'Caucasian'.
My heritage is from the North West of Europe, not from some hills as far South and East as you can get and still pretend to be in Europe. I claim descent from peoples that have been civilised for over a thousand years, not just hauled out of tents within living memory.
To give some comparison; do you think that Chinese people would like being told that when I was growing up they (and anyone with eyes like that) was referred to as 'Mongoloid'? Especially when also informed that 'mongoloid' was how we referred to our children with birth defects that lead to 'different' faces and reduced intellect (now a days referred to as Down Syndrome). No, I don't think so. And I feel the same way about being called 'Caucasian'.
Addendum; 'cos sometimes you think of something five minutes after you publish...
To further complicate this for most of you; what does 'Caucasian' mean anyhow? If some person is filling in some MOM form and ticks 'Caucasian' what is he or she saying? Are they just saying that they are of European descent? What about dark haired brown eyed people that happen to be, or descended from, European? What does an Australian business professional with brown eyes tick? 'Cos he sure as hell isn't 'Caucasian' by any defninition of the word.
To me brown eyes is brown eyes. Seriously I do not see any difference between a brown eyed 'European' and an Asian.
Maybe they put 'mixed' or 'other'?
After all, Aryans are blue eyed, any brown eyes come from mixed breeding with other races. By 'Aryan' I refer to the Celts, Tuetones, Greeks, Romans etc that European culture is derived from. The mixing mostly comes from Iberians, Lapps, and other pre-Aryan Eurpeans in the north and west, and Arabs, Turks etc in the south and east of Europe.
If anything 'Caucasian' must strictly mean blue eyes, blond hair, and white skin if nothing else. Mind you red hair is not from the Caucacus, it is from Scandinavia - which just highlights the difference that I am making.
(BTW, yes I have blond hair that has darkened as I have grown, but I have a red beard {when I don't shave} which also darkened as I grew.)
My entry a couple of days ago didn't make it up. I think that some setting on Firefox was killing the autosaves, and then wouldn't let the site redirect when I hit 'publish'. So all lost.
I went to the post office this morning and it was closed.
Why? I asked myself. I checked my phone, it was after 10 am and it is meant to open at 8:30. I checked the calendar in my phone to make sure it is Monday. (My phone doesn't tell me the day name, just the date.) So I checked the opening times again; the only thing that could make sense was the "closed public holidays".
Lo and behold! Today is an Islamic holiday!
(I have re-downloaded the Singapore public holidays document from the MOM.)
I have to get used to the idea of holidays for other religions.
This is cool, but so very different.
Yes, I was here for Deepavali, but it didn't impact on me in that I never noticed anything shut.
So, I was perusing this list of holidays (as you do) when it struck me that they really had the Christian ones wrong.
Well, to be exact, they have one Christian one wrong.
The most sacred day to Christians is Easter Sunday - not Good Friday.
I know this, I lived in a monastery for a while remember.
Yes, I know that most Christians think that Christmas is the most important day of their religion, but trust me - very few Christians know their own religion very well.
In order the major Christian holy days go; Easter Sunday, Good Friday, Christmas.
Think about it; the weekly holy day is Sunday isn't it?
And why? Because it is the weekly celebration of Jesus' rise from the dead.
For Moslems the weekly holy day is Friday, for Jews it is Saturday, and for Christians it is Sunday. It is not Friday.
This should highlight to you that it is the Sunday in Easter that is important, not the Friday.
However I notice for 2009 that there are three holidays listed on Sundays that are flagged as "the following Monday will be a public holiday" and given that most dedicated Xians would want to celebrate mass on both the Friday and the Monday, I would advise designating the Sunday as the official 'day' and the 'preceding Friday' as the public holiday. Make sense?
Technically, of course, Xians should have two public holidays for Easter and not have one for Christmas.
Truthfully, of course, Xians shouldn't have any public holidays.
'Easter' is the European harvest festival and 'Christmas' is the Pagan Winter Solstice. Xianity stole both. Well, 'rebadged' them and burnt to death anyone who disagreed.
I have been thinking for a while about posting something about girls and guys. Specifically how one thing that I hadn't seen was an Indian girl with a Chinese guy. Well, last night I did.
I had dinner at some little arty restaurant in Little India. The tempeh burger was okay, nice, but like a lasagne - too much of the same, I get bored. The smoothie wasn't that great. The desert was really good, and a lot of effort went into its presentation as well.
So, I have seen a dozen European guys with Asian girls, half a dozen European girls with Asian guys, half a dozen Indian guys with Chinese girls, and now one Indian girl with a Chinese guy. Most of the Asians with Euros have been Chinese, but that is a representative selection of Singaporeans.
I was getting worried, and to some degree still am, that the relationship between Indians and Chinese in Singapore is like that between Northern Europeans (Anglos mostly) and Southern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, etc.) in Australia.
Which brings me to another point.
I am not too used to seeing 'Caucasian' all the time on forms, but see it a lot here, on both government and corporate. Seems every form that I fill out asks my race. To be honest, really truthfully honest, I find the term 'Caucasian' insulting. I am not Caucasian. Yes, I am white skinned, with fair hair (born blond, darkening through my life {yes, 'blond', 'blond' is masculine, 'blonde' is feminine}) and blue eyes. This makes me European, or Aryan, it does not make me 'Caucasian'.
My heritage is from the North West of Europe, not from some hills as far South and East as you can get and still pretend to be in Europe. I claim descent from peoples that have been civilised for over a thousand years, not just hauled out of tents within living memory.
To give some comparison; do you think that Chinese people would like being told that when I was growing up they (and anyone with eyes like that) was referred to as 'Mongoloid'? Especially when also informed that 'mongoloid' was how we referred to our children with birth defects that lead to 'different' faces and reduced intellect (now a days referred to as Down Syndrome). No, I don't think so. And I feel the same way about being called 'Caucasian'.
Addendum; 'cos sometimes you think of something five minutes after you publish...
To further complicate this for most of you; what does 'Caucasian' mean anyhow? If some person is filling in some MOM form and ticks 'Caucasian' what is he or she saying? Are they just saying that they are of European descent? What about dark haired brown eyed people that happen to be, or descended from, European? What does an Australian business professional with brown eyes tick? 'Cos he sure as hell isn't 'Caucasian' by any defninition of the word.
To me brown eyes is brown eyes. Seriously I do not see any difference between a brown eyed 'European' and an Asian.
Maybe they put 'mixed' or 'other'?
After all, Aryans are blue eyed, any brown eyes come from mixed breeding with other races. By 'Aryan' I refer to the Celts, Tuetones, Greeks, Romans etc that European culture is derived from. The mixing mostly comes from Iberians, Lapps, and other pre-Aryan Eurpeans in the north and west, and Arabs, Turks etc in the south and east of Europe.
If anything 'Caucasian' must strictly mean blue eyes, blond hair, and white skin if nothing else. Mind you red hair is not from the Caucacus, it is from Scandinavia - which just highlights the difference that I am making.
(BTW, yes I have blond hair that has darkened as I have grown, but I have a red beard {when I don't shave} which also darkened as I grew.)
Wednesday, December 3
Baby, want to see me live on cam?
This is so funny following the last entry.
I had two winks on Adult Friend Finder recently, as mentioned in the entry before last, and I have had a couple of interactions with both since then. One just finished five minutes ago.
The first was bad English, African sounding type, elements of a form letter in it, and so obviously about to lead into a request for money. Came through the very next email; "I am stuck in Nigeria and need $561", really? I don't think so.
The second was, supposedly, this couple of 21 year old SG girls.
I don't think so.
So, she sent me an invite to add her contact to my msgr ("msn" as she called it), and we just opened a chat. She asked if I would like to see her naked on cam. Well, I was looking for a deep and meaningful relationship, but naked cam could be a decent consolation prize. So she directed me to some website and asked me to log in, which was going to require credit card details and automatically dock me $40 USD each month. "Not what I was looking for. Bye" and both deleted and blocked her in my contact list. During this time her contact pic changed from the beautiful young Eurasian with long hair and great tits to that of a somewhat average looking, short haired, not exactly thin, and definitely middle aged American.
What a total disappointment :(
All say "Ohhh".
(Aside; I hate how women prey upon mens unfulfilled sexuality. I have a very low opinion of prostitutes, as I also have of the men that frequent them.)
So, funny stories aside, what has happened recently?
Got my PEP yesterday. The 'green card' really is green :D
So, a five year work pass for Singapore, and I was told no need for re-entry visas with an Australian passport. Cool.
So todays task was to open a local bank account.
I had wanted to use Standard Chartered 'cos their boss was on TV last week saying that the financial 'crisis' hadn't affected their bank too much and he viewed it as a great opportunity. Just the sort of bright and happy sort of person that I can support in business! Yah!
Unfortunately it turns out that whilst they may be one of the biggest banks in the world Australia is not in their purview. An office in Sydney, but no branches anywhere; which is exactly the problem that I have been having with the National Australia Bank in Singapore.
So, the back up plan was HSBC since I know that they have branches in Adelaide 'cos a cute little (little? she was 26, but looked and behaved 16 {in Australian terms}) (Malaysian) Chinese girl that I (almost) fell in love with used them.
So now I am ready to receive payments.
The next step would be to get some payments...
No, really that is second priority, maybe do some talking to agencies, but I don't want to start until January 'cos I have to be back in Adelaide for Xmas so that kind of knocks half of December out. And December has already started!!!!!
I guess that I have to go Xmas shopping now...
I hate shopping soooo much!
Especially when it's not for toys.
And I have to think!! What does Mum want? What to get Noel? (Mum's husband {and yes, I just used a non-possessive apostrophe, but it's a possessive, get it?}) What to get my sister? My niece? My nephew? And maybe also my Father, his wife Proo, my brother Shane. 'Cos it will be too late to do any shopping when I get there.
Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh...
I had two winks on Adult Friend Finder recently, as mentioned in the entry before last, and I have had a couple of interactions with both since then. One just finished five minutes ago.
The first was bad English, African sounding type, elements of a form letter in it, and so obviously about to lead into a request for money. Came through the very next email; "I am stuck in Nigeria and need $561", really? I don't think so.
The second was, supposedly, this couple of 21 year old SG girls.
I don't think so.
So, she sent me an invite to add her contact to my msgr ("msn" as she called it), and we just opened a chat. She asked if I would like to see her naked on cam. Well, I was looking for a deep and meaningful relationship, but naked cam could be a decent consolation prize. So she directed me to some website and asked me to log in, which was going to require credit card details and automatically dock me $40 USD each month. "Not what I was looking for. Bye" and both deleted and blocked her in my contact list. During this time her contact pic changed from the beautiful young Eurasian with long hair and great tits to that of a somewhat average looking, short haired, not exactly thin, and definitely middle aged American.
What a total disappointment :(
All say "Ohhh".
(Aside; I hate how women prey upon mens unfulfilled sexuality. I have a very low opinion of prostitutes, as I also have of the men that frequent them.)
So, funny stories aside, what has happened recently?
Got my PEP yesterday. The 'green card' really is green :D
So, a five year work pass for Singapore, and I was told no need for re-entry visas with an Australian passport. Cool.
So todays task was to open a local bank account.
I had wanted to use Standard Chartered 'cos their boss was on TV last week saying that the financial 'crisis' hadn't affected their bank too much and he viewed it as a great opportunity. Just the sort of bright and happy sort of person that I can support in business! Yah!
Unfortunately it turns out that whilst they may be one of the biggest banks in the world Australia is not in their purview. An office in Sydney, but no branches anywhere; which is exactly the problem that I have been having with the National Australia Bank in Singapore.
So, the back up plan was HSBC since I know that they have branches in Adelaide 'cos a cute little (little? she was 26, but looked and behaved 16 {in Australian terms}) (Malaysian) Chinese girl that I (almost) fell in love with used them.
So now I am ready to receive payments.
The next step would be to get some payments...
No, really that is second priority, maybe do some talking to agencies, but I don't want to start until January 'cos I have to be back in Adelaide for Xmas so that kind of knocks half of December out. And December has already started!!!!!
I guess that I have to go Xmas shopping now...
I hate shopping soooo much!
Especially when it's not for toys.
And I have to think!! What does Mum want? What to get Noel? (Mum's husband {and yes, I just used a non-possessive apostrophe, but it's a possessive, get it?}) What to get my sister? My niece? My nephew? And maybe also my Father, his wife Proo, my brother Shane. 'Cos it will be too late to do any shopping when I get there.
Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh...
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