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Dressing Up With Topshop's AW09 Collection

via style.bitchbuzz.com

This week I got to play around at Topshop's offices, try on the new lines, and then have my photo taken by a pro photographer.

It was, to say the least, fucking fab.

Calm Seas & A Reluctant SOS

It's amazing how calm the seas are, when you just stop to worry about yourself, and what you're doing.

Spending time with people you actually want to be around, and allowing yourself to do something for fun for once, instead of out of obligation, is even better.

I've a clean flat, have been running three times this week, have cooked, spent time drinking far too much wine and seeing people I actually like, and have hunkered down and done a lot of work.

It's amazing how much energy you can conserve when you don't spend it worrying what insignificant Cuntrags are doing. Yes. Cuntrags. 

And, despite all of my control-freakness and inability to ask for help, I'm thinking I need to bring someone on board to help me do all of the things I need to do for my little website. 

I simply cannot keep up with all of the admin work, reviews, emails, updating social networks, and going to events I have to do. 

Luckily, there's a University just down the road from where we live, so I may just have to start looking for someone who wants a bit of work experience, or an internship at BitchBuzz.

I used to laugh at people when they told me I should get an intern...but now, I think I'm actually at that point. And it makes me a little excited! For fuck sake, I need some god damn help. (I think that's what I'll put in my description for the job...)

Now if only I could hire someone to do my dishes and to remind me to bathe on a regular basis.

illustration by Gil Elvgren 

"Out Of Stock" & Killing Hypothetical Situations

I hate shopping. 

This might be because I am a blogger and we're globally acknowledged as being poor, poor bastards. 

But this might also be because I hate the general public and even a 5 minute  trip to the grocery makes me go all stabby. 

This is why I like shopping online. I can look at things I can't afford, without all the bullshit tourists and lollygagging-shopping types scuffing along in their Uggs and hotpants getting in my god damn way. 

But do you know what totally kills your Browser Shopping high?

Items that are sold out. 

If you're shopping IRL, you only see the item they have in stock. Sure, they may not have your size, but they never really taunt you with an item that COULD have been yours, if only you had been here a month earlier. 

But online, oh ONLINE, they show you something absolutely beautiful, and only just as you're about to put in your credit card details do they go -OH! Sorry. We don't have this. But, eh, we'll let you know when we do. Um, like, we're sorry. And stuff. 

LG Pout: Fashion in a Digital Age

via www.lgblog.co.uk

Awww! The fabulous Mademoiselle Robot and I at the LG Pout party last night!

I Love The Internet Sometimes...

Facebook's Inconsistent & Ridiculous Censorship Policy

via tech.bitchbuzz.com

Facebook will not allow BitchBuzz to have a Vanity URL because it includes the word Bitch. However, still allow groups about rape, "beating your wife" and hating women to exist. Inconsistent much??

The Little Goose That Could

Yesterday, with the assistance of my Tmobile 3G dongle (no, they haven't paid me to say that, but if they did decide to pay me, I would say whatever they wanted) I spent the afternoon working outdoors. 

Specifically, I worked on an uncomfortable metal park bench under tree by the Thames at Kingston....Upon Thames.  They really knew what they were doing with that name. 

If you've ever been to Kingston, you'll know that down by the river, there are a plethora of bars, pubs, restaurants and cafés to eat, drink and be an asshole student at.

You'll also know that there are a large amount of gorgeous swans, Canadian Geese and many other kinds of ducks and water-loving birds that hang out, gracefully swimming along, begging for bread crumbs, and just doing their own thing. 

Walking over to my park bench, I spotted this little guy, just catchin' some sun:

Here he is, just being a Goose. Chillin'. 

About an hour into my workload, I suddenly notice another goose wandering around. He looks like a teenage goose - awkward, skinny, and not quite as full grown as the guy above. 

At first I thought he was just looking for food, and wandering around to see what was going on. Like a cat sussing out a new room they've never been in before. 

But then I noticed he started pacing up and down the section of river I was at, making little desperate honking noises, darting his skinny head up and down, looking through the cracks in the metal barricade that blocks drunken idiots, small children and over-zealous cyclists from falling in the Thames. 

He awkwardly waddled and paced up and down, up and down HOOOONK! HOOOOOONK! He just wanted the water, but couldn't fit trough the barricade. And couldn't get down to the steps that would allow him back to aquatic freedom, as it was blocked with people drinking on their lunch hour, toddlers chasing pigeons, and teenagers without a clue that this poor creature needed to get back to his home, and to his family.

This went on for an agonizing 5 minutes. HOOONK?! HOOOONK! HOOONK?? 

Back and forward. I stood staring, I wanted to pick him up! Tell him in Canadian to simply go to the steps, and walk past the threatening humans. Couldn't he fly over? 

He kept trying to squeeze through the gaps in the metal but would get stuck.

Finally, he pushed himself through the barricades with enough force to squeeze through. He got his flipper stuck, but managed to wrangle it free, and then get back to the river, safely.

This probably shouldn't have upset me so much, but it did. 

Because people don't watch their children properly while running around near a RIVER, and because grown adults don't know how to handle their drink, we need barricades on the river. The barricades are only in a specific spot, where the restaurants and bars are. And the only reason I can think they're there, is for the safety of humans.

But the wildlife and the swans and the geese around the Thames is part of its allure. 

But seeing that threatened, because of Man, and because of our need to build build build - I got a brief glimpse of that wildlife threatened. 

Yes, melodrama aside, the goose did make it back to safety. 

But to see a wild animal panic because it cannot get back to its habitat, because of something humans have done, and because humans were in its way, was horrifying. 

What Do Women Want From Tech Advertisers? - WITsend

via www.computerweekly.com

My column this week for Computer Weekly's "women in tech" blog is now live! (It went live yesterday, and then CW had the hiccups...)

Please go read, leave a comment, and join the conversation!

The People You Don’t Know: Beauty and Buzz

My podcast interview with "The People You Don't Know" is up. I come in about half way through. I talk a lot. If you're bored and feel like hearing about working at Starbucks, living in the UK and starting up BitchBuzz, here you go. Have a listen!

Grew Up In My Mouth

I never really considered myself a picky eater. 

And then I moved thousands of miles away from my Kraft singles, my Taco Bells, Round Tables and In 'n Out burgers. I moved away from my Applebees and Macaroni Grills and my free bread and refills. 

There was no Safeway. (Literally.)

I learned very quickly that living off of sourdough bread and cheese you could squeeze out of a can was no longer an option, and my taste buds and I realized that we had to grow up really quickly.

However, I didn't quite grasp how much my food preferences had changed until I went back home this Summer, and regularly nibbled on some hot 'n spicy chicken wings that had, like, bones in them and stuff. 

And I ate them without blinking an eye. I didn't think they were that spicy. And the bone thing did't really bother me. (Sorry vegetarians...and my mom.)

Clearly, this was because my taste buds have been destroyed from all of the ales and currys I've been eating. 

Or, my mouth and I grew up. 

During the first year or so of my arrival, Iain practically had to force me to eat things like Thai and Indian food. But what if it's spicy!? But what if it gives me diarrhea?!?!

I've yet to get diarrhea from any form of "ethnic" food (never mind TGIFridays) and my mouth has gradually manned-up to spicier things. Sure, I still only eat Tikka Masala - but considering I refused to touch anything other than Chicken Korma for 2 years, this is progress. I've found spicier things I like. 

In fact, since moving to London, I've found a whole world of things that I like. 

So, without further ado, here is the ridiculously long list of things that I hadn't tried, didn't like, or refused to eat before I moved to London.