date week - women behind bars.

welcome to day three of date week.

day one was dating for adults who like to wear diapers, day two was for the trekkies, and now...

it's women behind bars wednesday!

fuck me sideways and call me suzie! this is insane.

the incredibly talented lisa from the lovely blog; days like today, over here sent me a heads up about this website. thank you lisa. (ps: if you follow her blog she will draw you, it's pretty cool.)




it's a dating website for men who would like to hook up with women who are in prison.

um guys... i know most of you usually just think with your dicks, but seriously, is this really such a good idea?

i know, i know, there are some serious pros:

1. you always know where your girlfriend is.

2. she's bound to be really horny (but potentially gay) by the time she gets out.

but let's take a look at the cons. (geddit, cons. wahahahahha.)

1. they're in prison.

2. they're in prison.

3. they're in prison!

what bothers me most is that none of their profiles say what they're in for. surely if you're going to date someone who has committed a felony you'd want to know whether they cheated on their taxes, or poisoned all their exes. i know it's just a little detail, but still, i'd wanna know.

let's meet some of the inmates:

this happy, go lucky, easy-going looking individual is chelsea:







her profile says:



'I love the outdoors, swimming, playing pool and video games. I am looking for a man who will be there for me long term...'


you love the outdoors do you Chealsea? well you should have thought about that before you stole two television sets and a dvd player so you could buy smack!


this is carmen:



she likes long walks on the beach, romantic candle-lit dinners and stabbing you in the face while you're sleeping, with a homemade shiv.


and last but not least, this is elizabeth:

(just in case you can't read that, it says:) 'My hobbies are camping, cooking, romantic evenings and music. I am possibly willing to relocate.'

okay, maybe i'm reading too much into that profile, but 'willing to relocate', to me that sounds like she's looking for someone to break her out of prison! don't you think? good thing she likes camping and cooking, so when you're on the run from the law together and living in a forest, at least she won't be moaning at you that she's missing her hairdryer.

and then this is my absolute favourite part of the website, there is a warning page and a list of things you as a potential prison girl dater should look out for.

it has this headline:

First you need to keep it in mind that these ladies are in prison and most for good reason.

um... duh... you think?

now i've seen it all. well almost all, come back tomorrow for more crazy shit on date week thursday. thanks again lisa.

date week - tuesday is for trekkies.

welcome to day two of 'date week'.

yesterday we looked at a dating website for people who like to wear adult diapers. (yup i'm afraid so.)

today is something a little less creepy, but no less crazy.


it's a dating website for 'trekkies' (ie: people obsessed with star trek)

here's the website's blurb:




ha, 'love long and prosper', see what they've done there.

how often have you been desperate to find that special someone to attend a sci-fi convention with you? if it's often then this is the dating website for you.

let's meet some of the eligible bachelors:

this guy calls himself 'captain spock'. (uber original)

that's all he's looking for in a girl, someone to take action like Captain Kirk and ask probing questions like Captain Kirk, hey maybe he's not looking for a girl after all, maybe he's looking for someone a little more Captainy and a little more Kirky?

here's bachelor number two: (i'm guessing he's the one on the left.)

ok robotkw... you're clairvoyant are you? guess what i'm thinking right now?

and yes, there are girls too. trekkiettes i guess.

what? i think i understood every third word. somebody date her please, she's in serious need of a shag.

dude, is that your mom? seriously?

still single? all of you? never!

it's date week.

welcome to Date Week.

WARNING: THIS POST WILL HURT SENSITIVE EYEBALLS AND THOSE WHO HAVEN'T HAD COFFEE YET!

this is how it works. every day this week i'm going to profile a different weird and wonderful dating website.

i already covered dating for cat lovers over here and a cool amish dating website over here. at the time i really thought those took the cake. but since then i've discovered a whole horde of fucking mad dating sites that i never dreamed possible. each is so incredibly bizarre that it deserves a post of it's own. hence date week.

today is monday, which is a pretty shitty day of the week if you ask me, so i thought it apt to discuss this dating website... yes, it's for adults who like to wear diapers.

no, you read right. grown persons who like to poop into a huggies on occasion.

yes folks, it takes all kinds to build this funny old world of ours. and it turns out even mad folk need to find that special somebody.

and they can do so over here, at diaper mates dot com.

i wish i could say i understood it. but i don't. then again i don't understand algebra either.

why would you (not you, but these people) want to wear nappies? i don't get it!

since i'm not quite sure what else to say about it and you may not believe me unless i show you, here are a few profiles from the site:

this is dave. he likes long walks on the beach (in diapers), dancing (in diapers), wearing diapers (in diapers) and anything to do with himself (in diapers):

and meet bambino. he wants to treat you like a princess. on condition you're willing to call him a naughty boy, give him a good spanking and send him off to bed without any din dins.

and it's not just the boys who are off their rockers in this department, surprisingly there are a ton of girls on the site too, this is baby lizzie, in all her craziness:

baby 'mad-pants':

and baby 'you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me':




baby johnnie in his crib:




and baby stewie, who seriously needs some therapy!

dude you're old enough to be your own grandfather, wtf!

okay, these pictures are starting to make me feel queazy, if you want to see more you'll have to visit the site yourself. but i warn you, it's a weird and crazy place!

come back tomorrow for more Date Week - tuesday is dating for trekkies.

The Club - by Edyth Bulbring

what an amazingly dark and twisty book. i really enjoyed it.



have any of you read it? what did you think?

it totally wasn't what i was expecting. i picked it up and didn't put it down for two days.

i didn't want to like the main character, who has an incredibly dark side. but she's so flawed and damaged by what's happened to her, you just can't help rooting for her.

it's all about these hectic rich kids whupping it up at a private school in joburg.

they run this club that rules the school. bribing teachers and controlling the students.

it's got sex, drugs, plots and schemes, twists and turns and some cricket. really enjoyable, pick it up if you can.

kids are very different these days, back in the day we just smoked a bit of weed on the school field, graunched a little and fumbled around some (above bra) and liked the odd toot, these kids are completely out of control.

who wants this copy next? if you live in cape town and you'd like to read it drop me a message in the comments section below, best comment wins and i'll mail you the book. you should read it, it's a riveting, page-turning read.

local really is lekker.

if you would like to find out more about the author, the wonderful edyth bulbring, there's a really cool interview with her over here, and she has a blog here. you should read her blog. she is funny in a sick and twisted way, and that's what i dig about her.

A Million Miles from Normal - the novel, now out.

welcome to today. a rather exciting day here at A Million Miles from Normal.

i have a hangover. that's not the exciting part, that's pretty much normal.

the exciting part is that you might remember last year over here i mentioned that i'd signed a book deal with penguin south africa.

well the book is now available at Exclusive Books in Constantia, and will be available from all good book stores around south africa from 6th April, or you could order it online here at kalahari.net (the sa version of amazon) should you be so inclined.

it's called... wait for it... A Million Miles from Normal. and here is the cover:

sound familiar? it was actually the book's title before it was the blog's title, promise.

when i first started looking for a publisher for the manuscript, my literary agent, the fabulous and incredibly talented ron irwin told me i HAD to start a blog if i really wanted to bag a publishing deal, and so this blog was born.

the book is a little different from the blog, mainly because it's a work of fiction, as opposed to a pile of random and smutty ramblings.

A Million Miles from Normal, the novel, is a romantic comedy about a woman named rachel marcus. she is a copywriter at an ad agency in joburg who loses first her fiance and then her job, in a very publicly humiliating fashion. nobody in SA will hire her as a result and she's forced to move to new york city.

once in the big apple she plans on living a fabulous life to show everyone back home that she's not a complete disaster. but the only apartment she can find is a shit-hole rat trap, and the only job she can get is at a ghastly below-the-line ad agency called target advertising, where she works on socks and sanitary pads, with a freak for a boss and an alcoholic drug addict for an art director. she dates online, but things just never seem to go her way.

let me know what you think if you manage to pick it up.

and if you do pick it up i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i've loved, loved, loved writing every single word of it.

fabulous advertising/marketing website biz community will be running exclusive excerpts and give aways and will be doing lots of other cool Million Miles from Normal stuff, from 6th April. i'll keep you posted on all of that.

clients from hell - a threesome

these come straight from the clients from hell website. for more clients from hell goodness, click here.

book review - the elegance of the hedgehog

a couple of weeks ago i won this book over here at this amazing blog, the book club blog.

a free book - how cool is that?

anyway so here are my thoughts on the book.

let me know if you've read it what you thought, kay. i might be completely wrong about it.

BOOK REVIEW - ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG – By MURIEL BARBERY.

I don’t know.
I really don’t.

I was looking forward to reading this book for a couple of reasons.

1. I won it
2. It’s had lots of critical acclaim and loads of people have been talking about it
3. I like the title
4. I like the cover
5. It’s a New York Times Bestseller.

So I started out with high hopes.

At first I really didn’t like it at all. And then I liked bits of it and not other bits. And then by page 200 I was hooked and I raced on down to the last page, thoroughly enjoying the ride.

I was completely charmed by the story of the French concierge and the other characters living at number 7, rue de Grenelle, but the problem was that as soon as I got stuck into their lives I was pulled rudely away from them to go into pages and pages of philosophy, that if I’m honest, went right over my head.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I feel like perhaps I’m just not smart enough for this book. I’ve never read any Tolstoy, Marx or Freud, so a lot of that stuff about ‘the meaning of life, etc.’ just came across as a little pretentious and boring to me.

I suppose a philosopher would say they liked the philosophical ideas in the book, but that the author kept interrupting it with all those pesky characters.

I often felt like the author only created these characters because she needed a framework within which to spout her philosophical ideas and show how smart she is.

Overall though I ended up really thoroughly enjoying it. (I know, sorry, it’s a bit of a schizophrenic review) and I’m so glad I read it. Curious to hear how others have felt about it.
I will now continue to ‘pass on the love’ by handing it over to A Million Miles from Normal reader, Chryssa, who won it by default, by being the only person who showed any interest in getting it after me. Maybe she’ll write us a review too, and we can compare them.

Thanks so much book club blog. I’m so glad I got to read it.

kids, not that bad if you ignore the snot.

kids are cute.

i really like them.

truly.

especially and particularly when they're not your own and you can hand them back to the real parents when they shit their pants or try to wipe snot on you.

cos that's what they do. it's like it's their profession or something.

speaking of shitting one's pants, i have an event on thursday (read all about it here on friday) and i'm literally crapping myself, so i've been hand-crafting a carefully worded letter to the big man upstairs all week. you don't want to say the wrong thing and piss him off.

so far i've got:

dearest Big Guy upstairs,

please let everything go well, and let it not be a fuck up. thank you.

love paige.

oer... can you say 'fuck up' to the man upstairs, or is he like the SABC and you have to bleep it out? i'm not sure.

anyway my letter definitely needs work. i'm a writer, i should be able to do better than that. i'll get right on it.

in the meantime check these out, they're letters to upstairs, from kids who live downstairs. kinda cute. if they're legit. bet the big man liked these and that's why the weather is so nice today.

do you think these are for real? i really hope so.

ironically if they were for real it would restore my faith in kids.

you see, i can learn something from jonathan, who no doubt picks his nose and then eats it - going in with a compliment is a clever way to start a letter to the big guy upstairs. everyone likes a compliment, even the guy who invented the compliment.

in twenty years time what's the bet Raphael's letter to upstairs will read;

Dear G-d,

please let me finally lose my virginity sometime soon. preferably before i turn forty.

love Raphael.

uh chris, he is the guy in the bible.

good thinking jane, now go get a cookie.

ginny's got a point.

we need something good in june.

elliott's a brown-nosing little suck up with two t's!

amen.

passive aggressive notes

passive aggressive notes dot com is an awesome website. i love it.

'painfully polite and hilariously hostile writings from shared spaces the world over.'

is how they describe their site.

according to the 'about' section on their luffly site, they recognise that many of the notes they post aren't strictly speaking actually legitimately passive aggressive.

it's more just a bunch of freakish malcontents whinging and cursing.

i love the word 'malcontent' it's just so... malcontentious. know what i mean?

here are a few funny ones:

Dear Haylee,

it's cute when you're a child. but trust me, when you turn 40 and you live alone, bar 17 cats, that attitude's not going to be so attractive.

um really? people do that? no, they can't! but they do? really? oh my goodness. my brain struggles to come to terms with that.

although i once lived in a huge apartment block in Roeland Street in Cape Town. it had this cool gym, pool and sauna on the rooftop, and some students living there had a braai on the sauna coals one night. they braaied (barbequed) chops. true story. literally they were a bunch of chops and a dop.

but more importantly who writes their angry note on a sticky? i always run out of space and am forced to crumple it up and start over, and by then the anger has somewhat abated.

you heard the man. you do not leave the toaster unattended. you take it with you where ever you go. are we understood?

not sure if you can read this. but if you can, it's a gem.

(apologies for the tease if you can't read it, sorry for you though, it's a goodie.)

to me that one is less passive aggressive, and more aggressive aggressive. man i love it when people are really offensive and swear a shit-load in a note. it just racks that humour up a notch.

i like that - if you say; 'thank you and have a good day' after you've given someone a bollocking, they may still like you - even though you just shat them out.

waahahahhaa pot, meet kettle.

it's taken me 35 years to learn this - but i think people clearly feel obsessively passionate about two things in this world; toasters and air conditioning. i'm not sure why, it's just one of those things.

swing by their site if you want to see more. they've also brought out a book.

i think the strongly worded letter/note/sticky is sadly underused these days as a means of communication. i think i'm going to write to someone and complain about that.