To Flip, Or Not To Flip?

Before we go deeper into the Flip Dilemma, let me get something off my chest first.

Behold my lovely, ruby-red Nokia that is no longer with us. Sigh!

It even went with my red doggy-collar! Now, how often does THAT happen, eh?

I have had my lovely, ruby-red Nokia for years and never lost it.
Mr. Where'sMyHead?I'mSureIHadItOnThisMorningWhenILeftTheHouse! takes it in his hands for, I'm not kidding, THIRTY SECONDS, and manages to loose it! Oh, the tragedy!

Granted, the phone was very, very old, and most of my friends were embarrassed to be seen with me in public because of it. So, looking on the bright side, maybe I'll even win back some of those friends I'd lost due to the out-of-dateness of my cell phone. YAY! cos those are definitely the kind of friends you wanna keep.

OK. That was necessary for closure.

Where was I? Flippin, yeah, that was it... So now, after about 4 years of carefree life, oblivious of what is trendy and hi-tech in the world of mobile phones, I have to decide what model to get.

Enter my friend Juski, a saint among Taipei socialites and a cell-phone aficionado, known for her charity work in the field of fine dining, corn popping and ice chewing.

J lends me her spare phone to tie me over till I figure out which new one I want to buy.

Here's the phone in question, next to a delicious bowl of creme brule from Lotz Food. Delish!

I don't remember what this was about...

Oh, yeah... about the type of phone. So, now I'm using this flip phone for the first time and I'm beginning to like it. It's got that whole What?!YouCan'tTalkToMeLikeThat...*SLAM!* dramatic effect to it, you know? Add a little hair toss and an eye roll, finish it off with a diva-exit and you've got yourself a perfect prop for creating a scene. How can you not love that!

So, now I'm totally confused. Should I stick to a non-flip phone or go Flippin?

See, J? See how I'm taking care of your phone? He's snug as a bug in this camouflage sock! He might not even want to go back to you. He, he.

Important note: I kept the same number, but lost the address book. So, please send me a text or call me if you want me to have your number. Thanks!

Errr... and if you can't send it because you don't have my number, there's a good chance that... you know... uh, do I have to spell it out?

Stealin From The Despised, Givin To The Hot

They sure don't make men the way they used to.

Luckily, there are still a few of them old-school boys left out there, who will go to any length to help out a damsel in distress.

Or, more specifically, a Croatian damsel who can't find her Croatian football jersey and the World Cup has already begun and she has nothing to wear to Croatia's games.

I'm sorry, we can't reveal what exactly transpired, because stealing is bad, bad, BAD... and we don't want to get our hero into trouble. So, gmail me for details. You'll love the story. I promise. He, he.

When asked to comment on the heroic deed, Mr. Hood had this to say: "What's the big deal? Been doin that shit since I was 10."

Awwww!

Speaking of football and World Cup, did you know that the FIFA website tells you exactly what each team wears, right down to the color of their socks? This truly IS the age of metrosexuals, isn't it?

Speaking of metrosexuals... here's one guy that definitly isn't. Dado Pršo.

I don't care how many guys' heads he kisses.

Cradle Robbers 'R' Us

Women in their thirties dating twentysomethingyearolds is apparently all the rage these days. So, I decided to get in on it and see if it's as fabulous as advertised.

It is.

Believe you me.

When I first told Mom about Mr. Taš, I ended the story with "... but there's just this one thing... he's a lot younger than me..." silence... suspense down the telephone wire... "Oh! By how much?" ... "Uh... six." "Oh, that's nothing! What are you talking about!?", said Mom cheerfully.

A week later I talk to Mama again. The first thing she wants to talk to me about is all these Croatian celebrities, women, who are dating much younger men at the moment. Now I get this report every week. It's like she's scanning the celeb news looking specifically for women dating much younger men. Hilarious. Especially coming from my mom who has never EVER been interested in what celebrities are doing, most of the time she couldn't name more than 3 singers and/or actors, and even those 3 would have been from back when she was in her thirties, the days of Sanremo, schlager music, Arsen Dedic and Gabi Novak.

So, apparently ("apparently" because I really can't be bothered to do research on this), Severina and Nina Badric are both dating a lot younger men.
Seve: and Nina: are the same age as me. Generacija '72. Nina even went to same high-school as me. I was darkerica, she was šminkerica, two opposing cliques, so we never hung out together, but I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the school. I love her album Ljubav.

Stanley Stick from Yilan

This new journey to freedom from bug-phobia has taken me to Yilan, a town on the Eastern coast of Taiwan.
In Yilan Samantha Jones ran into Stanley Stick. A gentleman among insects.

My first reaction to Stanley was to jump, scream and hide behind Indiana Jones. Stanley's first reaction, on the other hand, was not to move at all. Seriously, he wasn't afraid of me. He didn't budge. Not even a bit. He just stood there on the leaf, as if nothing happened. As if he had seen so many phobic city chicks go by that he couldn't be fazed anymore.

Thanks to the patience of Indiana Jones and my will to get over the fear, 5 minutes later I touched Stanley a bit. Major yuckiness and goosebumps! But I got over it. 5 minutes after that, I was holding him and 5 minutes after that Stanley and I were inseparable. I even let him crawl on my t-shirt. He chose my left boob to settle down on. Good choice. The guy is obviously a boob connoisseur.

Here's me holding Stan:

What a cutie pie, eh? And such a poser!

Er... someone needs a manicure. And those white spots on nails, I hear that's Zinc deficiency, is that right?

So, there you go. If you're a bug-phobe like me, I can recommend you to find your own Mr. Jones, get out there and start touching those bugs! If Samantha can be cured than anyone can.

Indiana Jones meets Samantha Jones

+ = ?

Up until a month or so ago I was one of those people who cringe and scream and run in terror at the sight of a bug. Centipedes, caterpillars, grasshoppers... EWWW! Just writing their names gives me the creeps.

Being a 100%, ISO-certified City Girl that I am, staying well within the city limits and never venturing into the nature, I had no problems avoiding bugs until now. A cockroach here and there, a spider in the kitchen every now and then... that's ok. I can handle that. Just don't send me into a forest, ok?

Howeverrrr.... irony, my favorite spice of life, made sure things got a little bit more complicated than that. It got me dating Indiana Freakin Bug Boy Jones who not only loves going into the woods to look for insects and lizards, but will find them in the middle of a busy road in Taipei, no problem.

We could be on our way to a nice restaurant, he'll be "Wait... look at that pile of garbage in that alley! Let's see if there are any bugs underneath!" Can you see the "Oh, YAY, let's!" written all over my face?

But, looking on the bright side of things, I am closer then ever to curing my phobia, which is a bonus, I guess.

All this talk of bugs reminds me of a BBC TV series I loved: My Family And Other Animals based on a wonderful book by Gerald Durrell.

Gerry himself is the main character. He's the Bug Boy. His mother moves the whole family to Corfu, which turns out to be a paradise for Gerald who will haul anything that moves into the house, to his family's horror.

Even though the idea of all these insects and other animals crawling all over the house scared the hell out of me, for some reason I wanted to be part of this quirky family and their life on the island. Which is a bit ironic because I already had an island just like that (Brač), with stone houses just like the one they lived in, with bugs and lizards just like those in Greece, with eccentric relatives and with a cool single mom just like Gerry's mom was. At the confusing age of 16 I somehow didn't see that at all. Teenagers are weird.