I’ve been making my way towards the southern hemisphere for a change of scenery and to escape the onset of winter.

I was meeting a friend at a bar atop a luxury Dubai hotel, which affords a wonderful view of the visually uninspiring (in my opinion) city.  Aesthetics is not the only thing I feel is lacking in Dubai but it’s ok for a few days of hotel and shopping indulgence.  Don’t expect to see any art or cultural sites without taking long, traffic-laden taxi rides to distant parts of the city.  And if it’s raining, you may not be going too far at all major roads simply flood under inadequate drainage.

I was early getting to the bar and my friend had called to say she was going to be late.  At least it was after 6pm so a vodka martini was a possibility in the partially dry emirate.  At another bar the previous night I’d been refused a glass of wine at 5.50pm.  A British gentleman sat a few seats along from me and we got to chatting.  He was in town to race his Porsche on a newly designed racetrack.  I love Porsche for its purity of mechanics and design and have had the good fortune to drive one, on a German autobahn no less.  The great thing about European drivers is that if you’re going faster than them, they’ll generally just move aside and let you past.

The Brit was staying at the hotel and had arrived the previous day.  His visit to the bar the previous night was completely different, he said.  It was late in the evening and on his way from the elevator to the bar seats, perhaps 15 feet, he was approached no less than four times by Eastern European women offering their company.  He’d come earlier tonight to avoid the hookers.  I laughed and he asked if he could buy me another drink. My friend wasn’t due for another half hour so I accepted.  By the time there was only an olive left in my martini glass, he’d offered up a test drive on the racetrack, a day of jet-skiing off The Palm Tree and dinner in New York later that month.  He also suggested I swing by his hotel room later on, after drinks with my friend.  Since I’m not partial to being picked up in bars, either in my personal or professional life, I told him I’d have to pass.

Later as I was leaving the bar, I noticed my new Porsche-racing friend getting very cozy with a striking blond in the corner and I suspected that his desire for pure-minded companionship would be continue to be in vein.

http://www.slate.com/id/2121835/slideshow/2174929/entry/2121909/

Here’s a quite naughty slideshow history of the vibrator in America by Slate magazine.
Interesting fact: By 1917, there were more vibrators in American homes than toasters.
I suppose you really only need one toaster…