Unfit to date? Sez who?

Not a good Monday. As Edmund Blackadder (aka Rowan Atkinson) would say:
"Once again, fortune vomits upon my eiderdown."

In addition to the BMW's air con now totally DOA - I need to replace the entire system - the house a/c decided to die on Sunday. Thankfully I still have a sole window unit in the back bedroom so I was able to sleep that night. This morning, my air/con repair guy came out, did the same Wiggle The Wire thing he did three weeks ago, and the a/c sprang back to life like it did three weeks ago. He then spent an additional 20 minutes trying to duplicate the problem, couldn't, and left without charging me anything.

After a lunchless day revising our collateral to read less like we are now, and more like GetaLife (see the new Grand Theft Auto game - I still yearn to play but still haven't the finances for a Playstation 3), I attempted to attend shaolin class. But after almost an hour on 635 without a lot of progress, I gave up. So here I am, in a thankfully air conditioned house, checking my e-mail.

I went over to visit a friend's MySpace page via his link and saw an amusing banner for a dating site called plentyoffish.com. It said: We banish anyone unfit to date!

This struck me as kind of funny. So I followed the link to the site and found this explanation: We banish anyone who is extremely rude, has anger management issues, uploads fake pictures or is otherwise unfit to date.

I'm thinking, yeah, right. How are they going to have the time and resources to do that, especially as they insist it's a free site?

But what if they really wanted to kick all Unfit Daters? Wouldn't it depend on the site management to define "Unfit To Date"?

Perhaps I should apply for the job. I can kick off all neocons, cat haters, tailgaters, and people who take up two parking spaces when they park at Neiman Marcus. On a really bad day I could do a lot of damage to the plentyoffish.com population and kick everyone who couldn't spell.

I enjoyed the ride

Back in the late 1990s, Nissan came out with some TV ads I really liked. This one was the best of the lot, although Mattel promptly sued the ad agency in question for infringing on their Barbie and GI Joe copyrights.

A bit of trivia: the car in the ad, the Nissan 3000, wasn't even being made any more. And the mysterious Japanese guy seen at the end of the ad was/is loosely based on Yutaka Katayama, the first president of Nissan USA - back when they were still Datsun and making mostly ugly cars. Katayama was also the brains behind the 240Z.

Fingers crossed ...

I think I may have managed to unload the spare car! Yay! Since I'm technically upside down on the car I thought I'd have zero chance of selling it, but after I ran it on Craig's List I was deluged.

Since I told the truth - including how many payments left and how much the payoff was - I can only assume that there are an awful lot of people who can't manage a down payment on even a car.

In addition, I think I found a summer grad student/lodger for the spare bedroom, so her contributions to the bills will help even more.

Now all I want is that bloody IRS refund. Now.

Polly Borland

I forget how I came upon the Australian photographer Polly Borland; I think it was when I Googled Germaine Greer a while back, but I'm not sure.

I don't like all of her photos, but some of her portraits are remarkable.

For example, I was surprised to discover how many people I know couldn't identify the woman when I sent them this Borland portrait of her:

Cuba never looked so good

Every once in a while, my sleep-deprived body goes on strike. When this happens I come home from work exhausted, decide to lie down for half an hour or so, and promptly fall asleep for six or seven hours. This isn't a mere nap, either. Others have claimed they tried to wake me during these oddly deep sleeps, but literally weren't able to do so. This happened to me last night.

While nobody tried to wake me, I had some spectacular dreams. In one, I was visiting the pre-Castro Cuba with a large English military contingent. Did I mention the Queen was along for the ride, too? Everything was in technicolor; the buildings rivaled any other head of state's, the military uniforms were rich reds and brilliant golds. Even the weather was perfect. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

And, for the first time in months, John Savelle showed up in a dream. My relationship with Delightful Date seemed to have evicted John from my subconscious for quite a while, but not for good. We had a nice little chat in the dream; he admitted he had moved back to Surrey as he'd missed it, and was never happy in Oxfordshire.

The end of the dream took a very strange turn though, as my estranged husband made an appearance. I was walking through a poorer section of Havana when he suddenly showed up, looking frightened. It was if someone were hunting him. Perhaps he was an early Fidelista?