Dusk

Catherine is an evil witch (metaforically, of course), and she marries the man whom she hates because her father orders her. Bianka is an obedient angel, and she secretly marries her suitor who sneaked into her father's home by deception.
Am I the only one who thinks it looks inconsistent?

That's how it is always supposed to be, so the books are built on it.
Or are they not nowadays? I've seen it in some humour fantasies, so not sure if it is used in more serious genres;-)
The idea is "you fight your enemy with similar weapon to what they have".
But I like the idea "you fight with whatever you have and whatever works" more.

How can you normally guess that a girl has new boyfriend?
(yes, I'm tired of being asked about it by the Blond Receptionist all the time! Everything provokes her to ask this question. Last time it was my call to Exquire about delivery of NZLARPS gear. Hey, I didn't even call at my work time, it was my lunch!)

This naughty randomness was brought to you by the Dark Side of me, and I have nothing to do with it;-)

That's the new word I've learned today. Grammatically it's three words, but I've seen it on that Russian forum and there it was made as one "pickup" word. I looked in Wiki. In fact, there is a car type which name sounds similar to "pick-up", and when I saw that word on the Russian sites - I always thought it's about the car, but it was out of context, so I usually just didn't read (why would I read something I don't understand?;-) And in English context pick up for me means someone is very nice to me and they give me a lift somewhere, so they pick me up.

Wiki says "most pick-up lines are ineffective, resulting in rejection of the user". And one woman on the forum says she always sees a puckuper when they come to her because she reads many pickup sites and so knows all their techniques. And they also discuss pickup courses, where, if I'm not wrong, people can learn how to do the pickup.

I'm trying to remember if I ever been approached by a pickuper, but can't recall any, because I don't read pickup sites and don't know the techniques. Or maybe I just didn't notice it was a pickup?

*very thoughtful*

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be like others. 
It's a cultural thing, I guess, or maybe educational too. You need to be individual, you need to be not like others, you need to be special, it is bad to follow the fashion, it is bad to be part of the crowd, it is bad to do something because everybody is doing that something...
It is always the "being like others" vs "being free/smart/competent/whatever".
Makes no sense at all.
If everyone wear red skirts - why should I not wear a red skirt? Just because everyone else wear them, and if I do - I'll be part of the crowd? What's so wrong with it?
And what if I like red skirts? What if I really want to wear red skirt? Should I not do that just because that will make me part of the crowd?
P.S. Yes, I know it's only a part of culture that promotes this opinion, but it's big enough, believe me...
P.P.S. I'm wearing a red skirt today.

Why is it when I was studying everyone around seemed to be working already, and now when I'm working everyone seem to be studying?

I'm a freak again, as usual.

How many times you can send invoice to the same people? They were invoiced in January, still didn't pay, they keep sending us requests for invoice, we keep sending the invoice, and they already confirmed they received the invoice on 31 July! And now I get a new request for invoice!
Like the IT Guru said "This is so crappy that it's not funny".
And they don't have this trouble with other orders, just recently paid for one of them, so they do receive mails from us - but this one particular order is just cursed!

I wonder: what exactly in the Kiwiland you can get for free? Are there really many things?

I'm asking because I still keep memories of Russian conditions where people often work hard and don't get paid for it, and many other situations like that when they don't get something that LEGALLY belongs to them. So for me it is not easy to request something even in this situation. Lucky me almost doesn't get such situations in Kiwiland, so mostly it's ok... However, with pretty much everything I expect some payment to be taken, and when it's free - I'm getting very surprised. Obviously in a positive way. Like, recently when I needed a certified copy of my degree certificate the nice solicitor lady made it for free, and she said they never take money for this kind of thing, unless it's a whole bunch of thingies.

Well, the question is not about that. In attempts to understand the way my customers think I'm looking at the cases that often repeat. One of them is when I get request from someone for a free book, or free access to the website, or free software. It happens all the time. Sometimes people declare "I want it free", sometimes they do not say it openly but give some hints that obviously demonstrate they expect it for free, sometimes they can't even imagine there will be a price.

So, I'm just wondering - is it a kind of Kiwi culture setting which I'm not aware of that lots of things are available for free?
Or is it just a normal human optimism horribly multiplied by convenient life conditions?

This logically comes from my reply to the previous post's comment.
I've read an article on feminism long ago in Russian Cosmopolitan, and even with all the Cosmopolitanish crazyness of "life is sex" that article was surprisingly serious. It was compound of interviews with four Russian feminists, including the famous Maria Arbatova, a very well known Russian feminist and social figure.
They described the situation with feminism in Russia in 90th, but from what I read in internet now, sitting in NZ, doesn't seem like things changed a lot.
One of them described a report she made on some congress and the reactions of the men in audience. One of them yelled "I wouldn't tolerate it if my wife dares to earn more than I do", another one out of nothing said that women should follow the example of a caveman's wife that is sitting in the cave and obediently waiting for her man to come back.
Another one told about the interview in which she was involved, it was supposed to be an interview for some female magazine - but about feminism. She was discussing the problem to the reporters, with arguments, examples, quotes from classic literature, and they were looking strangely at her and just sometimes inconsistently asking questions like "You have very long eyelashes, are they comfortable like that?" or "Do you like kissing?". Her final opinion was that the interview was trying to demonstrate that a woman is not more than a kitchen or bedroom device.
Another one said that it's nowadays not allowed to publicly say bad things about Jews or Black Africans, or gays, but still normal and acceptable to say bad things about women.
All still true, I think, and not sure if it would ever change in Russia.

Bumped into an article in inet (in Russian), that was just a short informal thing about some students. A girl who wrote that was very surprised when her uni friends, while presenting her to a newbie in the group, said "this is our stronghold of feminism". She then asked them why they called her that, and found out that one of the reasons what that she never allowed any man to pay for her in cafe. Her idea which she explains further i  the article was that she didn't see any reasons to expect a man to pay for her if he has the same income, but at the same time her classmates saw it as not a very friendly behaviour and the only explanation they could find for it was that she's a feminist.

"Don't marry a rich man, he will cheat on you. And don't marry a handsome man either, he will cheat on you too".
That's what my grandmother once told me.

I hate people whistling.
I really do.
And I have a bias: when my friends are whistling, people whom I know well and whom I like - I don't mind them whistling. With some of them I even like to listen to their whistle (especially if it's some medieval tune;-)))
But with those I hardly know, or with strangers...
When they whistle that makes me sick.
When they whistle that makes me furious.
When they whistle that makes me want to tear them into many pieces.
I hope I will not have to be in bus with same driver as today.
Otherwise I'll have to carry a player with headpieces with me and listen music very loudly.
P.S. I'm not crazy. I'm just special.