While actively searching for a girlfriend I stumbled upon numerous profiles of women who wanted to marry abroad, especially into US. Such profiles stand out thanks to semi-professional photos (in a poor-man’s studio, if that) and highly provocative poses and dresses. They use brutally horrible English or clear Russian - that is if a woman decidedly skipped services of a “professional dating agency”. These profiles are full of love and lust for a new country of living (whatever the country happens to be). Single mothers’ profiles are particularly touching.

Text is almost always the same, with slight variations:

I am very cheerful girl, which is simple adores to dance and chatter on souls. I very much like tennis and ski. I adore to travel and I dream once to travel all world. Only it would be desirable to inform my small, but by the very unpredictable world. I like my friends, through which I really have seen the world by such, that it is - complete secrets and adventures. I very love my parents, which have helped me to become with that I am in this minute. Yes, it is possible to say, I am happy. At the moment I am carried away by photos and drawing. In free time I attend disco with the friends and I read Russian literature.

With public acknowledgment of Russia’s dictatorship and recent initiatives to bring expatriates back home, I envision the wave of the profiles with slightly different angle to them. Something like this, only in Russian:

I am smart and good looking lady with love to reading, passion to theater and art exhibitions, dancing and travel. Enjoy tennis and skiing. My greatest dream is to travel all over the world. Like to spend time with my friends over a cup of coffee, see a movie or visit my old parent. Looking for a decent man who deserves to be with me and is willing to come to ____ (insert the name of the city here) and start a family.

Oh, and the photos should just like the following (actual dating photos used): Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 93%

Last year I got into a gym at Baruch college, where I take Entrepreneurial Management classes. Started going there religiously, first - two times a week, then three times. Started running at night, 4 miles.

The outcome: lost weight (40 lbs) since November 2006, went from size 42 pants to size 36. Actually, last week my Armani Exchange designer jeans size 36 felt a little loose…

Lost my ex-girlfriend, who now looks like a huge transsexual monster weighting 270 lbs with no desire to improve.

Lost my old major, Computer Sciences, went with Entrepreneurial Management. Although it’s kind of hard to get all this new (to me) stuff into my head, it is very interesting and quite useful for a little adventure that I have.

Popularity: 32%

With all the crap that’s been going on around lately I didn’t really have time to take care of this blog. However, the time has come - this one has been upgraded and updated.

While I was installing the new Travelogue theme, ran into Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in …[cut]…/wp-admin/upgrade-functions.php on line 623 error. While fixing the issue - killed the blog, killed the database, everything was pretty much in ruins. Thanks to smart ass I am - I got a back up on Amazon S3. So the database is restored, updated version of WordPress and new template are running, all is set.

BTW, the solution to this error is not on Wordpress web site. It’s posted here and for sake of keeping up the good theme (hey, one of my favorite porn sites use it) I’m copying the solution here.

The solution is easy:

1. Open functions.php in travelogue2 theme folder

2. Edit line 102 from: $table_name = $table_prefix . “travelogue2″; to $table_name = $table_prefix . “t2″; (you have to change travelogue2 with t2)

2. Save, that’s all.

Thanks, Google

Popularity: 40%