No Smoking Please!

The CEO of our company is renouned within the organisation for sending funny emails -- personally -- to his employees. Two days before the company's annual conference in Bangkok last year, he sent out an email to all employees saying that anyone caught in Pat Pong, a seedy, nightlife area in Bangkok will be fired. On the spot. (Why is it that my company's employees have to be reminded not to go to dodgy brothels in Bangkok? Oh, I forgot. He sees the "trash" in the Ivory Tower all the time, he's bound to think that is the norm in the company.)

Yesterday our CEO sent out one of his famed personal emails on smoking after one of the local residents complained about our employees smoking at a children's playground.

(Translated from the original email)

From: CEO
To: All Employees

Subject: **Important Notice: No Smoking Please!**

Hello Everyone.
There has been some claims from local residents of a kiddy's playground who were disturbed by the mountains of cigarette butts left by the nicotine addicts of our firm. The local authorities have notified me that they will be removing the ashtrays from the playground as of June 6th. HOWEVER, I will state that from this day forward the kiddy's playground is a SMOKE FREE ZONE. Even if you take your own ashtray you are forbidden to smoke there. (remember, it is a KIDDY'S PLAY GROUND not a cancer zone for those with a death wish.)

CEO,
DW Company

TOO FUNNY! A CEO of a large multinational company has the time to send funny emails like this!!! Oh and the idiots who need to be repremanded about littering in public? I want to see their faces!! Must admit that I usually delete the 50+ emails that come into my inbox everyday, but this one I will keep in a special folder called "CEO Rantings".

Confucius Dinner Meetings

Confucius say:"The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it."

RIIIIIIGHT!

Does that mean that I have to blame "men" kind on behalf of the likes of Sunshine??? Do I have to blame testosterone for the fact that men openly (encouragingly) cheat on their wives and their loved ones? Do I have to blame society for it's apathy towards the treatment of minority groups -- whether it is women, or disabled people? If I had a child that committed a crime against humanity, am I supposed to blame the "environment" or "genetic factors" for what it did?

Fuck that, Confucius! I need another drink...

(yup, it is going to be a long while before I tell you about me and Nick, coz I need to vent BIG TIME about what is going on in my life in general!!! Grrr, and yes, I need another drink.)

Yup. Dinner with my team-mates didn't go as smootly as I had hoped it would...(go figure, this was posted at 2:48am!!!)

Sun Tan

I have been observing the workings of Sunshine et. al. I have also been observing public opinion and movement towards how women are treated in Japan. I have looked into child pornography, and also perves on trains, and all I can say is that this place needs some radical changes in the way it treats its minority groups (incl. women)

Which brings me back to Sunshine.

Sunshine and his band of merry men are scheduled to have dinner with my big boss tomorrow evening. I have in the past put up with Sunshines sexist remarks and tales of conquest in establishments that can only be discribed as "phantom" harems for men who have an ego problem. I have sat listening to the "boys'" sexual conquest at Sydney Airport, I have also sat thru 2 days of "this is the type of women that I love to screw" stories from Sunshine et al. and I have protested in a nice way all along.

Tomorrow evening I am having dinner with my big boss, the VP of Information Management in our organisation. The VP is a family man, and has kindly asked me in private if I was "OK" with the way that Sunshine was treating me during our last dinner when Sunshine called me "Babe" in front of everyone... (no I am not too happy about it!!)

I must admit that I am not too religious, but I am going to pray to God this evening:"Dear Lord, please give me the strength to stay in focus all day long, and not bust Sunshine's balls to shits. Please give me the courage, Lord, to keep my sharp tongue in my mouth, and not lash out at the arse that I may be licking tomorrow, even tho I am not into that sort of thing. And please Lord, if you are doing any major projects to remove bad or corrupted files from our planet, do not forget the likes of Sunshine and his pals on the 10th floor, coz I think they need to be....

Ctrl+Alt+Deleted. "
(otherwise can you just defrag me instead. Amen.)

I think that I have had enuf sunshine that I think I am getting a bit of a sun tan.

No More Perverts, Please!

From May 9th my commuter line started running "Women Only" carriages during rush hour in the mornings on weekdays. It is the third private railway company in Tokyo to reserve carriages for women in the mornings after a large number of reported sexual assult cases on their trains. Tokyo is a hub of perverts who take pictures of women's underwear using cameras on their phones, who grope women's bodies, and who openly engage in onanism and "leave their mark" on our garments. I, too, have been a victim of these perves, but unfortunately it is difficult to pinpoint the culprit, for the train is just too crowded to even turn our heads.

The other day I decided to take the "women only" carriage, only to find it just as crowded, if not more, than the other carriages. I guess that there are many women who are just fed up being treated as a "sexual toy" by strangers who can't control their testicular urges. I must admit that even tho' it was packed on the train, I felt safe being in a feminine environment with my fellow sisters.

Unfortunately the "Women Only" carriage becomes a "unisex" carriage as soon as the clock strikes 9:30am, at which time the dirty scroundrels rush onto our oestrogen-train, sniffing our perfumes and pheromones, their minds off to the set of an amateur porn shoot where they are the leading men, and we their slaves.

Dirty little feckers!

I thought that we could be immune from these horney dawgs, but no. Make a carriage only for women, and all they do is try to infiltrate it. Well, we are not going have any more of your stupid antics; we are going to come in and bust your balls coz we are fed up with having cum stains on our skirts when we get to the office. We are fed up of the underground pornography that depicts our underwear that you filmed without our permission, and we are going to push for the railway companies to run Women Only carriages ALL DAY!!!

We've had enuf: "No More Perverts, Please!"

Spam, Spam, and Spyware

Look at my page!! What is going on!!! There are funky, ugly links in there that some stupid, spamerama spyware has embedded! It's on ALL my posts, which means that I have to go into all my posts to remove the ugly HTML code that decided to lay root in my inner voice.

Fuck! I don't need this on a sunday afternoon!

GRRRRRRRRR!

Drunken Project Members

I discovered last night after dinner that my project team members are all seasoned alcoholics. We sat in Sunshine's suite till 3am drinking and talking B.S. The boyz were on full form: going on and on about some of the women that they are/were having an affair with, and of course Sunshine was giving us an insight into some of his past relationships, and why he is still single.

Apparently he is "commitment phobic".
(as if I give a damn)

I can already tell that this project I am on is going to be a drunken, hungover one. All of us were at the conference room by 8am this morning, freshly showered and raring to go. None of us seemed to be hampered in any way; in fact I think we were all high until lunch time.

We are all drunken project members, which is probably not good for my health...

Repacking...

FUCK! It does not seem that long ago since I came back from Oz, and I am now repacking my "home" (Samsonite) to go off on another business trip. I wouldn't mind it so much if I was going by myself and things were all going to be "funky-dorey", but I have to spend ANOTHER 2 nights with "Sunshine", which pisses me off. Do I have to listen to his sexist remarks for another couple of days?

I guess so...

Ray Of Sunshine In The Ivory Tower

Every company has it's own culture: some are much more "people" focused, others are more focused on innovation and vision, but whatever the corporate culture evidently people chose to work for a specific company based on how they feel that they will fit in. Even as a graduate entering the job market for the first time in your life, you wouldn't necessarily chose to work for an arse-hole company even if they paid you lots of money (ok, there are some who will work for the big $$$, but those are the ones who tend to pass away early, often under violent circumstances.)

It has now been nearly 2 and a 1/2 weeks since I started at my new company, and I have now started to get a good idea about internal politics, and the "true" corporate culture: the one they never tell you at the interview. The culture they so desparately go to extends to hide carefully...

My desk is on the 5th floor of our office building. I'm part of the IT department, which, I suppose, acts like the foundation to support the business; it's ironic that all the "business divisions" are located in the floors above us. We are the "engine room" of our company. However, the further you go up, one gets closer to the "Ivory Tower" where all the high profile people and their elitist "boys" are seated. The Ivory Tower is where the coroporate finance, corporate strategy, etc. goes on, and that is also where most of my project's team members have their desks. And in the open, Scandinavian-style cubicle opposite the CEO's office sits "Ray of Sunshine".

Ray of Sunshine is definately bright, full of energy, charismatic, rich, and to look at he is a classic, oriental "tall, dark, and handsome" person (if that is your taste). Most people in my dungeon department when they hear of his name either blush, or shy away as they say:"Sunshine of the Ivory Tower... He's your project manager, isn't he DWR? What is he like?" In honest truth, after spending 2nights and 4 days on a business trip with Ray of Sunshine I can tell all the little people who work on the 5th floor in my department that he is a prick. A chauvenistic, air-headed, prick who knows sweet F.A. about Business IT, and he's always full of shit.

How did I come to this conclusion? Simple. He called me "Babe" in front of my Big Boss, the VP of Regional IT, when we were invited out for dinner in a posh restaurant. Sunshine *acutally* had the audacity to say to me in his drunken state:"Go on, babe! Give it to me, babe!!" -- what a prick!!!

Must admit that I pulled Sunshine aside later on in the evening and told him off for treating me this way, but if he is a classic example of how the workers of the Ivory Tower behave, I have a rough 18+ months -- perhaps even YEARS -- ahead of me... The Ivory Tower has a very different culture to the friendly one in the Engine Room.

Back From Oz

Fucking hell!!!

I'm back from Sydney after having spent 2 nights and 4 days in the land down-under. I didn't have time to go and see my friends, I didn't have time to go and see the sights, and I most certainly didn't have time to keep up my personal hygiene -- all I did was work and drink with my colleagues... who are chauvenistic, elitist IIIIIIIDIOTS!! (but unfortunately they get the job on time, and with high quality... how can I cut them lose!!!)

My home (aka. the suitcase) is still in the corridor, for I can't be bothered to unpack: I'm off on ANOTHER F'IN business trip next wednesday. House keeping cleaned all the contents of my house so I really do not have the need do change the status quo of my Samsonite.

I think that I am sufficently pissed off with the "little boyz" who were on the business trip with me to Sydney that I will expose their silly antics, but for now I am tired after having spent 9 hrs on a plane, but having had to walk straight into the office looking like an imp with greasy, manky hair...

I need to get some sleep.

Clean, fresh, post-shower sleep.

Living Out Of A Suitcase...

I have lived out of a suitcase since I was 10 years old (I grew up in a boarding school, but I will tell you about that later). This evening I have to pack my suitcase (again) for a business trip to Sydney. Business trips sound glamourous, but they are really quite boring; they are not much more than an extension of a rush hour commute. Instead of spending 1.5hrs on your way to work, you spend 9hrs (including your beauty sleep) on a comfortable, 1st class treatment to your office.

For 2 days.

That is the reality of business trips. It is neither glamourous, nor wonderful. For any graduates who are thinking of getting into an industry that invovles "International Travel", I want to stress that often you spend 3hrs+ at airports getting from A to B, you are expected to go to the office even after a 9hr flight, and that there are no showers on board... even on 1st Class.

Living out of a suitcase sucks!

Fringe Benefits

I love fringe benefits.

For someone who spent a lot of time consulting various companies on how to reduce costs and increase profits I have taken full advantage of the stationary cabinet and added significantly to the SG&A of the companies that I have worked for. Not only did I used to get free internet access, use of PC, and stationary, I have also used the corporate card for "Entertainment Fees" that just would not hold water if I had worked for the accounts department. Consulting is an industry where you can just get away with using other people's money. And the more you can abuse the fringe benefits system, the better you are at your job.

I now peddle my arse to a pharma/consumer business/medical devices company. I no longer have the fringe benefits that I used to enjoy at the Pink Elephant... Not only do I now have to pay for my own stationary, but also I cannot install my own software on my work PC, I can't use IM, my internet traffic gets monitored by some Bozo in Singapore who will fire me for looking at "adult" sites in my free time, and I have to sign a piece of paper every year that says that I will not abuse the system.

Fuck that.

Luckily I have many ways to by-pass the system, and I will continue to be a blog warrior using my fringe benifits. My company does not pay me enuf to abide by their rules. I work for the IT department so I can cover my own arse! Never in my life have I *not* had fringe benefits, and I am not about to change my habits either.

Vivre la Fringe Benefits!

Lovely Nick

Shit... before I talk about how lovely Nick is, I better go to bed. It is now 2am in the morning, and I need to get my fat arse into the office for 8am tomorrow.

Nick is lovely, and I suppose I better share my time in Wisconsin with him another time.

Fuck!! I hate having a "steady" job; I wish I was on my own time and my own deliverables. I started with my new office on the 18th of April, and I have already racked up receipts for business trips. I am off to Australia next week, and I have no idea when I can next take time off to see Nick.

Bollocks!

Losing the Plot

No. I am not referring to me losing the plot; I can't lose what I never had in the first place. I am talking about the Wench Mum. I think that she is really losing the plot. I have a blog called The Wench Mum Chronicles where I write about some of the eccentric things that my mother gets up to, but after today's outburst I am not sure if I should continue to write about her antics as before.

It's quite scary...

The Wench Mum and I were supposed to go shopping today; I had said that we will leave the house around 10am, but unfortunately I fell asleep at around 9am after spending the entire night on my PC. Mum gave up on the idea of shopping all together even tho I woke up at 1pm and told her that we had plenty of time to look for some computer accessories for her. I know that I should have upheld my promise to leave at 10am, but hell it's a holiday, and leaving 3hours later than planned is probably slightly annoying, and not much else.

But, the saga didn't stop at a slight inconvinience.

The crazy woman started to punch the walls and kick furniture till her knuckles started to bleed!!!!!! WTF!!! How crazy is that! She was just screaming at a high pitch coz she was seriously pissed off that I had disrupted her plans and was ready to start hurling shit out of the window!! I told her to calm down but she was shouting and throwing things at me. This is a 60 yo woman throwing a temper tantrum like a 2yo; the scary thing is that this is not the first time that she has acted in this manner.

The woman is exhibiting signs of neurodegeneration which could be attributed to senile dimentia, Alzheimer's, or even CJD. If indeed her brain is atrophying due to old age, it won't be long before she can't remember who I am, or where she lives...

Fuck. I need a drink.

Cul De Sac

There was a 1.5 month break in between my postings in the March/April period. Some people may have blamed it on my official break in between jobs, others may have attributed it to my visit to the US to see Nick. To be honest with you, I have no idea why I have no urge to write.

Usually I would be walking down the street, day dreaming in the station, or even spending time in the restroom and there would be ideas running through my mind like worker ants rushing towards the nest before the precious eggs hatch, but for the past 2 months nothing seems to come into my head.

I have been trying to increase external stimulus to encourage my mindset, but everything that I seem to do has had no results, which is one of the biggest reasons why there has been such a gap between my postings...

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to get the DWR back on track like she used to?? Or maybe she will never get there again and needs to be told... Is the apathy due to my clinical depression, or is it just that my mind is somewhere else? Once again in my life I am a bit lost....

Heeeeeelllllpppp.

(Oh well, if nothing comes to my mind I will just not write; I can't do any better... right?? Shit, whichever way, if I feel like shite I know that I can call up Nick who is 14hrs behind coz I can rely on him to be there for me when I am feeling crap...)

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!!!!

(Post script: the kitties are bothering me for food so I will leave this issue to be solved at a slightly later time/date. Why is life so complicated?!?)

Back Now, WTF Is Going On!!!!

Have I been hacked to death by some psycho who lives in Wisconsin while I have been away for the past month??

No.

(Nick is a lovely person, and he would never dream of turning me into minced meat. I am very much alive.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bloody hell! Just got back from the US (2 weeks ago) after visiting Nick, and I see that: a) many people have left a comment, b) people have a strong opnions/views about Katz & Dawgs, c) the Pope is dead, d) the Chinese populous is protesting about our occupation in the middle of the last century, e) the stock prices are taking a "scuba" dive, f) the "beef crisis" and the trade deficite amongst Japan, US and China is looking about as appetising as my cat's fur ball, g) the pharmeceutical industry is still making money/profits out of sick and dying people, h) my good friend and neighbour Kim Pong Pill (Kim Jong Il) has made another lot of cheap nuclear bombs, etc. Shit!!! I just can't keep up!!!! Maybe I should leave my topics to a narrow spectrum and start a detailed, scientific observation on canines vs. felines, re-evaluate the relationship between China and Japan, or perhaps expose my new company about its dubious business practices!!!

(For those that are new to this site, I work for a big pharma/medical devices company, but I ethically oppose the industry's practices... yes I prostitute my knowledge and services: "Would you like me to put in some sand in the vasceline while you shaft my rectum with a barge pole???")

Ummm..... Ok, seeing as I had a bit of a break let's begin by filling in some of the gaps. I'm now back from my month(+) holiday in the US. I had a wonderfully relaxing time with Nick, but in the meantime I have had many topics in my head that I wanted to cover, including the Chinese nationalist computer hackers, my new job, me and Nick, my catz, my life in Tokyo, weirdos on commuter trains, and anything else that goes on in my life.

But...*plonk* (bottle opening) Ok, I'm too tired, maybe another day.... I am only human. I can't write every day, nor can I pick up a new topic and research it in detail so that I can come up with something that I can feel happy about that I can share with you. I hate to admit it, but it's probably 'coz I don't have enuf happy pills to keep me going with the level of energy that I demand, or expect for myself.

Sorry. Shit happens, and bullshit runs a marathon. But one thing that I can say is that I am still a silly drunken wench. That's good enough, right???

Anyway, before I continue to hand out lame excuses about my 5+week absence I want to thank the following people who left their mark on my site/visited my site and sent me an email (in the order that was written):

• Oh Please Mind The Head/"JimBob"
• Saby
• Kezza/Missy
• Ogri
• Stacie
• Arc of Polaris
• Rex Venom
• Nina
• AGFH
• Miranda
• Anon (C)
• Sketchy Jeoff(x2)
• Buzzy
• Ouiji
• Anon (S)
• LeftoverJoe
• + Everyone else who read my stuff but didn't leave a message, or to those that I have missed in my list so far.

Phew!! Being fucked up and depressed isn't easy, huh???

*Right, let's crack open another bottle of CabSauv, and start on the next bit.*

Cheerz everyone!

Katz vs. Dawgs

Nick is a dog owner. He owns a large, hairy dog. And this is the first time in my adult life that I have had the chance to closely study the behaviour pattern of dogs. Yesterday I had the opportunity to take Nick's dog for an hour's walk, and discovered that dogs are very, very different to cats. Very different.

Cats always go to the toilet in the same place, and bury their shit, piss, whatever, in kitty-gritty. The owner (e.g. me) merely has to get a pooper-scooper, remove the deeds, and throw it away. One can clean up kitty-shitty on auto-pilot, or totally hung over, coz they always shit in the same place. Dogs on the other hand shit whenever and wherever they feel like taking a dump; whether it is on the pavement, on someone's front garden, or even in front of a restaurant. If a dog wants to crap itself, it will. The owner therefore has to walk around with a bag of shit while the dog happily continues on its search for another location to take a dump.

Cats have an acute sense of smell. They use their olifactory senses to make sure that they do not eat rotten food, or to go anywhere near smelly things like fecal matters of other species. Dogs too have an acute sense of smell, however, they use this hightened sense to search out smelly items, like other dogs' shit, or dead cats, and get a really GOOD whiff of it. They sometimes even rub their body parts in smelly things so they can take the stench back to their homes.

Cats do not like to get their fur dirty or wet. They spend a good part of their waking day grooming and cleaning their coat. This is true for both indoor and outdoor cats, but in particular indoor cats are very fastidious about maintaining the condition of their fur. Cat owners of course can assist their feline friends and brush them, but in general cats can take care of themselves. Dogs on the other hand (if they could) would make the most out of their days trying to get their coats as filthy as possible. The wetter and the muddier the better. It is almost as if dogs wear wet mud on their fur as we women wear make-up on our faces. Muddy Dog = effort at looking attrative to the opposite sex. However, just like with some women, make up, or no make up, a dog is still a dog.

Cats require vertical exercise and therefore their linear territory on a map is usually small. Castrated male cats in general hang around a territory no bigger than 400m in diameter, and of course a feline "stud" will have his harem within approximately 2km sq. Cats are often seen on people's car bonnets, walls, even on roof tops, which is a very sweet site. Yesterday I was soooooo happy to find out that dogs do not exhibit these feline traits, and that they require *horizontal* exercise , i.e. dogs stay on the ground. I would have been at a complete loss if Nick's big, hairy dog started to climb onto people's homes; that dog would surely put a hole in someone's roof, and I know it would have been a peculiar site had the dog decided to take a dump right there and then.

So Where The F@K Am I?

Ok, so three days ago I got on a plane from Tokyo's Narita airport which took me 15hours back in time. I decided to take this bold step in time travel to see someone special who has been in my life for a while, but has always been half a day behind me. We used to leave each other messages online, or in the form of email, so that when the sun knocks on our bedroom windows we can see the shadows, the imprints, left behind from a different time and a different place.

Time travel? Shadows and imprints from a different time and space? WTF, DWR?! It sounds like a bad script for a B-grade science fiction/love story (i.e. total feckin' madness), but I kid you not. Nick lives in Wisconsin, and I live in Tokyo. That is the story, and this is where I have been for the past 2 or 3 days. (Can't seem to work out what time I am living in.)

Ok, so now that I have travelled 15hours back in time do I look and feel younger? No... In fact I am still combating not only the ugly hives that manifested itself after eating dodgy seafood, but also:

1. Dry skin caused by the excessive tanning in Thailand and the freezedry conditions of the 12 hour flight on the 747 (oh yes, I know, it takes 12hours to travel 15hours back in time -- go figure! Who came up with the concept of time?!)
2. Tight hamstrings caused by being carted in the foetal position for half a day on "No-I-Don't-Know-Where-Your-Baggage-Is-But-It's-Somewhere-In-The-Western-Hemisphere" Airlines (and why do I need flexible hamstrings? go work it out for yourself!)
3. Jet lag, or some other form of sleeping disorder that is biting heavily into my month's worth of benzodiazepine supply (not a good sign coz I need my jellies.)
4. Dry eyes -- dunno the cause, but it could be something to do with the horse tranqs that I am using to combat #3 (kiddin' -- not using horse tranqs, yet, but if this sleeping disorder does not fix itself I am going to have to turn to my old friend, rhohipnol which is bad news coz he's bad company, and would probably make me lose ANOTHER 15 hours and I'll end up in Ulanbatur, or something. And that would not be good coz I came all the way out to Wisconsin, not somewhere along the silk road.)

Thankfully, Nick does not seem too bothered, or in the least bit concerned, about the above symptoms so that is one salvation. (Who is Nick? If you don't know? Here, read this.) My other consolation is that I made an extra looooooong booking at Boudoir BEFORE I came to the shores of Lake Michigan, and did some serious body maintenance. Luckily I am realatively youthful not to warrant major roadworks done on my body, but there were a few potholes that had to be fixed and "grass cutting" at the day spa. Nothing major, but enuf to keep the list to a minimum for now.

Phew!

(Post script: I am not particularly looking forward to travelling 15hours into the future again in a month's time -- reason? I'll age once more, which means that I will have *additional* items to add to my "fight aging" list, and I will have to resort to leaving little time capsules for Nick like I used to...)

A Little Journey?!

Why is it that everytime that I travel somewhere I encounter a semi-drama. It is not as if these incidents that I write about (like the time the Japanese drunken businessman collapsed in front me at HK airport) are all part of my expansive imagination; these things really happen all the time to me and I don't know why.

(Maybe it's because I am always fashionably late, but that should not be the only factor as to why things happen to my on my journeys)

Take for instance my most memorable, and possibly most disturbing incidence that happened to me while I was travelling through Europe on a train with my then boyfriend. We were travelling on the cheap with our inter-rail pass, and just like any poor student in order to cut our accomodation fees for our journey we would always take the night train (second class carriage where everyone scrambles for a cubicle and locks themselves in, even if the ticket collector asks for your tickets) to our next destination. We had travelled from Sweden through Denmark and onto Berlin in as many days. A day is enough in all these places, for it was not the first time that I had visited these places, plus even in the summer the weather was not warm enough.

Back in 1993 not long after the Berlin wall came down and the before the first Balkan conflict between the Croats and the Serbs, many of us were attracted to visit extotic Eastern European cities like Prague, Dubrovnik, Mostar, and Budapest. Our first port of call on the night train from Berlin was to Prague; now in those days anyone travelling on a non "European" passport required a visa, and a lot of bribery to get into, none of which I, nor the three Australian travel companions that we had met in Coppenhagen, had with us at the time. At around 2am as we approached the Eastern German border town of Dresden there came into our carriage three uniform clad relics from the communist past.

Yup, they were the boarder patrol. And yes, we got kicked off the train because we didn't have the right documents, enough German Marks, or Polish vodka to pursuade these manequin like officials who didn't seem to understand the universal language of "you scratch my back, and I will give you a huge kick-back".

The cold floors of Dresden station at 2am even on a summer night is not the most friendliest place on the planet. The five of us huddled together, smoked all our dutyfree Samson's Blue pouch, and looked at the train timetables to get us out of this hell hole as soon as possible. Dresden was a city of culture, a city with many gothic architecture, a city of beautiful museums and galleries, a city of cutting edge industry back in 1945 just before the allies had blitzed the place to rubble, and not a single piece of renovation had happened in since the end of WWII. This was not a nice place to stay overnight especially for a group of five people who spoke little, or no German, and had no money.

It was also not a good place for prostitutes to do their business.

In the 4hours that we spent on the hard stone floors we saw 3 prostitutes who were soliciting potential clients that were "pulled over" and taken to a special room where the station guards beat them up, took their belongings (including their shoes), and possibly sexually assaulted them. I met one of the girls in the toilets crying, tending to her black eye after she had been released from the "Polizeistation" with her money, her bag and her shoes confiscated. In my limited German I could make out that she had some trouble sitting down, and that she had to walk home with no shoes; I had enough sandles and shoes on me so I gave her my raggedy Espidrills that didn't fit her too well, but I will never forget the sunken look in her blackened eyes that said: Thank you for your kindness, and you want to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. Otherwise they will take your passport and your money.

That night we had too much tabacco and not enough booze, but we still managed to take the first train out of Dresden which took us to Genoa, Italy without being assulted, or having our possessions taken from us.

*************

Today I can live to tell the tale and call it the worst journey so far in my life; however my trip to the land "12hours away" to see Nick was not exactly uneventful either. A certain airline carrier (which I shall not name, but starts with North and ends with West) managed to lose my luggage during the transfer at Mineannapolis. Even Dresden's rigid boarder gards managed to keep all confiscated inventory in check, but not these airlines... no. I bet you anything that the Dresden guards had properly barcoded and sorted all the belongings that they took from the prostitutes, and even took physical inventory on a daily basis. Perhaps the "No-Way-Am-I-Competent" Airlines should learn a thing or two about keeping tabs of one's luggage, and the guards at Dresden should learn to smile and take a few bullshit from unsatisfied customers.

The Last Supper With The DWFs

Sometimes you need friends to keep you in check, to make sure that you are making the right choices, or eating the right foods. I have DWFs, Y and A, who do just that. Two nights ago I had my official "Last Supper" with the DWFs as colleagues, for I will no longer be working for the same Pink Elephant as them. We sat together drinking distilled alcohol (or something), singing silly Japanese love songs, and discussing my new job and my 12hr trip to see Nick.

They wished me well, and left me the bill, but here's to my DWFs -- now that I could potentially be your client, you better start learning how to kiss my boots and brown-nose me arse. Oh, and don't even think about expensing all our drunken sessions onto my corporate card, coz I will be up shit creek with my new boss. You guyz can go and talk to that crazy boss of yours to write it off on the business unit; I know the drill so don't even bother cheating me, babes.

Nah, honestly, Y and A, cheers for all your support, I am doing well here. I am not chopped up, nor am I sold off as slave labour, yet (unlike you.) Love ya both, and see you when I get back!!

(Post script: I'll come clean, I voluntarily (happily) picked up the bill that night, not that my DWFs ran off and left me with the bill. I was more than happy to treat them. On a different note I think there was something funny with the food that night, coz Y now also has hives like me... Or maybe there was not enuf alcohol consumed to disinfect the allergens, whatever they were.)

Hives

Fuck!!! I cannot believe this! I started to pack for my holiday/break to see Nick tomorrow, and I noticed that my back was slightly itchy. There is also a slight itch near my belly button and also the insides of my arms -- all places with sensitive skin...

I am covered in fucking HIVES!!!!! It must be that fucking mackrel sashimi that I had for dinner -- there I am packing my skimpiest, sexiest underwear and my body is covered in some disease looking red rash. If those anti-histamines do not work by tomorrow morning, I am fuckt coz I have a 12 hour flight to endure, and no one is going to want to hug a woman who just came back from a holiday in Thailand, where they have had cases of birdflu, covered in red blotches.

I am doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed... I hope the hives disappear soon.