The Sometimes tour will kick off mid October, looking very forward to it!

October 18th @ One Movement Festival, Esplanade, Perth

October 23rd @ Rocket Bar, Adelaide

October 24th @ Brisbane Hotel, Hobart

October 30th @ Shenanigans, Cairns

October 31st @ X-Kings Leprechuan Park, Milton Street, Mackay

November 6th @ Empire, Brisbane

November 7th @ Neverland, Gold Coast

November 13th @ Oxford Arts Factory, Sydney

November 14th @ The Grand Hotel, Wollongong

November 20th @ The Corner Hotel, Melbourne

November 21st @ Trackside Festival, Canberra

Miami Horror – Make You Mine (Fred Falke Remix)

Miami Horror – Don’t Be On With Her (Treasure Fingers Remix)

A picture to remember my first Tweetup by. Anyone ever been to one of these?

We are below street level in Washington, DC, at the Rocket Bar on June 29, 2009. I’m on the far, far left.

Massive respect to all heads who checked out his show. For any who missed it, the night was super dope. Mad crowd and positive energy. There are a couple of clips in the videos section from the Social Change Funk Movement set which include a Social Change & Inkswel track “Airborne” and crew track “Gemstone”. We getting so high!!!

By Calvin Palmer

A Muslim waitress in London has been awarded a £3,000 ($4,886) pay out after being made to wear a revealing red dress for work.

Fata Lemes, 33, quit her job after claiming that the low-cut dress was “disgusting” and made her look like a “prostitute”.

Lemes, a Bosnian Muslim, had told an employment tribunal that she “might as well have been naked” in the dress.

“I was brought up a Muslim and am not used to wearing sexually attractive clothes,” she said.

However, Lemes’s Facebook page has shown her wearing a low-cut t-shirt that displays not only her cleavage but black bra.

The Central London Employment Tribunal awarded Lemes damages after pointing out that only women — and not male staff — were required to wear the summer uniform at the Rocket Bar in Mayfair, London.

But the tribunal said Lemes’s £20,000 ($32,587) compensation claim — including £17,500 ($28,515) for hurt feelings — was “manifestly absurd”.

Instead they awarded her £2,919.95 ($4,758) for both hurt feelings and loss of earnings.

The ruling said: “Her perception was that wearing the dress would make her feel as if she was on show, as if she was being presented as one of the attractions which the Rocket Bar was offering its customers.

“In our view that perception was legitimate and not unreasonable. It is clearly a garment for a girl or young woman. It is intended to, and does, show the curves of the body.”

Lemes began working at the bar in May last year. A week later she was asked to change into the red dress instead of the loose fitting black linen shirt.

“It was indecent. If you put this dress on you might as well be naked,” she told the tribunal.

“Everything finishes in the middle at the chest. It is open at the front and the back. I did not want men looking at my body.”

Lemes earned £5.52 ($8.99) an hour plus a share of tips. She had been waitressing for 14 years but quit after telling the bar’s manager she could not wear the dress.

Luca Scanu, the bar manager, denied the dress was intended to increase sales and tips from male customers by being “sexually inviting”.

What an interesting concept –  hurt feelings.  Well done, Miss Lemes.  This landmark ruling should see just about every employee in Britain filing a complaint against their employer for hurt feelings but most of them would probably not be able to carry it off with the same degree of aplomb you have shown.

Given your religious beliefs, I find it hard that you would feel comfortable serving alcohol. Would that not be construed as aiding and abetting?

 Enjoy your £2,919.95. Go buy yourself a new dress.  Just watch out for reporters from The Sun.  I have a feeling they are on your case.

[Based on a report by The Times.]

It’s sad to say but I’m quite glad the bank holiday weekend is almost over. After three nights of partying, it’s definitely time to return to normality.

On Saturday night we went to Establishment in Fulham for Yvonne’s birthday. It started out being quite a calm civilised night. Lots of chatting and catching up with people. And then Barb decided to introduce the gang to her Mexican drink of choice, tequila boom-booms. One part tequila, one part Sprite and a touch of grenadine, they have to be smashed on the table to get them to fizz and then knocked back. A few of those and suddenly there were whispers of The Grand. I feel like I might have been the ringleader. The next thing I know I was jumping around on the dancefloor and their was Jagermeister involved. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many boys try to chat me up in my life. It was quite strange. Sorry boys, I’m not looking.

Despite the profusion of shots on Saturday, I woke up with no hangover on Sunday. I do not understand the science of hangovers but if the alcohol gods give u a get out of jail free card then you should take it and run with it. I guess that’s why B and I ended up sitting in the garden drinking cider at 4pm.

In the end we put on our little summer dresses (probably more because of what we wished the weather was like than what it was actually like) and made an appearance at Rocket Bar, where the atmosphere was quite intense. It was just too full and there seemed to be an odd desperation to get to the bar… maybe because it was closing at 10.30. For me the highlight was seeing Rob, who has been off the scene for ages. I missed the guy! Realising that Rocket was dying at an alarming rate we rounded up Ant, Tino and Kelly and headed to The Fez. This was the point where the wheels fell off. Danelle decided we all needed to get drunk and every time I turned around she had thrust another drink at me. Girl, you’re crazy… I love you. Before all reason could break down, we decided to make an exit via good old Kebab King… where I had my first actual kebab. That’s right, I’ve been here for 5 years and I’ve never actually had a kebab. I don’t think I’m ever having another one… *shudder*.

Today… rest… DVDs… water… lots of water.

I suppose I should have known that Saturday night was going to be completely random by the way the getting dressed part started. Barb, Kels, B and I were all getting ready at the mansion for Tino’s 30th. I had picked an “interesting” ensemble of purple cocktail dress and silver snakeskin leggings. I was rearranging my handbags when the doorbell rang and one of our neighbours and his friend appeared at the door. It seemed that they wanted to stand in one of the first floor bedrooms and wave at their friends who were having a bbq in their garden. God knows why… seems like the kind of random shit that drunk boys think is funny. First Barb turned them down, and then I did. And then it turned ugly as Barb went upstairs. Completely unprovoked one of the guys first told me that my hair colour definitely didn’t suit me and that I looked like I was wearing a wig. I initially thought he was joking but he was dead serious. He followed this up by telling me my leggings were ridiculous and that he hoped I wasn’t going on the pull like that because I clearly had no chance. I was completely taken aback. I’ve never had a total stranger insult me like that. And I stood there with my mouth hanging open in shock before eventually managing to shove them completely out of the door. If anyone has any theories on that one, please do enlighten me.

We met the crew at Rocket Bar and things swiftly became quite drunken. I remember Jagermeister shots and champagne from the bottle… always wise… not and Kelly taking about 400 photos.

Of course we went to Thai Square… of course! And that’s where it gets really random. To explain this to you, I have to tell you a little story.

Four years ago, before the days of the blog I met a boy who we will call The Charmer on a night out. He was an exceptionally good-looking boy who completely swept me off my feet and then vanished into the night, never to be seen again… or so I thought. There are very few people in life you have the kind of chemistry with that I had with The Charmer and so I never forgot him.

Last night I turned around in Thai Square and who was there but The Charmer and not only did he remember me, he was ridiculously excited to see me. It seems he never called me after the first time we met because his phone got stolen the next day. I am not naïve enough not to consider the possibility that this may have been a line. It seemed irrelevant though. The chemistry had not faded one iota and I found myself completely under his spell yet again. He always knew what to say to me… this time he told me I reminded him of a 50’s pin-up in the vein of Marilyn Monroe. What the rest of our encounter held, stays with me… but I could help thinking as I walked through Thai Square holding his hand and watching the other girls stare, that it seemed something like a plot from a film.

I woke up this morning looking like I had been sleeping in a cave for six months and feeling like I had been subjected to medieval torture. There is no rest for the wicked however and I tidied myself up and headed for Dollis Hill to meet up with Josh, Sanna, Saoirse, Tash and Dom for lunch at Rob’s house (which is looking lovely even though it’s mid renovation and rather dusty). The conversations were, as always, ridiculous and I rather pitied Rob’s dad who wandered into the middle of it. Topics included transsexuals, Freud, Marxism, the death of Margaret Thatcher and nuclear weapons. It was fabulous. Thank-you to Rob for his wonderful hospitality and particularly for his amazing alcoholic concoctions.

This was not the end of my gallivanting though and I shot off to Clapham Junction for date no 1 with Band Boy who is another Internet option. Well I attempted to shoot off. With the transport debacle that South West Trains has created this weekend and my inability to ever leave on time for anything, I was 45 minutes late. To his credit Band Boy was in no way phased and had settled himself in a corner happily reading his paper and drinking his pint. He was wearing purple skinny jeans, a t-shirt that looks like a calculator and had fabulous hair. Instant brownie points. I was feeling crazily chilled out and we were both sober… yay for sobriety… this drunk dating has little merit. This very much added to the atmosphere and we giggled non-stop, while admiring each other’s tattoos. His are absolutely gorgeous. It was a very cool way to spend an evening. There was a little bit of a kiss at the end… a very sweet, kind of innocent kiss, which fitted the situation perfectly. I think we will be seeing each other again.

My usual strategy of going into hiding on Valentines Day was scuppered last night by Michelle’s impossible knack for persuasion. She appeared yesterday evening bronzed from her holiday in Dubai and The Seychelles and decided that those who were single and those whose boyfriends were on the other side of the world were going out and Kelly and I were despatched to our bedrooms to glam up. I was still feeling shaky after a night on red wine for Adam’s birthday but I dutifully got out my new grey dress, a pair of shiny leggings and the stilettos of destiny (pictured below) and somehow managed to even get my hair into a 40’s inspired side sweep… and so we went out.

We started the night with cocktails at Rocket Bar where we were joined by Paris, Catherine and Liz. We proved to be very popular. I was particularly popular with a bisexual guy from South Carolina… yes really. He announced that I was so fiiiiine that he had to hang out with me. He then announced that he was in Luuuundon for the waymen, the mayun and the booze. As much as I wanted to lick his accent (regular readers know how I feel about Southern accents), the fact that he had only just come out to his slightly disgruntled Zimbabwean female best friend about 20 minutes before he “fell in love” with me was cause to retreat. Soap operas are not my forte.

Of course from there we made our way to Thai Square where on inspection in the bathroom, I realised I was no longer the goddess I had been just four hours before but I was still holding together, which after MANY shots seemed like an achievement. My exit was not as graceful as my arrival though. I learned that the stilettos of destiny mixed with the shots of doom leads to Abbi falling over… a lot. In my defence I would like to mention that I fell over in them on the way to Rocket Bar before we even started drinking.  Apparently both my tumbles were quite graceful (can falling out of a bar ever be graceful?) but I swiftly ruined it by threatening a “gentleman” who was harassing Kelly with extreme violence. If you will give me Sambucca, I will become aggressive. This has been proved more than once.

I think we had a bit of a party at the Mansion but I had had enough and snuck off to the lair to pass out. However somehow I ended up with a bunch of people in my room and I remember sitting on my bed going, “Get out! Get out! No more parties in the lair.” To all those who may have gotten in my way or seen me roll down the Thai Square stairs… my sincerest apologies… ok who wants to go out next weekend?

I had a very good weekend, filled with lots of activities. A lot of times, I’m not a big fan of running around and doing a lot during the weekend, preferring instead to be anti-inertia, but since I had a very stressful and long week at work, and some great company and good weather made the various activities this weekend that much more fun. Up yours, Punxsutawney Phil!

On Friday, I went over to Red’s, where she cooked me a dinner of chicken fried rice and won-tons, it was quite delicious. After dinner, we watched the first disc of season two of Friday Night Lights. I am very happy to say that Red is starting to catch up on the series, and we should be watching some of the episodes of season three together very soon.

On Saturday, we were scheduled to have FiOS installed by Verizon. Like all good cable companies, they gave us a wide window as to when the installation people would be there; from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Thanks for the specifics, Verizon! Since the installation people had already pushed back our appointment twice (we were scheduled to get it installed on January 2 originally) we wanted to make sure that we were there for when they came to install the hardware. I was an hour late for my scheduled turn to be in the house, but I was happy to find out that they had already arrived. So far, I’m loving FiOS; the picture is much better than Comcast, I finally have the NFL Network for the SOSD (Summer of Sports Discontent; you can read more about that here), and on top of it all, we have all the movie channels for free for the first three months. It kind of overwhelming; I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who doesn’t know which toy to play with first, and I’m still figuring out all the functions on the remote. Also, some of my friends have warned me that some strange charges have come up on their FiOS bills, so I will have to warn my roommate to keep an eye out about that.

After watching the Mountaineers dismantle Providence on the hardwood, I got ready to go out to a friend’s birthday party in the District. We were originally set to go to an English style pub, but Red called me up and let me know that the place supposedly closes at 11. I let the birthday boy know this, and he called a quick audible on the venue to Rocket Bar in Chinatown.

I’ve only been to Rocket Bar one time before last weekend, and it was during a week night for one of my kickball team’s happy hours. It appeared to be a pretty small place that night. I was very surprised when Red and I first got there and saw there was a 45 minute line to get in. I don’t think I’ve ever stood in a 45 minute line to enter a bar (I’m not very into the whole club scene, and that’s really the only other place I’d expect there to be a 45 minute line as far as bars are concerned). One cool thing that happened while we were in line was that I spotted and got to talk to some of my former coworkers from my last job. It was very nice to see them again, catch up on things, and introduce them to Red. Once we got inside, I was surprised to find that Rocket Bar has a third room. These three bars in the establishment alleviated the crowds to get drinks, and I was very happy to find that I didn’t have to wait very long to get my order to the bartender. Red was drinking vodka cranberries over the course of the night (which didn’t look or taste like they had any vodka in them, but as she found out later, definitely did). I started out with some of Rocket Bar’s premium beer selections, until Cutter and I started playing “Think While You Drink.” We did four categories: cities with more than one major sport franchise in them, Tom Cruise movies, Kevin Costner movies, and fast food franchises. Cutter was kicking my butt the entire time, but it did force me to switch over to light beer, which was probably better, since the next day I was not very hung over (and it was easier on my wallet too). Over all, Rocket Bar was a fun experience, and (almost) worth the wait (I’m sorry, but nothing’s really worth a 45 minute wait in line unless it’s a roller coaster or the chance to step in one of those glass boxes where they blow different denominations of dollar bills from a fan in the floor and get to keep whatever you catch).

On Sunday, I promised my parents I’d stop by to visit since I haven’t been over to their place in a while, and Red was nice enough to come along. A little bit of background here: my parents live about 45 minutes away, but that does not discourage them from believing that I should come over to visit once a week. We’ve negotiated to a once a month minimum, which I think both sides can be comfortable with. Anywho, while Red and I were over for dinner, my parents gave us both Valentine’s Day presents. Red got some charms for her charm bracelet, while I got a gift card for NFLshop.com. I have decided to get another Ravens jersey with the funds, and was trying to decide which player to get. A blogger from the Baltimore Sun coincidentally just had an entry about that very subject, and I’m leaning towards a Joe Flacco jersey. The dinner was very nice as well, save for when my father got distracted because he was hemming on one of his favorite subjects: his Alma Mater Blair High School, and all the school’s notable alumni; instead of watching the steaks on the grill. My brother informed us that “there’s a bunch of smoke from the grill,” and the steaks which had been neglected on the grill turned out to be burned. This led to a debate between my mom and dad about whether or not to serve the steaks, which I had seen many times over my years, and was new and humorous to Red. We both found steaks that weren’t too charred, and actually tasted pretty good, as did the rest of the meal.

My weekend ended with me back home, going through upcoming movie titles to DVR. Hopefully, this will lead to the beginnings of Sweaty’s Movie Reviews, coming soon to a blog near you!

WashWords has put forth a fun little contest based around one’s knowledge/love of the District of Columbia. I thought I would throw my hat in the ring, if I can get my shift key to cooperate. It’s not responding all the times that I hit it. It’s making me batty. Anyway…

1) One reason why you love DC.
This is something I didn’t appreciate while I was growing up around and in Washington DC: the culture and the history. When I was in middle school and high school, I would roll my eyes at the notion of going to yet another museum for a field trip. Now I look back and realize how lucky I was to have that, as it exposed me to a lot of things that some only read about in books.

I also love how there’s always something fun going on. Always. Whether it’s some National Fig Appreciation Festival or Parade of Farci Speakers with traditional dancers, there’s always a unique experience to be had.

2) One thing you hate/snark/whine/mock about DC.
There’s the obvious “Walk left, stand right” rule that no one seems to follow on Metro escalators, which has resulted in me missing more than my fair share of train connections, but that’s too obvious. I am going to say I hate those who call Washington DC “transient”. It’s so chic and hip to be some transplant at a bar with an affected attitude of ennui, bashing the town. Ironically those who complain about the transient nature of this town are precisely the ones who make it transient. They’ll be gone in a few years, and will only complain about their time here, when they never gave the town a chance.

3) A DC favorite or secret (can be a restaurant, a deal, a park, an intersection, you name it)…
Rocket Bar is a place that I was introduced to on an outing with Andrew late last year. It was a neat little place that I had never even noticed before, even though I had walked by it quite a few times. Shuffleboard, pool tables, and beer. I know it’s not a big secret, as I’ve heard many peers toss the name of this location around quite a bit, but it’s a favorite.

4) Your favorite DC photo that you own the rights to:

I snapped this photo while we were sitting on the West Lawn of the Capital, waiting for the National Memorial Day Concert to begin this past weekend. I think it’s cool that we can just lounge on the Capital lawn.

5) One DC blogger we might not know about:
Adventures in Shaw. A friend of mine who is just an amazing cook and photographer. A DC foodie who makes me drool every time she publishes a post. Also she’s a sweetheart.

* * * *

I was going through the memory card on our digital camera and came across a photo:

It’s a photo taken of Horatio the day we picked him up at the Columbia Mall. He was way out of our price range, but it’s true what they say: you don’t pick the dog, the dog picks you. He was the kind of dog that when you looked at a store full of puppies, your eyes were automatically drawn to him and his spunky ‘tude. He’s grown up in the almost four months that we’ve had him, and he still looks more like a stuffed animal come to life than an actual dog. Absolutely adorable. He was worth the extra money.

* * * *

A lot has happened over the past two days. As I mentioned yesterday, we were finally putting the pedal to the metal so to speak, in terms of moving to Washington DC. Today we hammered out the details. We talked to our apartment complex, regarding breaking the lease. Patrick looked for jobs, etc. We have it all set.

It’s official that we are moving to DC on August 1st. We’ve found a place in Petworth (near Columbia Heights), and have spoken with a contact at the property; a 1 bedroom unit would almost definitely be open for our move-in date, which is really exciting.

On top of that, Patrick has two interviews, today and tomorrow, for really great opportunities in DC. They would not only enhance his skill set, but his wallet as well.

In funny job news, I was contacted regarding my resume for a position at a worldwide KICKBALL association, in their DC office. I thought it was really funny and very intriguing, haha. I can see it now…

“What industry do you work in, Liz?”

“Oh, kickball.”

“Haha, funny! Now seriously–”

“No, really! Kickball! It’s serious business.”

It’s been an interesting day, and I’m so happy that we only have eight more weeks before our mass exodus from Maryland.