Month: October 2007

I came across my post on Cyprus dating from last November.  Immediately, I wanted to see how things changed.  Here is an updated screenshot:

Before:  52 men and 4 women

Now:  37 men and 15 women

What does this mean?  Well, there are a few ways to look at it.  Here are my takes:

1. Dating got better.  The ration of men to women is approaching 1:1 – the ideal for both sides.
2. Dating got worse.  The total number of people decreased from 56 (52+4) to 52 (37+15).
3. These whole stats are fishy.

The first two points are rather obvious.  What’s with the third one?  I don’t know.  Somehow, I feel that a magic number – 52 – present in both takes isn’t just a coincidence.  SPAM?  Fake accounts? Inactive accounts?  There are many reasons that could have caused a drop in male profiles and growth in female ones…  I’m not going to speculate on this.  At least publicly.

Instead, I suggest we look for stats on this matter somewhere else.   Alexa traffic statistics for Cyprus suggests that AdultFriendFinder.com is #42 in the top visited web sites.  Being a married person, I’m not much of a dating person, so I don’t know of any other dating sites in that list.  Let’s look at what they have to offer on the statistical front.

Gladly, AdultFriendFinder.com offers a rather comprehensive listing of profiles per country.  Here is the one for Cyprus.  Quoting:

15,462 Listings in Cyprus

Men seeking Men    481 Listings
Men seeking Women    8,049 Listings

…

Women seeking Men    241 Listings
Women seeking Women    238 Listings

These numbers are almost scary!  The best strategy for a men seeking women here would be to sneak around through the gay-lesbian side, rather than to compete against 8000+ guys for a woman.  Whatever…

Today our whole family committed thievery.  We stole a tiny little kitten from its mother.  Olga had her eye on it for a month or so now.  The happy, but obviously underfed family lives in Limassol Municipal Garden. It consists of a young mother and three very differently looking kids.  And now they are only two.

Yes, we stole the kitten from its mother in the bright daylight.  We, all three of us, just walked into the park and took her away.  She wasn’t protesting much.  She didn’t know what was waiting for her.  She’s still young and naive.  She is not afraid of people.  She was just enjoying the sun and the company of her siblings.  And here we came…

Crime: none.  Sentence: life imprisonment.  We took her home.  She will stay with us forever now. Or until the unlikely act of amnesty. Or an even less likely event of escape.

We are still thinking on how to name her.  The best suggestion for now (by yours truly, of course) is Cappuccino (or Cappa for short).  Even though she looks more like a tiny cup of filtered coffee, it seems reasonable to commemorate the fact that we picked her up in close proximity of Starbucks.

In the next few days we’ll have to clean her up a bit and photograph properly.  She’s still adjusting to the new place and a total absense of her family.  But one thing she brought with her is that magnificent colony of fleas.  They are jumping up and crawling all over her, and you can see a few of them around at any moment.  One of them can even be seen on the photo above (click the image to go Flickr version, and move your mouse over to get a location hint.  Then you can see a larger version of the image for more details).  Too bad today is Saturday and most of pet shops are closed already.  We need an anti-flea neck strap, which I couldn’t find in the regular supermarket.

In the meantime, if you have any hints, or tips, or name suggestions, feel free to abuse the comments.

Maxim got sick again. I’m almost used to this, as he did so at least a dozen times this year alone. The difference this time was that his ear started hurting later in the evening. We gave him some medicine, but our reserves were empty and I had to go out to find some more.

Usually, that’s not a problem. 90901415 is the phone number where they give you a list of “late night pharmacies”. All I have to do is pick the closest one.

This time, the closest one was only a couple of blocks from our place. So I drive there pretty fast. Closed. OK. That’s why they usually give residence number too – you can call up the pharmacy guy and he’ll open up in no time. So, I’m calling.

– Good evening, is this Mr.X?

– Yes. What do you want?

– I’m calling about the pharmacy.

– It’s 00:30. The pharmacy is closed!

– Yes, but they gave me your contacts in the “late night pharmacy directory”…

– Do you have a prescription?

– No, but I do have an emergency!

– I can’t open the pharmacy without prescription! … beep… beep… beep…

I never wish anybody any harm. But this was an exception. All sorts of words that I am not proud of were coming out of my mouth.

So, I call the automatic lady at 90901415 again, and get myself the next closest target. Drive up there – closed again. Calling the residence… No answer. Again… No answer. Again… No answer. Those words that I weren’t proud of… Again they are coming out of my mouth…

The third pharmacy on the list was way too far. I drove back home with an intention of taking Maxim to the doctor for the prescription. Gladly, I found out that his pains calmed down a bit and he was asleep.

Today morning, when we visiting the doctor, I asked him if pharmacies should be working 24×7 or if they are indeed “late night pharmacies”. He said that they should be open all night, but that “they always find excuses”. And that “even with prescriptions they often don’t open”.

Although I am a frequent user of late night pharmacies, I was surprised to get into this situation. And I was double surprised to find two pharmacies like this being “on duty” at the same time.

Last year, when I went to the gym, my primary goal was to lose weight. Thanks to a few people, I succeeded.  This time I just felt that I have to get back to the gym, but I failed to identify the goal of the exercises.  Today, while jogging, it suddenly came to me.   My fitness goal can be expressed in the following two points:

• I want to live until I am at least 80 years old.
• At that age, I want to be physically fit to pick up and carry around my grandson, who’ll be a 20-something years old fat bastard.  Either him, or both granddaughters.

Yeah, something like that.  Give or a take.