fluttering stranger

Afrika Burns

2008-10-23T14:04:00.004+02:00

there are a few things that i cant tolerate ok more than a few but thats another blog, i digress... one of those things is not to be able to shower or bath. i struggle to conceputalise a day going by when cool or warm water doesnt meet my skin with a yummy smelling anti bacterial scrub to cleanse and refresh myself so when a certain someone pops up with an idea like not washing for 4 days cos u are in the middle of a desert and the peeps havent yet got it together to bring in showers i decline the offer to explore distant parts of the interior of the country i inhabit...

thankfully though two explorers went, saw and conquered and have come back to the bloggersphere (review this) to share their experience - even if it is a rather long exploratory tale...
if you arent up for the full exposition that is several surreal paragraphs it is worth scrolling down nonetheless for some of the most pictorially beautifully descriptions of what they were greeted by in tankwa town!

maybe next year...

coming from behind

2008-07-06T21:44:00.004+02:00

i am bitterly disappointed that not a single corporate on this continent thought to take up the obvious and ensure a live feed from one of the most riveting and intense gladiator challenges since ancient rome...

with no satellite the only option was to go back to the future to commentary via streaming audio. it has been extremely tense. the live feed is slightly behind the live score board and i have had to resist the urge to keep watching the numbers change on screen and listen to what is reported.

being enormously impatient i have found that i am listening over the commentators to each shot of a ball trying to visualise who hits what and where.

i am insanely jealous of those in the states watching on espn 360 and those in britain watching courtesy of the bbc all of whom are bound to be are gripped as they witness a moment in the history of the gentleman's game as we sit in the final set at two games each after two tie breakers, two rain delays, most people ignoring the endurance of the defending champion in what is set to be the most intense of final games ever witnessed in the history of this sport...

goose, electric or synthetic

2008-07-05T22:08:00.010+02:00

i am stuck in a contradiction, insulated by my own hypocricy...

today i made a vain attempt to balance reason with social responsibility and an innate desire to do right by my 'green footprint'.

in an age of electrical crisis and heightened global awareness i fought animal rights activism with a bid to save the environment and i cant deduce who won.

its freezing down here at the edge of civilisation. driven by a fear of robbing the national grid of its already sparce supply of energy or a creature of all its warmth in the worst of months i allowed a sales assistant to assure me that no animal was harmed during the manufacture of my purchase and that the product was gathered in summer resulting in the fluffy being lying as toasty as i am right now.

i could have gone for a synthetic version. i could have chosen the alternate not as warm unnatural byproduct of some factory out in the back end of china but i abated the voices in my subconscious to believe that this would place me as a contributing cog in the manufacture of harmful cfc emissions and possible violent infringements of human rights and certain labour relations that many citizens of this planet are not granted the protection of.

either path today was a hard one. the belief that the little goose, running free range, was painlessly plucked in the summer and lies warm as i in the winter and that the product is proudly manufactured from all material and persons in a free constitutional democracy lulls me into a false sense of security that i put the right foot forward...

here comes the.....

2008-06-08T16:01:00.004+02:00

i am standing in the dvd store and on play is another free to be you modern take on the couple movie.

sex in the city is out and singledom everywhere is applauding loudly only to conclude with one day if you are really lucky you too will find the dream soul and sashay down an isle.

its mantage after another of single guys and gals doing it for themselves and striving to break the stereotype of life after 20 and yet in the end they run straight on blissfully into it.

there are heaps of 'i have broken the norm saga's' she says 'i am living free', he says 'i wanna be free' there are hookups and breakups and mishaps and in the end they find each other and everyone ends up happy that they did.

its an odd twist on a very 1920's message. its a really long way round of getting across the very old tale and in the end a happy duo tapp out the generic tune they began opposing...

down the rabbit hole

2008-04-28T01:54:00.004+02:00

dealing with an official at the masters office is much the same as trying to get the attention of an inattentive waiter. you can be polite and patient, attempting to draw the unwilling civil servant to attend to your query but all efforst seem as futile as dangling a carrot in the face of an already well fed lion.

with skill normally reserved for only the most experienced waterfront waiter the clerk is able to delay, dismiss and dodge any distraction whether its a constantly ringing phone, a mile long queue of curious citizens or an ever persistent article clerk.

on attending at these offices in an attempt to locate letters of executorship that should have been issued in december of the year before, searching every pigeon hole known to the building, following the official through several offices, he located our clients file on his desk under last weeks lunch and naturally had not had the time to apply his mind to the task at hand.

khoza's kffr comment

2008-02-19T18:09:00.004+02:00

once again the world has flipped upside of its head and the media has retracted like an ostrich...

several days ago a massive fuss was kicked as acrobatic queen fonda spread the cunt love on morning television but not to be outdone...

whilst watching a live report of our esteemed panel of loc chairpersons irvin khoza decided to let us all in on his feelings for a certain journo's reporting. his choice of words was 'stop behaving like a kaffir' - sorry like a what? r u kidding? behaving like who?

apparently it is perfectly acceptable to use such 'strong words' as he put it if he asks the media to excuse him before he does it.

last time i checked this word was taboo? so let me get this straight cunt is a nono but kfr is ok?

i clearly missed the memo on whats up and down in the lingo of the powers and the men to his left and right didnt seem to bat an eyelid... still, it doesnt seem to sit right? no one appears to have taken notice and everyone seems to be happy ignoring this blatantly profane word used in relation to another person...

up up and away

2008-01-20T02:40:00.000+02:00

or so the saying goes... what must go up must come down... some law or the other

i went up and only came down cos a guy with much more strength and control than myself was able to grap hold of that harness he had let go for a millisecond and reel me back down to ground where my pea sized feat should have been planted.

i have tinges and pangs every now and again when i feel my body subside and slip into the stayed and unused to-a-desk-back-from-one form to get out and throw off the slow and arced shape that it has taken. this also leads to questions, unanswered, filled with the why's and what if's of indiscriminate choices made in the pursuit of life's purposeless goals...

there are people out there who have 'broken' from the shackles and live out there on the fringe. perhaps it is me and other day trippers that live on the fringe and actually these folks who devote a life to folly and energy educing activity that live the life of normallacy?

so 2 weeks yesterday i shall take up another kite and begin the next phase - body dragging!

a waste of space

2008-01-10T18:08:00.000+02:00

The internet illustrates our illustrious inability to properly dispense of our waste.

We seem oblivious and pay no attention to the amount of space that we or our matter occupies. Blissfully ignorant and uncaring we ram the web with whatever we want. Be it tampon commercials on you-tube, penis creams and paraphernalia or simply another irrelevant blog such as this one we clog, clutter and collude to take up space…

If you look at the amount of time, money and effort spent on the net it is alarmingly obvious that our sense of value has been eschewed… If you compound the above and give it economical value you would probably be able to outdo any oprah-bono donation times the nth degree and infinity plus 1 and successfully put an end to third world debt, give birth to emerging economies in third world countries and probably stifle certain stock exchanges…

Alas, forwards and onwards we 'progress' blissfully ignorant of our potential and praising our destructive tendencies.

anotheronebitesthedust

2007-12-10T23:07:00.000+02:00

i have spent the past 6 years or so believing that i have got the new year off to a good start and this has always meant that i dont work at least the first month of it. this up coming year seems to be the start of something very different.

it appears that it will be rung in balls to the walls, peddle to the metal, guns a blazing, elbow greasing the ol grindstone and every other euphemism that you could include to do something other than state rumour has it on good authority that i start working from day one of it...

something has come a croppa and the world is no longer a midsummers night picnic.

who's where weddings

2007-12-10T22:36:00.000+02:00

ok, i am one to go up 11 000 feet in a small aircraft knowing full well that the phobia i have of flying is not going to be cured by jumping from that hight but i'll do it any way...

this weekend i did it to myself again - i attended another wedding. this one was unique it was on water and we all sailed to pick up the bride rather than her coming to us down an isle. it was intimate and different and i had a good feeling from the dread that was automatically initially present but then it returned at the seating plan...

the only other person that i knew - this situation being dito for him - was placed at another table, 10 tables a part... my partner and i arrived at unlucky number 13 to be seated a part, in fact separated by who was to become the most amusing and surreal part of the weekend. we had alighted from the boat, from the vows on the water to a beautiful lunch amid tree tops only to find ourselves seated at the table of bulgari chanel savil row this and heaps of bling, old bling!

we were sat at the last colonial outpost, the type that fly in their servants from malawi and then bleat the upliftment speech followed by the couldn't leave here dear, not for a second could i be without the servants, how would you cope? oh you couldn't? could you? what makea bed, cook, how brave dear....

however bemused i felt in the beginning, the slight pang of envy at hearing about the last trip taken with the taj framed by the hotel window followed by a siesta to seville, or thinking where did i fuck up in the road to inheriting a zillion, i had to cringe at the total superiority with which the words were uttered, the demeaning tone that was taken to an idea of a person that a seconds glance had cast in her mind. i know full well that one day she will sit at one of her lunches and hear our names and shriek that she knows us whilst oozing confidence that she bestowed wisdom on our then misguided commercial souls...

its strange how things are dealt, another two would have dived right in competing and jostling their peacocks yet we sat, swallowed and stewed allowing the dominance to wash off the ducks back and left at the sight of the first ferry with our 10 tables a part companion wishing that there had been some dancing.

a bit late

2007-11-11T18:54:00.000+02:00

the final courses provided for by the law society have come to an end. it was a joy to finally have half descent lecturers and to feel like i was learning again as opposed to all the mundane working that i have been doing.

during the last week we got our board exam results...
i can proudly say that i past the first of the board exams and am very happy! i was not entirely ecstatic with my mark but then again i was expecting to lose at lease 30% due to my lack of criminal practice knowledge which is now confirmed i do not have... aside from that i still came in the top 15% in this province and beat a whole heap of others with private tutors from bigger firms.

none the less even though my boss was certain that i wasn't ready to write this paper - and sure enough with respect to criminal law i was not, he takes full credit for my passing. apparently it wasn't the weekends of self tutoring or the evenings of reading it was all him. i never got study leave until the day before the exam and was examined by him only the day before i was set to take my days leave to cram four files into my noggin... his words were you'll never get through this, you are taking on too much blah blah blah confidence boost two days prior to writing your career paper blah blah... he now maintains that thanks to his superb instruction and general guidance i am amongst the top to pass...

still waiting to see when he plans on showing me how to handle the next 3 shortly to come...

are we moving towards a cyclic change?

2007-10-22T00:21:00.000+02:00

i strongly believe in the ebb and flow of life the universe and everything, with every action there is a reaction, what goes up must come down...

our fathers before us lived in a era of regeneration, the freeing themselves from the torture of mental slavery and literally throwing off the blind fold that had been so firmly placed by their fathers before them. they strove towards an era of democracy and hoped that all people would one day be treated equally.

somehow we are looping the record player, reaching the ebb of their flow and steering ourselves towards the end of their cycle.

in the 1970's john lennon wrote 'working class hero' and sprinkled the word fucking liberally throughout it. in the 21st century green day adopted these same lyrics and a radio station was fined several dollars for its airing.

two decades ago our country struggled for political and press freedoms. in 2007 an editor and journalist of a major newspaper had warrants of arrest authorised against them.

within the united nations the opinions of leaders who's countries would stone a woman to death for the same crime that a man participated in are opined while students are being arrested for speaking out against religious intolerance...

some may have a point when stating that our multiculturalism is damaging the liberal democracy our fathers fought so hard to achieve or that religious extremism is historically akin to that of 1930's fascism.

we are being 'doped by religion, sex and tv'.
merrily we plod backwards...

crap advert

2007-09-27T17:26:00.000+02:00

why is there an inherent desire for the advertising 'guru' to fill the world with crap?
it is not even 15 minutes till the next show and already this rubbish station is advertising just that.

apparently it is not enough that i have tv magazines, newspapers, the internet and continuity presenters thy now need to advertise to me during the show which i am currently watching...

i cant think of a better way to have me tune out and focus on whats on the other channels...

emergency response

2007-08-05T23:32:00.000+02:00

it happened very quickly in slow motion - the rear tire clipped the right curb, the tires may have been locked after hitting hard on the breaks, the car may have hit the side of the mountain... it definitely hit a speed wobble and in an attempt to correct what seemed unbelievable it hit the curb again this time blowing out a tire and sending it off in a spin across the lane to the left, sliding backwards and then gone....

the car was gone, vanished into the blackness with only one logical explanation - hit the brakes, the hazard lights and jump out, they have to have launched over the barrier and true as i sit here now there it lay on its roof at the bottom of the mountain side. the car had managed to spin with such velocity, its rim had connected the curb with such force that the barrier couldn't stop it and it flipped, rolled and then came to a stop on its roof at the bottom of the mountain...

10111 - the operator cant understand my accent, she cant understand where i am, she is not sure this is an emergency. i spell out where we are in phonetics (starting with d for donkey) and once she gets the name she needs me to explain where in the country this is.

i was not on a deserted backstreet in some alley of some bywater town, i was on a main road 5km max outbound from the city heading towards the southern suburbs and the operator wasn't sure where this was. finally i am told in a 'gotta get his caller of the phone' manner that a cop car will be sent out.

5 minutes later i call again - there is no movement from the car and the one person to launch himself over the barrier down the mountain has returned saying their legs are trapped... i am told a car will be there shortly 'the longer i keep the operator on the phone the longer it takes to get her to call a car'...

8 minutes later i call back and the operator responds 'u don't honestly expect the cops to respond in under 10 minutes do you?'

it has been almost 15 minutes since a human in a piece of tin launched themselves off of a mountain and landed, who knows how many rolls later, on its head - yes i expect this to be treated as an emergency, yes i expect the response time to be less than 10 minutes and yes i should have heard sirens at least 8 minutes ago. i don't care how many domestic violence, robberies, break ins or other activities are occupying a particular stations attention i am in the vicinity of at least 4 stations and 2 major hospitals that could have by now responded...

objectively speaking

2007-07-16T00:37:00.001+02:00

there are two sides, b and c, they have been at war with each other for ages. the reasons have changed like the climates on the playing field but the constant is that they are at war with each other.

b doesnt like c and vis versa. b kills, rapes, maims, captures c's people and c likewise does the same intermittently using b's children to kill, maim, etc...

d walks in and takes a look around. he does not belong to side b or c, he is d, an independent, there out of his own needs and desires to further himself in the land of d. the conflict of b and c is not important to him. he is there to fulfill his own needs and this is not his fight. is d a bad man, an unconscionable being, heartless, or is d simply an innocent, a bystander, looking beyond the war to opportunity and supplying his world's demand?

can b or c blame d for being there? their land has what his needs and neither of them are capitalising on its full potential. he is a willing buyer and they, willing sellers. why is he to blame for their conflict, why is it his duty to fix their problems, why should he get involved?

when r b or c going to look around and ask what are we doing to each other rather than why is d here?

online sex anyone?

2007-07-16T00:24:00.000+02:00

the language herein may offend but truth must be told so...
it has become alarmingly prevalent the amount of smut in my 2G inbox catered for courtesy of hotmail. i have for obvious reasons made a switch a long time ago to a similar service provider who relieves me of the strain of sifting this trash through careful and successful filtering.

this has me blissfully ignorant of the 'fuck budies' that i could encounter online or the 'fuck friends' who may be wanting some online company and the rest of the charming 'wanting to get to know me's' that hotmail feels it necessary to sell/give my details to. apparently i even have friends now with the name c*ntf@%Ku that wonder into my inbox for a friendly hi how the hell r u...

so much for internet nannies...

strip it

2007-07-08T18:41:00.000+02:00

i am bored of stripping paint i want to paint now. i understand why most simply paint over the above layer it all makes more sense. i am happy with the level of stripping that i have managed. i dont see the moving on to the painting stage as a failed attempt to strip but rather a more conclusive study on which method is better or prefered...

some see this as skipping ahead, feeling bored with laying the foundation and onwards to brick laying my house on top of sand... pish posch semantics!

substantive equality

2007-07-04T17:40:00.000+02:00

can there every really be such a thing in the quarell that is ones right to have or not to have an abortion? where exactly in this highly controversial 'choice' does the man's right to choose slot in or is it merely slipped under the dirty carpet and forgotten?

u sit there on the sidelines watching and waiting in anticipation as someone else decides whether or not you will become a father. u participated in the conception of the microdot that may or may not become a being, yet are sidelined in what is termed 'a choice'...

if we continue to ignore the man for a minute - its not as if we haven't been ignoring him since the beginning of conception so a few more seconds ain't gonna matter - woman wake up the morning after being knocked up with a choice to make, keep it or bin it.

she can deliberate the pro's and cons, the moral options, the 'right' path, where she is at that given moment and then she delivers her decision to the man. she puts it to him that he is either, going to become a dad or he isn't. this line of thinking takes into account that she bothered during her decision making process to involve the man in the fact that she neglected to drop her egg this month...

the former leads to two further consequences. he becomes liable for maintenance and the upbringing of a kid. if they get hitched he'll have what they hope is an active role in its upbringing or, if singledom is their destiny, he's lucky if he is awarded some visitation rights. the latter option, dependent on his persuasion, leaves both 'free' of the shackles that come with child rearing, free to wonder and sow seeds in another pastures, or he has the chance of fatherdom ripped from his thoughts...

so where is the man in this dual income partnership? a silent partner? can he demand that she keep it? of course not that would infringe on a persons freedom of autonomy, their right to dignity, privacy and i am sure a host of others can be thought up... can he force the hand to dissolve his problem and future maintenance obligations? again of course not for similar reasons outlined above. can he accept her decision and contractually stipulate that his choice in the matter is not to have it but if she chooses to exercise her right he reserves his rights and stipulates that he denies liability towards or obligations which are consequences of her decision? could he sue her for special damages, pain and suffering?

i suspect that again for no particular reason other than the apparent sympathy towards the previously dominated sex the man is going to get shafted...

top 10?

2007-06-17T12:08:00.000+02:00

i am losing faith in the masses ability to chose effective reading material. that, or the ability of those who compile the top 10 charts. me thinks that the way one gets to be a top 10 chart contender is ensuring enough mense out there take a little look see and try and get them to come back.

before i used to look at the chart and think oooh s/he's good or yeah i like reading that one on occasion but lately... rugby, afrikaans, fertility issues what the fuck how are these the top read pieces? the content needs to be interesting as well as the writing surely? do so many people care about anothers invetro experience or a person who cant play the sport professionally's tips on the next game?

i think it is a sad day in the world of top 10...

dad's lil...

2007-06-17T11:57:00.000+02:00

happy daddy's day!

personally i dont understand why dads get shafted on days like this? moms have oodles of attention from the respective chain stores and dad's? they get a little wallet and golf pack in box lying on some till counter. shameful really. they are out there 24/7 slogging away to bring in the dollars and ensure you can be wrapped in your bling and the inventive give a gift crew have devised a wallet and peg set - someone needs to be fired and a whole new 'devoted to the male species desires' needs to be hired!

i dont care for the anti-capitalism cries, the falling into the commercial trap crowd... if you want to suck in your whole of shameful behaviour so be it. i love gift giving days, there should be more of them. each and every day should be a give a gift of something yummy, delicious, useful, spoil yourself, indulge day. i may then be broke but we would all look better!

art house

2007-06-17T11:48:00.001+02:00

for this evenings entertainment we have death by brain tumor followed by near death by heroin overdose - happy days all around...

the astonishing thing about my morbid curiosity is that it is peaked by the macabre. put on the latest buster of pop and within minutes i am in dream land dreaming of nothing, no thoughts, just blackness.

so how do these pop out another episode of the same shite busters command such massive amounts of attention? why do the flocks run head first into the rocky cliffs below in a bid to increase some studios silk lined chino's?

down with the trilogy of the next comic, churned out without so much as an inkling of what the author of the text was attempting to comment on and onwards or perhaps backwards to the truth of a story, a glimpse of another world, a show of what should be told but has been left on the cutting floor as we march forward to an era of arts decay...

check please

2007-06-15T23:11:00.000+02:00

there are some that are fantastic to go out with and then there are those 'others' who leave you wanting the coffee to come already so you can get the hell out of dodge... you go out and in the background lurks the other factor that splits you into separate groups, the inevitable, the bill. it is going to arrive and who gets it, how do you split it or which model calculator are you using.

somehow, no matter how efficiently you have calculated knowing that other meisers are going to screw the person who has been bringing all your liquid and solid requirements to your hearts desire out of a decent living, you are always short for anything remotely classified as descent. then it starts how much, which penny, did you include a tip, did you add the wine, i need 10 units change, what? what the hell can you buy with 10 smackers, a chappies? give it to the person who waited on you, it amounts to two car guard tips for fuck sake!

then there are those who are an absolute dream, never a problem always over compensating, the understanding split down the middle... i like them folk these are my people!

door no. 3

2007-06-09T23:14:00.000+02:00

there are 3 doors and behind 1 of them a million hard currency is placed. you are given the option of picking one of those doors in an attempt to grab the cash. u pick a door and then something changes, a shift in the game. the host decides that one of the doors will be eliminated and you have a choice. you can stick with the original door you chose or you can switch. do you switch?

the warrant

2007-06-09T22:20:00.000+02:00

we have sent the relevant notices and given options for a reasonable defence to be put forward. these were ignored and waved aside as irritating little swats. judgment was granted but not taken seriously. neither was the warrant of attachment of property. the usual dismissal to the sheriff with the nonchalant 'i dont have anything huh ahh what u gonna do about it...' so we sent another registered letter followed by a notice to appear at a financial inquiry. another smite in the face of justice, the thinking that 'i am bigger than all of your futile pieces of paper'. an attempt to avoid the impending with a courtesy phone call is deflected with a hurl of obsentities swiftly completed with a speak to my lawyer. now we sweep in with the issue of that warrant of arrest that i had granted during your defiance of authority...take that! angarde!

heathrow checkin

2007-06-07T18:11:00.000+02:00

believe it or not i have been the target of those racist english bastards...
yes! the heathrow police subjected me not only too a search before passing through their precious gates but an xray too. i had to sit with other suspicious looking people off a plane from the south of africa carrying a green passport (mistake 1) and wait. i was searched and then taken to a smaller room in another terminal and got xrayed...
it was obviously because i looked like a suspicious caucasian catholic terrorist and possible supporter of the ira...
i empathise with ol rasool, poor bloke, just a case of that english racist treatment hidden under the guise of protective measures from another hapless bombing that side of the democratic line...

a real clerk

2007-06-07T17:55:00.000+02:00

the day came where i realised what all that studying was for, why i spent the years i did pouring over texts and theories and learning and philosophising and why i am now spending a further two years training...

those years of varsity have qualified me to make the 435 copies, cross check the index with addendum a, find the faults of another clerk in all probability, who couldn't be bothered to index file and paginate with attention to detail past page 337, thereby giving me the task of amending and annexing to the schedule, then counting the pages and billing of course before i delivered the bundle of what was once a beautiful tree to another to pour over before trial on monday....

financial enquiry anyone?

2007-06-06T17:53:00.000+02:00

heres to hoping that i dont fall flat on my face, trip, stutter or call the magistrate anything other than your worship as i attempt to remember the entire contents or S65 A-J, the commentary thereon as well as rule45...

hopefully the debtor wont pitch and i can merrily submit my application for a postponement, have my warrant to arrest the sucker issued, then stayed and look forward to another day in court where i dont crap myself...

4th episode season 6

2007-06-06T17:39:00.000+02:00

what the fuck? i thought it was impossible to get better than the ctu nerve gas episode of season 5 but they went on and topped it. for most of this episode i sat in anticipation as yankee doodle had set my expectations to a higher than usual notch and i waited - finally the president and his peeps took to listening to the guy they were selling down the river in episode 1, finally jack seemed to be making head way in the whose who of wanting to annihilate the us and then, then they went and landed a wopper of a plot twist, the kind that made me sit higher and tenser and scream what the fuck? i sat there gapping, eyes wide, jack in tears and another 6 full days to pass until the next fix....

oh well hiro's journey back to tokyo better be 5 weeks prior to what he saw last week - hopefully this can take my mind off jack a bit - i think not but its nice to dream...

paper jets

2007-06-02T14:31:00.000+02:00

awesome was what i thought the first times these guys enticed me to a performance with popcorn and candyfloss. the group has changed members slightly but are still consistently delivering that same feeling.... awesome.

there are some who try really hard, swagger a certain tune and run around screaming bootylicious, smack a ho and shake that ass. these artists are rewarded by millions and millions of adoring fans and tons of cash to boot.

what they lack and this strange industry is missing is a certain uniqueness that this band subscribes to. whether it be the energy of the flagpole hugging, garden gnome on speed, the intelligent lyrics or acustic brilliance that can only get better and better as they have proved from their first to second album, none of the idol worshiping booty shaking zillionaires will ever be able to rhyme flabbergasted into a cutting edge get u up and hopping snake charmer...

for more delights visit mabu vinyl on a sat while picking up your latest vinyl possession, stay for the second half on sunday at the intimate theatre and escape boring monday tv and go to dizzy's... those not lucky enough to get to any of theses get your fix here!

pic courtesy of curiouser

debates

2007-06-02T14:19:00.000+02:00

an interesting spitting between bloggers is taking place on the cape town news blog...
jp and rc have been duking out some issues between oppressive malaysian attitudes towards a woman who wants to change her religion who is being prevented from doing so and the south african churches who refuse to marry gay people.
their arguments make for entertaining reading...

even more entertaining are the religious nutters who feel their rights have been seriously derogated due to legislation which has now removed a parents 'ability' to beat their kids...

welcome

2007-06-01T18:37:00.000+02:00

i love my map, new little dots sprouting up like little hot cakes, beacons of life in my little planet of blog....
hellllloooooo to the little injin, shalom, g'day mate.... those in europe, china, s america, north of that border and the alascan - hi there!
dont feel neglected if u haven't got a hi page back and u'll see u weren't missed...

in my world

2007-05-30T18:06:00.000+02:00

today - aside from sleeping in a li'l i woke up to an alarming amount of bad news...

in my little neck of the woods kids have truly gone mad. two boys were owed money by another boy, a total that could buy you no more than a can of coke and as he failed, neglected or refused to pay them back they axed him in the head, tied a dog chain round his legs and tossed him in a bin.... silly little tike's got nicked as their footprints led police to their whereabouts....
another boy had enough of the bullying that is going to school - kids are truly the meanest bunches of gits at the best of times - and as he couldn't control the fact that he had epilepsy the next kid that past judgment got it in the neck with a pair of scissors and his mom buried him this morning...
then some other peeps who's ages are as yet unknown decided to rid the world of one less gangsta and took to the streets in the wee hours of last night, shot the man more than 20 times, put a bullet in his kids head and sent his wife packing off to intensive care to fight for her life...

great - how'd u wake up?

job satisfaction

2007-05-28T17:25:00.000+02:00

is there such a thing or is it a euphemism that the corporate capitalist nazi has made us believe exists in the bid to have us strive onwards?

why work? well, there is the obvious, u gotta have a dolla in your pocket; u need, crave and desire all those shiny objects that the other magpies have and since you were a fledgling the world has told you that this is what you will spend the rest of your life doing.

those lucky enough to be of the platinum spoon and black amex variety will even attempt to persuade others and themselves that their avant garde ventures are work attempt to fit into the 'must work' mantra that we have been spoon fed.

today i got to thinking and thinking till there was nothing that i hadn't thunk - being that i was waisting another 8 hours of my existence to the enslavement of another - wondering what the fuck for? how is this modernism or futurist free crap getting me any closer toward a happier or more fulfilled life? the voyage onwards and upwards towards the lining of mine and others pockets is seeming more and more frivolous as the year progresses...

the boredom that is bullog

2007-05-22T18:09:00.000+02:00

i have an incurable need to annoy myself. i find myself doing exactly what i swore i wouldn't and buying in to the whole rubbish that really is hard sell. when the controversy first started i knew it for what it was and that the lil man should get his own blog and take the hype there and that is what ensued...

the writing wasn't that bad at first, which got me to wonder why the hell i thought he was old drivel to start off with? then it became this tripe about how brilliant he was and blah blah boring blah and then the penny dropped on the latest twaddle and i realised where the disdain had stemmed from in the first place...

he just isn't jeremy and the mundane ridiculous pretension in an attempt to review automobiles tends to feel a little like sucking cock with car manufacturers. i dont mean to be crude but that is what is boils down to. rather than a review it turns into an ad report for some luxury car that lacks any attention to detail. telling me over an over that it has style, a great gear box or clean lines doesn't mean it does. where's the bullish antagonism at the pretension of a manufacturer to command such price tags, wheres the justification in parting with your cash when there are so many other models to chose from that have higher rpms, out puts and gear ratios, where is the penchant for appreciation of the finer things that go into the make up of the piece of metal you inevitably choose to climb into on any given sunday?

there it is, the pearl of realisation and onwards to continue to thrive on every minute that is not taken up by another boring car show...

c'mon its good for you

2007-05-22T17:58:00.000+02:00

what does that even mean? who's to know what is actually good for you. a couple of years ago, way before i was able to think about food, there was a violent pink coloured sausage which was later discovered to cause a type of cancer. that wasn't very good for you...

today we are constantly advertised from a 'its good for you perspective' cos the buzz phrases for 2000 are the health conscious individual, my body is my temple, atkins, microbiotic, good foods...

if you are to believe everything you are told then the kellogs breakfast followed by some yoghurt will ensure a 'healthier' aka skinner version of you, planning and colour co-ordinating your foods will ensure longivity and as long as what you ingest says that it is healthy the quantity is naturally not of significance.

obviously with modernity comes the loss of educated thought and we will continue to bumble around under the false impression that if it tells me its healthy then it is...
no people! without running off all the crap you ingest there is no hope of being a 'healthy' weight. no matter what you eat without exercise the exercise in eating is only going to lead to more and more fatties on the street... look around - would you say healthy eating is working?

oh shame

2007-05-19T21:54:00.000+02:00

i don't really follow super 12, 14, whatever else unless it is a world cup of any game and then i find myself caught up in the betting on any country...

however, i did catch the last minute or so, of a first ever final: the team that was said to win it was foiled, out classed and out played. just when you think it is all in the bag and you can relax a little, what was surely yours is ripped from your little clutches... who could have written a better finish to that sort of hype?

hmmm...

2007-05-19T21:49:00.000+02:00

there is a baked cheesecake cooling in the oven, now we wait...

bias anyone?

2007-05-18T17:15:00.001+02:00

the independent media has struck again with its incredible ability to avoid attention to objective reporting or a balanced perspective.

it was very easy to learn that those damned israelis had gone and struck again with zealous fervour and attempted to wipe out those poor hamas headquarters once again for no apparent reason...

if you use sleuth like detective skills you may be able to scrummage in the back of some online news site, that for the past 3 days the skies have rained missiles into sderot, israel, schools have been closed and no one is walking the streets. this is apparently acceptable to the press, cos i cant see why these important facts were excluded in their reporting, and the unjustified attack was in response thereto...

its quite funny to watch the screams of shock horror as a country attempts to defend its citizens. on my last reading of the use of force defending your border by attacking the very same militants that have bombed you was called self defence - i still cant understand dugards problem with the building of a border...

its all over

2007-05-18T17:02:00.000+02:00

the last 2 weeks have been a little fun - being out of the office was nice and back in a learning environment stimulating. i have come crashing back to the 'real world' and found a space invader inside my office...

dooshbag has decided that in my absence he will procure all space that is neatly and meticulously mine and cover it in his crap with not so much as a battered an eyelid. upon enquiry as to how where files that were not there when i left had come to rest on my desk i was told to go and play in the traffic - sure thing... be back on monday and your shit is going to hit the floor!

60 minutes

2007-05-16T17:16:00.000+02:00

wow, the fastest 60 minutes ever has to go to the watching of 24 last night! i have never...
yes there was much protesting as i severed the remote from the usual suspects grip and then there was the moaning about how dumb to be watching a show that is in its 6th season, it must have lost its appeal by now - well no, uh ah, definitely not! if it hasn't already it will grip you the next time you tune in and leave you cursing the blaring add breaks as the 15 minutes of jacks life fly by...

i would give an update but i fear for those who may be in a dark hole not knowing that there is a 6th season, so at risk of spoiling it for anyone i would say that you should tune in or get the dvd but you should watch - there is something intensely amusing about bauers ability to tear out a jugular with his teeth...

jacks back

2007-05-15T17:42:00.000+02:00

last seen kidnapped, on a freighter ship to what we suspect is a mob of angry 'you killed one of our statesman' chinese, bauer will return along with my obsession with 24, tonight.

if the teaser was anything to go by he's in pain, up shit creek with no bamboo in sight and the good ol' u.s of a is at the mercy of terrorists with only one immoral crusader for the job...

cut in or die sitting

2007-05-15T17:01:00.000+02:00

a while back a debate spun on the arrogance of those who deem themselves 'cutters'. it was accepted that these sorts were the spawn of satan and would hopefully meet their demise in some untimely road death, for no reason other than the sheer frustration of 'sitters' who get shoveled further and further down the queue as 'cutters' move into their more favoured position...

i have become an 'on one particular road only cutter', rather i am choosing to step out of the closet and admit that there isn't a damn fig of hope that i am going to be a sitter on the r24 or whatever the road be called.

the traffic department seem oblivious to the plight of the road user who struggles against all odds between the hours of 7 and 9am to make it from this road onto the n1; the town planning department was clearly inebriated when decision time loomed in their deadline schedule as they merged a minimum of 17 suburbs traffic into one lane over a bridge onto the only highway into the city and no amount of trying to coax yourself as far as possible to the car in front of you is going to stop me edging ahead of the insane queue...

i have tried to be a sitter - it made me a half hour later for work than is acceptable. to avoid such continuous displays of disregard for the authority of my boss' working hours and remain a sitter i would need to get up an hour earlier. easy, we all should make sacrifices for the greater good of common man, how selfish of me, silly, theres nothing wrong waking up 2 hours after you get to sleep, doing the necessary to equip you for the day ahead and arriving at work a full 3 hours before anyone else... however unlike some hierarchies this would be seen as dedication to the profession that wouldn't be rewarded with a reciprocal allowance of 3 hours early finishing - dedication is expected, not rewarded.

so i cut in, blissfully waving a courtesy hand, smiling to the clearly seething driver who cant believe the arrogance in my ability to squeeze into the smallest gap he has left between his car and the one in front of him. i always indicate, move into the flow of traffic rather than wait to be let in like a cockaroach (sic) on the side and never jump over a solid lane - so technically no laws are broken...

good ideas....

2007-05-13T19:28:00.000+02:00

another brilliant idea in the structure that is the un - make one of the most impoverished, economically unsuccessful countries with an inflation rate currently at 2 200%, the head of the commission on sustainable economic development (csd)...

once again i am dumb founded as to the incentives or rational behind this bodies decision making process. were the respective anonymous ballot voters trying to say - ha ha if anyone could stuff it up it'll be these guys? or were they aiming to piss off the developed world who had been so obviously against zimbabwe's nomination and let their arrogance get in the way of rational thought?

the cds is supposed to be an authoritative source on sustainable development and provide insight through policy making on how to push forward all those who are falling behind. in addition they are to offer expert advice, facilitate governmental negotiations and amongst others monitor the efforts of various groups efforts at implementation of sustainable development projects...

there is now a person in charge who is not able to travel to meet with the european leaders because as part of mugabe's government he is the subject of a host of travel bans, a man who supports government policies that have birthed the fact that wiping your arse with hard currency is cheaper than actually buying toilet paper and who supports a regime that has enabled the demise of any agricultural enterprise that once thrived in those there parts...

it remains to be seen how this project can move forward with the already many hurdles which face it and how the body is to learn from the mistakes of its leaders nation... this should go down as another feather in the un's cap of f*** ups...

another 5 min break

2007-05-10T17:21:00.000+02:00

today started what looks to be a mammoth exploration of the magistrates court procedures... it is going to be mammoth because the lecturer has chosen to move at the pace of a snail. we are only to do a teeny bit of work at a time before moving on to a 5 minute break just in case we thought things were too hectic.

this is dramatically different to the pace of our mva guy who whizzed through it all at the speed of the latest ducati compared to our now 1959 ford. first it was great, a little teaser of information and then a 5min break, hmm this is good. then another snippet of info and poof another 5 min break. then another little tit bit and what do you know a 5 minute break and wow now it is tea time. this continued all the way to lunch.

students are not impartial to the odd break, in fact most would prefer to be on a break rather than at school but even we have our limits. if students start looking restless cos a break has been mentioned then you know there must be something up.

the lecturer quelled our scepticism by letting us go home almost a full hour and a half early, which had us applauding and forgetting that he had just given us a 5 min break before tiny little task followed by the 5 min break. now i am wondering how much are we getting out of the classes cos the file for this section is mammoth and we aren't even hitting the iceberg - clearly another self study - crap!

up up up

2007-05-09T18:08:00.000+02:00

i am not getting much exercise but this will be remedied soon when i convince my other self to get back into the yoga studio so for now i am walking to class and taking the stairs rather than the elevator to the 7th floor.

it seems little, only 7 floors, but by the end i am panting and trying to look calm as the o2 refuses to enter the blood stream fast enough to go to the brain so that i dont faint, yeah i am cool thanks not going to fall over, no problems here, ignore the heaving rib cage...

so up and down the flights i go at least 3 times a day which i think is pretty good and makes for the walk home a little tough as the calves seethe in pain but i push them on with the power of my feeble mind that could end all this futile behaviour if it got its body back into the studio dammit!

out of the mouths of babes

2007-05-09T17:21:00.000+02:00

memri is a media watch that monitors the media in the middle east. they appear to be an american based non proft org so i can already hear the screams of bias from all those that will be opposed to the contents of this post but read on...

i have chosen not to post the actual broadcast because it is offensive and much like bullard i dont want to give them what they crave which is more exposure so click here or here (alternatively youtube and search mickey mouse hamas) and you can view the clip for yourself and form an opinion....

these clips put into perspective how someone could convince another to strap themselves up only to splatter themselves in a public place taking as many innocents as possible with them. it sits uncomfortably with me that this is the subject of children's television or that 10 year olds are phoning in declaring that this is 'the time of death'.

are there not un conventions against the use of children as soldiers of war or prohibiting recruitment of child soldiers because it is against the child's fundamental rights to be just that - a child. is this perhaps part of the recruitment strategy in that we brainwash and coerce while infantile youths absorb the every convincing word of a mickey mouse look a like and then we only recruit once the age of 18 has been reached, thereby circumventing any questioning of the strategy of the general in charge of the suicide surge?

i admit i watched in disbelief and with much skepticism but still it remains whether from another perspective this type of broadcasting would be tolerated? would it be ok to propagate the annihilation of the mormons, would it be fine if an underground station in mid-70's sa run by umkhonto we sizwe transmitted the end of the white man, would the un tolerate an israeli children's tv show calling for the expulsion and end of the palestinians? i know the answer to the above is a definite no and if you feel otherwise there should be a good long look in the mirror that succeeds reading this and then you should have your head checked!

how can there be a negotiation for peace when you grow up believing that there is an oppression that you need to overcome with war. why is the message that only one religion can survive to the exclusion of all others? why is mickey mouse not preaching or calling for peace? why is the mouse asking for war and for little tiny tots to take up arms? why hasn't disney sued for intellectual property infringements?

if some feathers can be taken out of the sa cap, the lesson should be equality for all, not equality for us to the exclusion of anyone different from us; a peaceful solution can be found without taking up arms and the only road to peace is through a dialogue between sides that believe in a peace where both can still exist rather than one where only the other can survive.

where have all the toilets gone?

2007-05-08T17:28:00.000+02:00

there is a problem plaguing the city that demands urgent attention. on my way to class i walked past what could only be human defecation and on my way back from class i passed two different men at different times who had just relieved themselves against different walls.

i understand that there are times when one has to go and that men are equipped with the blessing of ease of bladder release, but this is not the countryside this is the city. your bodily excretion has no where to go in a city except clutter up the pavements and various other concrete varieties that have replaced lawns, fields and dust that would absorb such crap in the country.

the city needs to do something. i am thinking the supply of the public ablution facilities is now at an all time high and of the utmost necessity. we have clearly breached the crisis wall in order for me to have encountered three cases of human waste in one day...

the parks will have to have loos for both sexes that are serviced and monitored and cant be without paper and proper hygine. i have run around hopping like a bunny on a stick wondering where all the loos have gone and exercised award winning restraint until home but others may not have the home to run too!

the public loo seems to have disappeared, become a thing of the past, much like the public bench come to think of it, but it needs to be put back. the excess of tax dollars would have to fund this human right as there cant be a surcharge for the use of the facility. a surcharge defeats the purpose of whom the toilet would aim to service. i propose lobbying local government or removing their loos to see how they would hold it.

bullard bashing

2007-05-07T18:20:00.000+02:00

its not often that i bother to read this old mans tripe but i was persuaded by the interest of others and now i am confused as too what all the fuss is about.

the man is sad that he isn't getting enough attention so applause please cos now he has it - well done! sunday times readership is down, they get gagged every now and then and are subjected to watching their editors come and go. the life of the columnist is hard. that is all they get to do. unlike bloggers who use this forum for means other than a meager income, a 2 x 4 column in a sunday paper is all that some have to look forward too. we shouldn't be mocking him but rather encouraging him to get out there and start up his own blog and if he really is a good journalist he should have a stat counter that shoots through the roof and book deals turning into movie scripts faster that they can put his 500 words every sunday into print.

theoretically practical

2007-05-07T17:41:00.000+02:00

today begins a new step in the life of the clerk - practical legal training courses.

as opposed to their title these are lectures about the theory of practice rather than actually practicing so the name is deceptive. i endured a bout with a feminist who is not down with the species of the opposite sex - this is counterproductive no?

she propounds ideas of equality and then follows it with a little men bashing - apparently acceptable to be sexist from a female to male perspective but objectify woman and she'll varnish her kitchen floor with your balls...

i read a sweet little article, well more of a how to be the perfect 1955 wife, step by step guide in housewives weekly, and thought, hell that aint half bad... if i worked all day, damn right i expect my dinner lovingly prepared by the home sitter to be warm and on the table as i would be famished on my return from the making of our livelihood. the home maker better not trouble me with the frivolities of the broken washer dryer when i enter and should rather usher me with kind words and warm or cold drinks. the children (not gonna happen they are too bugging) would be playing out of earshot and if within my ears range, quietly.... and if it was cold there should be a roasty fire warming my toes - splendid where'd i sign up this sounds great - ooops sorry was i missing the point? this is somehow bad and the poor woman. what else should she be doing with her day if she isn't out working?

hard core feminism bores me. the willy nilly application of constitutional rights so that anything you say is amis, becomes unconstitutional behaviour, also boring. the point of rushing through this section of work and peeking at the domestic violence act which seemed to be the only practical part of the whole lesson, pointless.

what i gathered from my one and only exposure to gender law: women should be able to do everything that men can and more, men should be oppressed cos its their turn having done it for so long, domestic violence is not a defence if you kill the son of a bitch that has been body slamming you for the last 15 years and believing that this lecture will in anyway supplement the mammoth amount of notes that now definitely need to be read - futile!

bliss

2007-05-06T21:56:00.000+02:00

whilst reading the weekend paper i have stumbled across some interesting finds, some of which i'll vent about much later as i digest the arrogance so later about the cigar smoker...

a quaint little inhabitant of my town has been interviewed and upon attempting a sincere answer to what would you do with a million bucks? her reply was 'invest wisely, contribute to a good cause, and finally travel and shop on the interest...

excellent, cos i need the name of the broker and investment house who are clearly genius to be able to make my wonderful currency really go the distance. i did a few sums and figured that unless 'the cause' is getting a free lunch for the volunteer staff, the travel is to a weekend resort and the shopping at a second hand store, someone is being short changed or perhaps i am too extravagant?

upon reflection i did a few more sums and concluded that i am a bit of a miser. i might: run in terror at the possibility of having to make the mil, 2 and what to do in the crises that the balance slipped below the mere 6 zero's, how the hell can i spend 1 mil, that gets you nowhere - a bucket of fries and some chicken? my head has rushed into zero overload and for some reason i couldn't figure out how i would give the charity anything less that the 6 noughts and then what the hell am i going to buy and how the hell will i invest?

this is the car guard dilemma - one is unacceptable, two is insulting, five is ok but 10 is too much! how do you give the charity 500 000 and then keep 500 000 for yourself? do you then do a 60/40 split and is that not just rude, so compromise with a 70/30 or an 80/20 which seems to do you in some how, or can you go the whole have it all or keep it all and try do something with any leftovers?

some happy days

2007-05-06T13:42:00.000+02:00

today is lag b'omer, a happy day, one that now is celebrated by picnics in parks, dancing around a bon fire, singing, the snip snap of a 3 yr olds hair, even a wedding is allowed, so get out your bow and arrow and make merry...

a special remembrance is noted for all those pupils of rabbi akiva, (because this is the only day between pesach and shavuot that no pupil died) allowing for a day of happiness amongst days of mourning and counting. we should strive to be nicer to each other and show our respect otherwise we might have a similar mystical smiting...

social commentary

2007-05-06T10:05:00.000+02:00

with the growing abundance of social networks on the internet is it not all becoming a little bit too much?

blogging started blogger competing with wordpress or vice versa, then came the choice to upload photos followed by the decision to profess loyalty with either flickr, picasa, kodac photo or the list goes on. thus began the daily document on stories that are your's or someone else's life...

along comes facebook, myspace, twitter and they keep on coming... some taking it really seriously - i have a friend who we shall call the facebook slut, what with 354 friends - others using it as a means to escape their boredom or just pass time using it as a means to network.

there's a problem as the inevitable looms and your life gets interrupted by the constant need to update and check and correct and make tiny little profile amendments and then click click, presto you are actually literally a walking talking horror movie plugged in...

busy busy splat

2007-05-06T09:26:00.000+02:00

often i ramble around shouting about life not being fast paced enough, rather dull, a lil on the slow side... wishing as i might that things would spin along at a lil more of an exponential pace and then they do. now i find myself slamming my fingers against the dash asking why me what did i do to deserve this... oh the pain, the pain - honestly get a grip!

it is now sunday, the blur that has been the weekend has come back to a lil meander and things are plodding along more swimmingly than the last two days.

friday was the last of my days in court (more on this later) and it was also the opening of SP's new and improved look at the other species that is Woman..... man. he has sold out and gone totally commercial but, i fear as most do when a friend sells out that, this is truly what people will want to see. the fear comes not from the fact that everyone will want to see it, but that people are really that simple... oh well a fact we must accept. he is on to a really good thing and if his cast manage without him and take his notes to hart they should be playing to packed houses for the next three weeks down at the obs cafe. personally i would make this into a movie, go for a world wide release and fuck touring the country in little theaters but thats the capitalist throwing the thespian against the wall and stealing his beer...

there were celebrations after and almost a tear as the cast thanked SP for his time before he exits the town in which we live with a bottle of veuve.... many spent the night huddled discussing the brilliance and admiring themselves more as the bar was more flooded. SP spent most of the night invincibly drowning one substance after another whilst crooning young blonde's until we hit the last spot on our port of call.... it seems that kissing has an adverse effect on our hero and that was the last he was seen with much dignity. a certain someone and co spent the rest of the night capturing on film the dramatic exploits of the toilet bowl and then it was all over. we stumbled in around the time that sparrows were merrily farting and proceeded to hear SP's operatic displays of bog hugging. this has left him with a much longer than usual uvula which is touching his tongue - eeew, to the doc me thinks!

4 hours later i restrained the need to bucket my eyes with water as we said our goodbyes to eeyore and hope that his travels bring exciting stories that will develop into more beautiful plays and perhaps a wonderful nouveau film that wins an accalaide or four... simply like that the little mess is gone for hmmmm 2 years....

the market followed to meet others, with camps bay after that, consumptions of rubbish with dvd's and then i crashed, the freight train hit the wall without notice at 8pm, what the fuck am i a granny or what? 8pm, asleep is not acceptable...

where's the cat

2007-05-05T10:40:00.000+02:00

there are times when someone pops up from the unknown to me world of cyber space and says 'ha ha, u weren't that hard to find...'

crap, waht, sorrrry, the world has stopped spinning its usual pace on its axis, speeding up rapidly then slowing down, shunting me up and down through stratoshpheres.... find me? this was covered, no? i posted skittly ages ago when i accidentally commented on a certain someones blog and realising that any clueso could link back here without much thought and add one apple to another realising he was close to a pie, that this should and could not happen and the hows and whys of retaining anonymity that would slowly develope into an acclaimed anonymous fame...

as the design would have it, linking to others allows them to view you, dah, not that genius to figure out i now hear myself screaming from the padded cell as the walls start closing in. the panic of what is to come if the lil' secret sniper becomes to impressed with his sleuth like ability has myself in a jibber and i am ranting like a loon with eyes flaring like a banchee...

crap!

its official

2007-04-27T18:03:00.000+02:00

today is a public holiday and whilst most are out and about or running through the storm that has hit these here parts i have officially lost my mind. i am not talking the 'kluck kuck jibber jibber your ol mans a mushroom' crazy, nor the funny haha type but rather the absence of sanity, too many sandwiches short to be classified as lunch, type of crazy...

i have spent the better part of the day cleaning a living space that isn't my own. i completely devoted the entire day to scraping a lino floor on my hands and knees with a kitchen scourer. this kind of attention to detailed cleansing wont be found after the most dedicated maid has given your spot a once over....

whilst scraping the 47th now clinically clean crystal white square of bathroom floor it was confirmed. i had crossed the line into the world if the ludicrous 47 tiles ago. i hadn't breazed my way past sanity into the realm of the unknown, i had made a gazelle like leap into the heart of the insane and was lapping it up like candy floss...

strangely this little coming into being didn't make me cower back or shunt myself into the walls of my padded cell but rather i merrily plodded onwards, vacuuming, dusting, flooding a kitchen, breaking a washing machine, yes the towels are trapped in the cycle, and now i am going to leave.

a slice from the irony pie

2007-04-27T12:22:00.000+02:00

SP has been trying to leave to go overseas for as long as i have known him. in fact it has become as much a part of his genetic code as his double helix. there has always been something to get in the way, a new play he was going to direct, the empty promises of writing for a sitcom, some bit part in a forgotten commercial, a girlfriend that would only later dump him and the list goes on...
however finally he is/was going... he got a visa to work in a foreign country, was making real attempts to sell what he calls a car to anyone that needed some spare metal, booked his plane ticket was almost packing his bags and leaving on that jet plane and then he went to a casting.......
today he gets a call from the director, he has a call back, they have emailed him the lines to read for a bigger part and he may be off to military training to become the next jarhead to hit the small screen.....
its too much, the trip is on again off again more than you can rock the baby or do an eifel tower on your spiffy super slick coke yoyo. his retort is that at least the filming is 'out of the country' tho still on the same continent.
weirdly for the first time ever he is in a win win situation which is not usual for our eeyore who really is the doom and gloom of any situation, so heres crossing fingers that later we get to take the piss out of the makeshift accent and super gi fly hair crop that he should be donning...

the same day

2007-04-26T18:36:00.000+02:00

this is how things should be done
go to store to purchase jeans and they don't have your size the clerk
(a) laughs hysterically through their upwards and downwards glances at the oddity that is your frame
(b) offers encouragement that once upon a time they had your size and you are lucky you are so small
(c) offers to phone another store
(d) phones another store reserves the pair you need and ships them over to you

ok so life isn't automatically being given option (d) but lee cooper made a good attempt.
they managed to locate the size i needed, after exchanging a size bought for me that was too big for a size that was then too small, in another district to where i live. i organised for them to be couriered to me, the stores courier takes on average a month - tip: change couriers...

when the jeans arrived there was a problem with the stitching that had come loose at the knee, a strange place to loosen which, caused faith to be lost in the rest of the stitches holding true to their nature...

promptly they were returned and their reply, 'what a stitch loose, crap, so sorry, can we get another pair, crap noone else has your unique size, take another pair of jeans? no, take a credit note?' thanks a credit note would be splendid and i'll be back to get heaps more of your beautiful product...

hliton weiner could learn from their management style...

things fall apart

2007-04-26T18:08:00.000+02:00

i bought a shirt from hilton weiner and low and behold it has fallen apart. the shop clerk was as shocked as i was, when i looked down from my key board to find that there was a hole where beautifully woven cotton should have been, when i presented him with the broken material.

my primary reason for shopping at such a grossly exaggerated price in relation to quality store was just that, the price was supposed to relate to quality. not only does the shirt now brand beautiful holes where it was once attached through inadequate stitching but the 'hand stitched' thread that was 'sewn' into the fabric has also unraveled. the result is that instead of a sharp looking collar it looks as if moths have attacked it, thread hangs off the back and the thread down the front had to be cut by yours truly on the said date in order to prevent looking like a homeless person...

the store apparently couldn't give rocks about the mishap. upon presenting the pieces of yarn to their clerk i was told 'sorry we no longer stock this shirt', 'sorry we don't do refunds', 'sorry we don't do returns', 'sorry we don't give credit notes', and my personal favourite, 'sorry we cant set off the cost of this piece of useless material towards the cost of another item from this store'.

i fail to see how any of the above policies applies to the given situation. you tender an item for a price, if there is a latent defect you are liable to respond to a demand for compensation or there is an enrichment that surely cant be justified by the currently enriched hilton weiner. the fact that you no longer stock an item, ignores the fact that the item stocked is defective. the policy of no returns shouldn't and cant apply to items that are defective or we could all sell crap and hide behind our 'no returns policy'. not realising that the matter could be handled simply by replacing the defunct piece of crap with a pristine, crisp, surely never to be faulty item, would result in happy customer reporting on good management, illustrates a lack of competence....

failing to accommodate a customer with a valid complaint equates to poor service. following your inadequate management of the given situation with no response and failing to fulfill promises of following the matter up with a supplier results in blatant lack of regard to your customer. not reporting back to a customer on your lack of reliability results in a world wide revue of your inadequacies.

in due course

2007-04-19T23:13:00.000+02:00

when i am big and all grown up and stuff and i have harnessed the fine art of dumping i will know that i am fully developed and finally an adult...

there is a skill, it takes years of training and has been passed down roughly since the beginning of time. it might appear that everyone has been doing it for years, you know the general ground work but no one does it like a principle and a clerk.

the art of delegation is the skill of making it seem that everything passed down from your bored little hands is of the utmost importance and can only be completed by a highly skilled individual.

tired of using a phone to talk to people - delegate to your clerk to bug the sheriff or court to demand the documents that you needed last week, busy planing your next important lunch date -delegate to your clerk to draft papers that a typist with a little skill could knock together, feeling a little hung over from drinks after work - delegate to your clerk to trawl through the legal texts to find your answer to that pertinent question enabling you to solve your litigating nightmare...

the grasshopper is learning quickly and soon others will be privy to the inter office memo to consult with the court over a file 07/226L who's papers dont seem to have been returned from filing...

the bottom of the cespit award goes to...

2007-04-18T18:32:00.000+02:00

once upon a time there was this belief that a good start was several lawyers at the bottom of a swimming pool, or something thereabouts. today i believe this adage has got it all wrong.

there is a specimen, a thing, that is lower than the lawyer... yes folks this is possible so stay with me on this... they lurk in the back waters, leering, pretending, siphoning info when they can get their grubby little paws on it, they are the 'journo'.

the journalist, as the species prefers to be known, is more akin and at home in the comfort of others misery. they sit huddled in groups giggling, pointing, sniggering and diving in at the scraps with more skill than the most highly evolved sewer rat.

all day long they assume the guise of the gainfully employed. they travel in packs a little like hyenas. they bandy about like the mean girls in high school and relish the demise of anyone who falls victim to their version of the facts.

long gone are the days when integrity, fact finding, or truths were the pinnacle of this profession. today what sells is what is reported, the story as would be best cast on the greatest stage. its irrelevant who's or how many lives are smashed in the wake of the 'news' seeker, in fact the more the merrier and what is worse is it is all done under the farce of public interest...

the reality is that shares and market relations control what is published and how the story is told. from the horses mouth 'i knew the story was inaccurate but what could be done? i had no control over it the editor went over my head'. its your name at the top of the article, no proof reading necessary then? yeah apparently literacy isn't a requirement in this profession...

privilege anyone?

2007-04-16T22:56:00.000+02:00

enter phase two in the going to court spectrum of what is my working day... the visit to the client in the holding cell.

hand mobile phone over to scruitinizing guards behind a desk almost too high to see them over. wait for guard on other side of thick iron bars to decide which key on the bunch fits the lock and enter the other side. sign the book, name, visitee, time, reason etc... guys in shackles mosey on by one geisha step at a time. into room with desk, chairs, customary bars and wait for client...

this apparently is luxury. i haven't yet had to go to the prison to interview anyone but promises have been made that the next time there is reason to make the schlep out there i will have the honour. these here are the cells that hold those on the 'high fliers' list out front meaning that they are getting their day in court unlike the other innocents that have been sitting for the past two years or longer on the awaiting trial roll...

if you dont want to do the drive to the penn you can request that your little cargo gets shipped in and then gets to spend the day in a different lock up so this could be fun for both... the advantage here is that there is a room that you can sit and chat in, unlike the yard you are expected to make do with at the prison. there is no luxury of privilege, you have to hope that some dirty rat isn't listening in on your strategy to beat the latest murder rap and better believe that those in cell block A wont be turning state to get their stretch reduced from 15 down to 5... yip still a striving to uphold them constitutional rights 4 all...

has it risen?

2007-04-10T18:04:00.000+02:00

does anyone have any reasonable authority on the what not to's over pesach? i realise that much matzah munching is required but what of other things?

can you eat cute fluffy sweet delicious little mirringgue's (meringues)? are rotti's acceptable? do you sit on the eating of rice fence? what of pasta? cake is obviously a no no which goes for biscuits and other deliciousness ... pizza? i am hazerding toward a no here too...

i need real authority not just a no you cant. i understand the reasoning for bread, the symbolism attempting to be achieved, but if you look at the matzah, is there really a difference between it and a rotti? so why not the rotti and if not the rotti then what with a curry?

to date i have followed the rule to a letter and not knocked down a single fence that i know of in the abstinence of the bread variety and stuck with all that is unrisen but there are unanswered questions that cant be ignored - like why i have to decline a delicious salomi when it is made from the same stuff that the matzah is made of?

tonight is the end of the risen foods segregation from the diet and it hasn't been so hard being that i don't eat bread anyhooo but not to eat rotti and curry, that has been killer...

to draft or not to draft

2007-04-10T17:38:00.000+02:00

i have taken it upon myself to alleviate the deathly tone of one of my principles and draft an affidavit opposing an application for summary judgment myself... this is no mean feat what with the whole '0' days experience i have at doing this, but he seems reluctant to answer a single query i have so, if it sucks we know where the blame lies - my head obviously...

i have read, read and read very many cases - the art of lawyering is knowing more than the other side, not necessarily uber important what you know but you must know more, so onward with the reading. i have found very many a case which question the skill level of my opposition and his ability to responsibly discharge his duty to his client and at the risk of sounding conceited led me to wonder what he was so pucker about on the telephone - obviously dealing with a clerk has led him to believe he can rest on his laurels... au contraire monsieur! never underestimate your opponent, or a blood thirsty little clerk who has nothing else to do with the day than read and research while you lunch...

pms

2007-04-10T17:30:00.000+02:00

i don't think those 3 little letters are gender specific. i think both sexes seem to suffer from a case of the fuck off out of my space that i have chosen to enlarge at no notice to anyone else who's nerves i am getting on cos frankly i don't give a damn...

the long weekend is over and i have a serious case of the where did it all go, what its over, where was i, why do i feel like i haven't slept in a week... then i remember the week i just had and the drain of the weekend which was apparently a necessary drain so i should feel positive about it and now i find myself falling asleep in front of the computer...

ok seriously, one minute i am drafting what seems to be like a pretty realistic opposition to a summary judgment application and the next thing i am saving myself from the embarrassment of the sound of my head hitting the desk...

i also seem to be struggling to relate to anyone with a smile on their face and have taken to ignoring those with a heart beat around the office, talking only when absolutely necessary and in order to save myself have taken lunch for the first time ever...

the end of this day never came soon enough

up shit creek

2007-04-09T12:52:00.000+02:00

cs and i have hit a speed wobble, well its more like one of those speed bumps at the airport that slightly resemble a mountain that you take too fast in your vespa and next thing those biscuit tires aren't handling...

anyhooo i am not sure there is a way back or forward or any which way out to make this all better again. i don't know how i have mammothly fucked everything up and not even sure how we have any of the ideas that we seem to have confirmed in our heads.

this day has been disastrous since i opened my eyes to the blaring news screamed at me by the alarm, the weather was shit so canceled the waterskii arrangements - stupid raining fog, cs woke up in the foulest of moods - the computer to finish all the work that had to be done before plan b was initiated funked out and destroyed the schedule and since then we haven't had a meaningful thing to exchange with each other... i have lied to tj who's braai we were attending in the forest that my evil boss has called me in to work on a public holiday and all in the hope that there would be light at the end of what has become a week long gloomy tunnel...

now i am sitting in a strangers flat, gathered my stuff to make it seem as if i never existed and feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me and somehow i am the genius who did all the pulling?

and now its over to u bob for the weather...

2007-04-03T23:12:00.000+02:00

ever noticed the obscure tone taken by news reporters. no matter what the subject matter it is always treated with the same air of importance, it is after all the news...

tonight however i was in hysterics as the tone deaf reporter attempted to make the story of a widower moving into a new flat with her adopted spca model cat, newsworthy...

well over to you teresa
thanks tom! tonight we are reporting live outside the new home in what can truly only be described as the most boring news story i have ever reported
yes, in a true rags to riches drama one cats dreams have all come true...
this little street hill billy is moving on up to high society
no longer will he trawl the streets hunting mice and screeching at dogs but rather he will dine in the lap of two bedroomed apartment luxury.
what was once a life that could only be seen as a catastophy, yes you heard correctly folks, i used the most obvious pun out there, is now a lesson to us all of how you too can make a difference in another obscure piece of news...
this is teresa hoping to keep her day job reporting live from no where important...

yip they are scraping the barrel and proving once again just how made up the news really is...

a sty fit for any species

2007-04-03T20:46:00.000+02:00

have you ever house sat and walked into a place thinking what the fuck? not in a good sense but rather a what died, how long has this place been abandoned, is this really inhabited by humans kind of what the fuck...

at first i thought it wasn't that bad, no dirty dishes in the sink, minimal clothes lying around in one of the rooms and then i had to check that thought, minimal clothes lying around? these people have just gone on holiday and surely they took stuff with them? the wardrobes aren't that big or well used as everything is stuffed anywhere and more likely could be packed onto two of the shelves, if they were used. plus the laundry is full.

i try to sit down and ignore the aftermath of some bomb and cant find a single spot to sit on that doesn't creep me out so i continue on an investigative inspection... the bathroom definitely cant be used until sterilized, the kitchen needs similar treatment and the balcony seems covered in ash?

its weird cos the apartment is fully stocked with every cleaning product known to man and then some. it is like mary poppins went shopping and left everything at the trolls place to sort out himself... (well she is going to have to pick a few more things now...) so i have finished work and begun cleaning in stages. the balcony is de-ashed, surfaces wiped, floor swept, skirtings dusted. the lounge has had the same treatment and the bedroom now has floor space... there is one room and desk that i am ignoring and have shut out of my mind. the shower in the morning will be in a twinkle of whiteness and someone else will have to take the mountain of trash that the clean has built up out back...

i resign...

chag samaeg

2007-04-03T19:10:00.000+02:00

ok, let me start by saying sorry, i can never spell hebrew in english correctly and as much as i tell myself that it should look as it sounds and it does, it never really is...

so matzos munching has started and already the shops are poorly equipped to handle the brevity of the bread fast. i refuse to give the names of either establishment i had to endure today because both are grossly inadequate and hence don't deserve the publicity, negative or otherwise! on a certain someones suggestion i left the shop i was in because i didn't recognise any of the brands as being what was usually bought and totted off to inadequate store no.1. nothing. not just nothing as in no matzos of the brand i wanted but no matzos at all, apparently out since sunday (the munching goes on for longer than 2 days bozo) and not even a pesach section, how archaic, how can you not support your consumers need? so back to inadequate store no. 2 to rummage through a selection of names i have never heard of. at least they had a kosher for pesach section...

i have had my first piece and it wasn't bad, not excellent, but not dry and tasteless, so good actually...

good festival to all and try not to overdo it on the vino...

when in africa...

2007-04-02T23:49:00.001+02:00

ricky and his pals do their bit with a surprise celeb twist at the end...

this was in aid of comic relief so try take it as intended...

good times

2007-04-02T23:03:00.000+02:00

today was oddly successful...

it started with a panic, late, jump up, out, throwing it all together at an exponential rate to get out of the door into what should have been rush hour but what was smooth, free moving, fewer than normal others on their way to the concrete world... hold on how late am i? ok clock check and i am moving faster than normal, going to be early? ha school holidays, gotta love them...

morning - tasks for the first half of your day: (1) check a high court file, (2) get an impossible amendment from the master and (3) ensure the divorce clerk gives you a copy of the order that hasn't been received...
of course your principle has a slight smirk knowing full well that only task 1 should be achieved, the others are merely for your personal agony and their amusement when you furnish them with governmental, inadequate, responses of why you couldn't achieve the set goal...
helpful hint - start with task 1 - the file has to go up at 12.... what? go up where? what r u on about?
but in actuality you smile and nod and realise that you will be walking in the 32 degree heat and have to stall the long way round because your plan of seeing the master first is stumped by completing task 1 first and if you head to the master after the high court you will smash into their 'we'r on tea time, have only been at work for an hour and taking a 45 minute break time'...

task 1 -registrar: oh you looking for the wednesday files?
yip, it's monday, two days before the day of trial, not yet 12, but i cant find a thing...
registrar - thats because blah blah blha i am making no sense but you will accept this as reasonable, not sulk about it, and tuesday and wednesday are seen as the same day so the file was sent to the judge friday.....

i'm sorry am i in a time warp? separate days are the same day
registrar - indeed! and as the file is with the judge you are fresh out of luck...
really buddy, which judge, give me the names we'll see about luck...

anyhooo the judges secretary has no problem meeting me, understands my pain and voila the file is checked, ticked, we are 14 on the roll, take that registrar 0 - candidate 1

task 2 - ok crap, nice girl is off sick, fat bitch clearly with reserved animosity for my slight frame is sitting at the desk... moving along and skipping straight past her into equally large but pleasant womans office...
hi! divorce order please.... wait 10 minutes, presto here it is and with a smile... heaps of thanks wonderful monday to you... some inside scoop on a relocation that they were obviously not going to inform anyone is happening and i am out of there...

task 3 - slow stroll over to masters office... shimmy into office of woman who was more than willing to help the last time and hit the first of many hurdles as promised...
no problem i take it on the chin and move to door 446: woman less obliging, no you cant wait for my typist to finish, cant give you an explanation and prefer to talk over than too you...... hmmm whats that the number on the file isn't actually your department? excellent later bitch...
up to the first floor around the corner down a long passage and into a sweltering filing room - man not looking happy.....
hi! super cow downstairs tells me you are the man around here go get my paper corrected on the double sweetass... off he skips ordering me to stay behind, he's off on a covert mission finding me later to send me off to door number 4...
no worries, another woman, flash a smile, explain my reason for existing in her space and she trots me back downstairs to door number 5...
large man, sweaty brow, woman leaves and he scrutinizes the file, hands me a paper and what'll you know, there, the amendment sits.. haha ha ha ha ha

back at the office - hi, here's your amendment, your order and the number on the judges roll with file checked and accurate, plus all the revenue stamps returned unused...
who's laughing now?

ooi u without an indicator

2007-04-02T22:43:00.000+02:00

really i am trying, but damn if it isn't hard! i don't know why, but there is something we as a planet have to deal with, we have to commute to work. it ain't pleasant, no one really enjoys it and frankly if most could avoid it they would.

none the less you have to share the road, as much as you might despise it, there are other road users - though some seem oblivious to this fact...
for a while now i have had to share with many an incompetent fool, the types that make the court jester look like einstein or mugabe look sane...
there isn't a number for the amount of times i have asked where the fuck did you buy the license, u clearly flunked drivers ed several times and skipped out of actually taking the test, paid your how ever much of whatever currency and bingo are here solely to ruin my general trip back and forth from one point to another.

driving for dummies 101 -
1) to the left or right (depending on model of car) is a horizontal piece of plastic that can be flicked up or down. this makes the little orange decoration on the back and front of your transportation flicker... unlike a christmas decoration, this is not decorative but rather indicative of your general intention (if you in fact have one) to other road users...
this should be used when turning, swerving, taking out the car to your left or right, and preferably before doing any of the former... think of it as a courtesy heads up before blind siding your opponents, if you must...

2) if there is more rust on your transport of choice than there is paint it is probably not going to pass a m.o.t - not that you would know what this is, but trust me here, you shouldn't be in it on the road...

3) if there are 2 lanes on the road, no one in front of you and you want to travel below the speed limit, pull over into the left lane. the rule is: overtake on the right - not where ever and when ever suits you.

4) the mirrors are useful for more than makeup application and watching how much you annoy the person behind you... if there is a stream of cars behind you, you are holding everyone up... clearly you have trouble feeling significant cos the only place so far that you are significantly making an impact is on delaying everyone else who has someone, something or somewhere they would rather be than behind you...

5) most importantly wake up! if you want to sleep, stay at home, pull over, leave the road to those who just want to use it to get to where they have to be.

lesson over!

Persia 0 - Sparta 3

2007-04-02T22:21:00.000+02:00

aah hoo aah, sparta!
never before have i walked out of a movie after 1am and felt such energy and alertness from an audience. from the majestic arabian steads that sweep into sparta with their god like, chiseled hottie that has come to let sparta know that slavery is a coming and like the rest of the conquered fools they too should bend over and take it up the batty, him being booted into the well, the sweeping cinematography, the indistinguishable beauty of the graphic paintings and recreated landscapes, the fact that i was totally fooled by the cgi, the genius of the spartan battle strategy fueled by freemen and the list goes on... i realise i started that sentence with a from and a too should follow but i cant seem to think of the end of the brilliance...

this is obviously not a movie to go and watch if you were looking for historical accuracy, real life drama and general mumbo jumbo history lessons...
hello critics, its a graphic novel, its frank miller, its artistic gratuitous violence...

plus somehow i walked out of there not feeling like i had watched a violent movie. perhaps my fondness of films like kill bill or sin city may have something to do with my subdued attitude to the walls of bodies that the spartans rack up? none the less there was a beauty to the way that the blood splattered, how it was dream-like rather than simple violence recreated on screen in a saw-like frenzy.

there was an emotion captured in this movie that seemed to override the fact that waves after waves of persian slaves were being ass whipped by buffed, looking for a good kill greeks. the fact that these men had 'trained' since childbirth, were beaten into believing that nothing was more important than dieing in a spectacular battle and that all of this was to protect their 'freedom' seemed to distract you from the fact that heads were being severed or torso's gutted and the like. their was a power in the drawing of the characters that translated off the screen into those watching, fueled them to wake up, look up, take note, and definitely want to come again!

marketing landslide

2007-03-25T13:29:00.000+02:00

i remember back, way back, a little, rather stubby player joined the field of console mayhem and a price war ensued. the tubby little sucker thought it could walk onto the shelves and demand a selling price twice the demand of the other players and its dreams of accurate market research were short lived.

history seems to be repeating itself... i realise that this may be old news to some but i was mindboggled to see that in London sony saw it necessary, to ensure that the purchaser to reporter ratio was enhanced, to sucker people in with a 'free' high def, flat screen tv. clearly the insecurity is mounting on the home front, which has me worried.

forever i have chanted the praises of the sleek back box and dissed the stubbyness that is microsoft but i fear that sony has overstepped the mark. i understand that they are hoping to gain enmass access to households worldwide in a bid to achieve suprememcy in their dvd launch but has someone in the marketing department forgotten the betamax/vhs landslide victory or that the xbox had to slash its ambition and come down to the price at which it has stayed.

the exercise of choice is now on. do you shell out double what any other consol is going to cost or do you act reasonable and spend that difference on games... a tough choice.... i think not.

featuring woohoo

2007-03-24T23:13:00.000+02:00

there is a certain tune getting a lot of air play at present which has got me thinking, what does it take to be considered a featured artist?

it seems of late that to lend any amount of credibility as a female artist to your current release there needs to be a reasonable amount of featured artists on a track. obviously not the entire album, that would then be a collaboration and you want it to appear that you did this whole thing on your own...

surely to count as a featured artist you should have to give a little more than standing on the sidelines of some music video looking hard and you should have more lines on the track than a featured extra in a movie?

how then does a simple 15 words that run much shorter than the chorus, woohoo, yeewoo, woohoo, count as anything more than a backup singer? it is simply to easy these days to gain credibility as nothing more than a name and then make the featured artist on a track list...

perspective

2007-03-24T10:49:00.000+02:00

a friend of a friend has gone re-born, actually it happened a while ago but it is now official, she's attending faith chats on wednesdays....

last week they decided to explore other faiths and get people they knew from these religions to come and participate in a Q & A.

TJ got to participate as the token muslim. when he arrived under the guise that this would be a tri-religious debate he discovered that he was the only non-re-born at the table, the'd forgotten to invite a jew.....

how can you have a tri-faith discussion with only 2 parties at the table, seems a little unbalanced and opinionated?
surely if you were curious about the inner workings of another peoples god system you would go through the trouble of getting in someone from all sides and it isn't like the collection of 3 people from different perspectives is an impossible task! could have asked a number of people that spring to my mind, but anyway....

so TJ got to sit through a how can you, why do you, shouldn't you rather deabte only to find that these folk were so scant on their own religion there was the possibility no-one had read their own book and was merely following along with the pastor's perspective on things...
seems pretty ignorant to me.....

extreme

2007-03-23T23:39:00.000+02:00

this is a place to be, everyone firmly set in their own trend and a section of the place to suit every niche...

the toilets are something else... personally, temptation exceeded the long drop and stage fright didn't really do it for me.

every section i walked past was a 'i have to have something or the other', whether it be the gorgeous lounging deck chairs, or the arm chair coasters, or the beautiful black i have no back chairs that could be beds.... then there are the dining on throne like seats while i eat my R80 hamburger that has got to be a must do at some stage and to top it the must have sound and gag room....

the climbing wall on the outside looks very important and as a boutique establishment in the city some urban know how definitely got this place spot on!

some come and go

2007-03-22T18:11:00.000+02:00

today i met a pretty entertaining, relatively wealthy. now bachelor. when we met there was a mrs and nuptials had been exchanged but 2 hours, irreconcilable differences and lack of communication later he was single again.

this was no laughing matter, it is his third time to the divorce court and his opinion of relationships is slightly jaded. he is hysterical recalling the first two and now this one and then taking to pieces every sorry sap that was to stand up before him and denounce their wedding vows.

today is a celebratory day much like the day that they walked down the isle or into the court and tied the knot. just like everyone was standing around oooing and ahhhing today i got the feeling he was bouncing off the wall thinking woohooo free at last....

i have been to a few weddings usually against my better judgment and they are long, some make you go through the entire day whilst they swear this is it, the one, gonna last forever and what not, on the flip side the ending is brief.... a simple there aint no way this is gonna work out and presto it is as if it never was.... strange to think in the past this wasn't tollerated or you actually had to go and prove that it wasn't meant to be, or you could be sent back and be made to try and work it out...

no more, just a simple no yes no thanks and its over.... swiftly!

SUPPORT

2007-03-21T23:57:00.000+02:00

this is fundamentally an infringement of Zimbabwean womens dignity and should not be tolerated, much less allowed!
i have no other words. this is simply wrong.

Torture and Violence in Zimbabwe

2007-03-21T23:38:00.001+02:00

this echoes the actions of past governments, who today through 'quiet diplomacy' are not yet breaking the grounds and making the movements to set these people free...

when in doubt....

2007-03-21T18:46:00.000+02:00

the chat i was looking forward to happened without my attendance. it appears that the venue was other than where advertised and being that i am not in the al-aqsa fundamentalist support group i didn't get the memo in venue change. i did however get to hear one of the attendees on the radio proclaiming that it was unfortunate not many of our youth turned up to show their solidarity and learn from those youth's in 'palestine' who have taken up arms, throw stones when they can..... praise be to allah that that ain't the case over here is all i can say...

i took a meander around the 'company gardens' where 'black noise' was giving a concert and others were raising awareness for human rights and then stumbled into the national gallery to look at an exhibition titled 'invoice'. a few incredible images and some that although they weren't amazing to look at captured a time gone by that made the images astounding to look at purely for there historical importance. there was one of a group of police officers who had barricaded a street holding shamboks looking like thy meant business, and this african man, the photographer, stood in front of them all and snapped it, pushed the button and closed the shutter...

then we left, i called a friend and whilst on the mobile a gang of wolves tried to mugg us...
one pulled a certain someone one way to show him his knife and another grabbed me to get hold of my bag, certain someone yelled at the menace and asked him what the hell he was thinking with that knife, i spun and screamed like a banshee........ my screaming and his yelling clearly caught them off balance and the pack backed off leaving us to regroup and exercise the power of our vocal cords....and all of this while still on the phone.

while i would have thought in such a situation i would have gone all ninja and spanked some ass it appeared that our rather vocal diplomacy was what got us out of what could have been a bloody penniless situation rather quickly.
go team!
i have seen others go manic and bash in heads and i can say that while there is some residual angst left over in the blood stream that can be worked and sweated out later i am happier that we ghandi'd the situation.

happy human rights day!

MARCH 21

2007-03-21T11:37:00.000+02:00

Happy Human Rights Day to all those out there who even know what today is all about, rather than thinking it is merely another day off work...

i am off to a chat which hopefully will not be a propogandesque anti-zionist bashing shindig.... and rather an enlightened debate on possible solutions..... thou i doubt it, which is really the reason that probably motivates me to go along to these chats, brainwashing is entertaining...

i will report back on how it all turns out

enjoy the day celebrating your right to vote, free speech, food in your tummy, houses to live in, work to go to, ability to marry across the race and sex barriers of the past and all the other stuff that makes us happy to be on holiday..... spare a thought for those living without the above...

work it out

2007-03-19T18:25:00.000+02:00

so, today i did the unthinkable, well, rather the imaginative

as my boss doesn't seem to give me a lunch break, right around the time before one would take one, i decided that i just needed to go and check on some court file to make sure that the clerk had filed everything where it needed to be....

que, dash to the uni to pay for a book that i have ordered.... yip, i will be a litigation expert even if i have to read to get there, dropped off some dry cleaning, got my suit trousers hemmed at the tailor and presto was back in the office in less than the time it takes most to do lunch...

snot head

2007-03-18T14:25:00.000+02:00

i did a rather dumb thing about a week ago...

a certain someone was feeling slightly abnormal and in need of help due to an unexpected bout of illness. stupidly i went running in for the rescue thinking myself invincible. i came bearing all concoctions known to man to cast out the unknown bug and free CS from the pain being endured....i ran down to the local thai venue and got the best tom tum and hottest rat-shit pepper filled jungle curry to scare any unwanted foreign inhabitants from the body.

the thanks i got was a mutation jumping and taking me down with it. this little sucker was furious at my audacity to come and strike it from its mighty perch, so it multiplied, morphed and knocked me out.

this entire week and maybe longer as there is no sign of freeing my body from the demon, i have been wondering around in a soggy haze, pained neck, no sleep coma wondering what the hell i did to deserve this - help thats what i did...

the lesson here is that when someone is struck down with a furious vengeance by some foreign crittor, send a get well card and hope the all night chem does deliveries...

marvelous mecca

2007-02-04T08:36:00.000+02:00

there are a couple of places that i have on my 'to do' list, mecca being one of them. after dinner last night it is regrettably being promptly removed, not due to any animosity towards the holy land from my side, oh contre...

according to a learned friend of mine i would not be welcome, because of my, well, infidel status. apparently i would tarnish its image or mess things up with my heathen spirit. then i am told theres the fact that during hajj all the shops get left open - people are very trusting, and as i am not of the faith i cant really be trusted and might be unable to resist temptation and nick everything...

ok c'mon, where are we, the dark ages? what, just because i don't pray to allah i might have a penchant for sticky fingers... palease. saints don't pray to allah either hence the hand chopping rules in those there parts!

the fact that i might dirty the city with my little non-believing footprints or rob everyone blind didn't really bother me much, what i thought was weird was the fact that i actually cant go there. i thought with respect, that maybe it is over hajj that i am not welcome cos there are heaps of people who deserve to be there more than me during this over crowded time but actually i am eternally banished from this city. i can never walk into it as long as i am not bowing 5 times on friday in its general direction.

this is mind blowing. so i reconciled my banishing order with an attempt at rational thought... zip, nadda, zilch... what is the rationale behind this oddity? maybe some enlightened spirit out there can point in the right direction cos i am wondering what the reception would be if jerusalem closed its gates, told the tourists to piss off and check it out on the web or if the vatican decided ha ha ha u non-catholics (they would of course also exclude all christians of other denominations) u cant come and explore our hidden crypts, what would the general world response be?

dinner for one

2007-01-27T19:25:00.000+02:00

happily scanning the net for the delicous establishments that can be found in these here parts i made bookings at several of them for 8 of us to go and celebrate on saturday night... several because i couldn't decide, didn't know what people wanted and was sure that for saturday night places would book out quickly... finally i settled on one and cancelled all the others... then,

B unfortunately has to write a supp for an exam she has yet to pass, so she is going to plough all of her strength and attention into getting through this paper so that it will be fourth time lucky... this of course means that M, her partner, will also not be making it.
C and her other half are going to be running, swimming and cycling through the weekend and will be too tired to make it all the way in to town to eat...
P just sms'd, this being after a zillion days of planning and in reply to my last sms to confirm numbers, that J is ill (whatever) and so sorry but has promised that the next one will be on him in an attempt to save grace...
A certain someone (CS) has only just let me know that he is going to be a little longer than he expected and so has decided to dine where he is.
S is at THE social event of the year so i didn't feel like eating into his time with a dinner of obligation...
which leaves T as the only one who was genuinely looking forward to comming...

after all of this i have decided to cancel due to a lack of interest.

al gore was wrong?

2007-01-18T11:29:00.000+02:00

congratulations to most of the commentators. you have demonstrated an inept lack of attention to detail and thorough misunderstanding of the inner workings of the global warming theory. it is not about looking forward to what is going to happen through a pseudo glance into a scientists crystal ball but rather a look backwards to the changes that are evidenced in the snow, chartered weather patterns and studies of ice shelves etc.

much like those in the middle ages who laughed at those who said 'i am jumping in this boat made of wood and will not fall of the end of the earth' (in fact these voyagers would stumble upon continents such as america), or those who looked into the sky and said 'look! there are patterns up there in the stars' etc so too are you illustrating your ignorance with comments such as global warming is a conspiracy, lets swim down madison avenue it can't be that bad, whats the big deal, humans are too dumb to figure out the problem...

you may wish too note that this year (though not in isolation as the pattern has been chartered for a while now) europe has experienced the hottest winter ever, snow has yet to fall in parts of the world that should by now be covered in the fluffy white powder, a big chunk of the ice shelf in greenland broke off, the southern hemisphere is reporting rain showers in the hight of their usually flawless sun filled summer days and the list goes on...

you stay in your little enclave of ignorance and one day when your children ask what it is like to go outside you can sit them down and give them a slide show. al gore was wrong, wrong to think that evidence, science or facts would be able to enter the debating arena of a country fueled by bushisms*.

* the ideologies of the bush administration

wanna work for RS?

2007-01-17T20:06:00.000+02:00

this could be a dream job for someone who wants to get under the skin and between the syllable's of todays newest big thing or the up and coming making of some production team...

writing for rolling stone may be akin to a coke, crack induced frenzy of i can write the sharpest q&a this side of nashville but only those resident in the us will get the honor of battling it out noun and verb lick at a time.

thats contriest (this being a made up word but what the hell everyone's doing it) which is psuedo based on logic, most stars live in the us etc... anyhow i suggest opening it up a little and letting the rest of the web-sphere take a crack at it and then fly your new happening journo off to the big apple and let him or her make a fresh start at something they love to talk about...

just an idea, maybe next time...

and then it was gone

2007-01-17T19:31:00.000+02:00

i feel a little like a loan wolf in the web wilderness as i blog about a tradgedy that struck yesterday. i was certain that some more intuitive user would have metioned/blogged about the absence of my only source of knowledge but alas it was me and me alone that seemed to be feeling the pangs of life without google...

i phoned CS yesterday mid crisis 'please google ....(name of person i was searching for)'
CS: google is down
me: no thats impossible check again
CS: yip it's down
me: how the hell am i supposed to find out who or where anything is? try .....(random search engine)
CS: nope nothing... yip again nothing, no help, sorry, happy hunting, use the phone book...

the phone book? if you don't have a web presence i cant find you. you are as good as invisible. what google sorts out is me not needing to use the phone book and speak to a zillion others to find the one that i am looking for. with google down it meant that any site i visited that needed to search something 'smartly' used google as their search engine and again i was alienated from my searching pleasure.

altavista or who ever else is just too hard to remember, especially when they aren't in your history and you dont have the pleasure of half typing scroll down and find yourself more than one mouse click away from where you need to get to. is it alta or alte or why is google not working?

with google absent from my life, so was gmail, even hotmail for no apparent reason escaped my contact...

i am a tad fragile today as google may have gotten to big, have too much control, be a little too involved in my net use for comfort. if they got bored or took off or continued to take bribes from the red dragon could this all not spiral out of control? they are everywhere gobbling everything that net users touch. this may be a little left over mass hysteria from a day without googling something, but that says it in a nut shell, i am hooked on their crack!

bikini body

2007-01-14T01:26:00.000+02:00

this is like the search for the pot at the end of a rainbow, no matter how long you run after it, it always seems just out of reach. i am not sure whether i am a bum, legs, etc person or somehow obsessed with the whole damn package...

today i decided that i needed white bikini's legs and probably her bum, orange bikinis, hips , waist and maybe stomach, no wait i think stripped bikini wins in the stomach department, white bikini's shoulder blades and well get that much right and the rest should follow suit...

its obvious that this means that in addition to the weekly injections of chappies philosophy and rounds of 'you serve i may return' tennis need to be turned into regimes, strike that i am put off already, so it will be great sprints up many stairs, many lunges for fun, squats for breakfast, lots of running, some crunches for good measure and just for shits and giggles sit/push/pull ups for infinity...

tis not enough to be skinny and intelligent you need also to compete for buns, abs, thighs to suit the perfect bikini...

yogi mishmash

2007-01-13T11:11:00.000+02:00

today at the ungodly hour of around 8.30 a certain someone's brother sparked a rude awakening to remind me that i wanted to attend the saturday yoga class... 9am sat classes are ridiculous, but that is another post entirely...

arrived at the studio to find the 'i can bend anyway till way in my 80's' teacher not present and some woman filling in the gap... already not a good sign, not that i have anything against woman teaching yoga, again another posts topic... moving onwards to the gripe of the day...

what is it with yoga teachers and chappies bubble wrapping philosophy's? i attend classes so that i can bend, twist and elongate my body into the lean mean fighting machine physique that it deserves to hold, not to get some smish smash one with your self dripple dr phil worship. if i wanted to be dr philed i would tune in for the intravenous oprah fuled philosophy not pay top dollar for the teeth nashing...

i started relaxed got to hear how 'yoga was my friend' according to this writter, how 'my body mind are tuned' blah blah why am i no longer relaxed, 'relax let the practice sink in' um we haven't started yet... 'open yourself to the experience' get off the hippie crack this is a sleek zen like studio catering to my urban chic needs...

leave philosophy to those who while away the day deliberating about the inner likeness of being or the ability to de-construct the nut.

theyr'e watching you

2007-01-09T16:53:00.000+02:00

without much surprise it appears that various dubious governments around the world are cracking down on what their citizens and others have to say about them. it doesn't set off many alarm bells to those freely scribbling away about how crap george bush is or how pissed they are at the free and fair elections that took place within their democracy... but for those in a state where things run with an under current, rules don't make sense and those that question them get thrown into the dark wholes, forgotten, only to be heard off in whispering halls, amnesty has decided that action needs to be taken and are trying to rally support from all those free to talk about such taboo topics...
click here , sign the petition, create a link to your site and help mobilise free speech

crap choices

2007-01-05T20:41:00.000+02:00

if forced to chose do you pick (a) to live in a country that has chaos but freedom, or (b) a country that is ruled by fascism or maybe extremism? its a tough one to call. another version is would you (a) live where you know that your fundamental rights are protected / respected / exist but run the risk of being hijacked / shot at / killed, or (b) live in a country that is ruled by religious fundamentalism with a belief system that is not your own and fundamental rights don't really exist but you can sleep safely at night provided you obey the law?

i think that a lot of people may chose option (b) though instinctively they may want to chose option (a). (a) may be better as you as an individual are recognised but the possibility of death is a probability and hence this sways you to chose option (b), give up your freedom to walk around as you please, forced to dress a certain way, equality as you understand it goes out the window but at least you aren't a dead man...

i tried to reason this out earlier and was faced with 2 more choices... is life better in a country that oppressed the majority of its people (a) when the day comes that everyone is free but the crime rate is up, death toll ridiculous, and hijacking common practice or (b) the majority remains oppressed but you can sleep better at night? now i would definitely chose (a) because i cant tolerate, let alone live in or condone a place of oppression. so why was the line so blurred earlier? they are all really asking the same question!

as the cry for help continues unanswered by the un i have to wonder whether life for those in war torn countries is better with a rule by religious hijackers even if anyone is sleeping better tonight?

please call

2007-01-05T20:25:00.000+02:00

in the new age of technology getting an upgrade appears to be a big deal. there are a range of different manufacturers of the latest gidget that is the object of your desire and it takes a little more than picking it up, looking at it, deciding its pretty to make you want to go home with it.

mobiles are no longer the means to get in touch with, they are the tools to capture that drive by sniper, a way to mail that uber importante message to no-one about nothing, the way to re-live your memory of a vacation or moment in a few seconds play back and without the correct amount of pixels, memory, storage space, battery life or talk time these simple little conveniences will be lost.

after chasing after the slim and sleek that flicks and flacks a certain someone has decided that
black is the new black, sliding is better than flicking and the more pixels the closer you are at being the chosen one!

bet you missed this

2007-01-05T20:07:00.000+02:00

yesterday you would have been given 500/1 odds at the book makers that scientists would not be able to come up with a way to read and understand waves in the space time continuum. today they are only willing to give you 10/1 odds that the scientist will crack the black whole mystery.

it appears that an interest from punters has made the odds a little less attractive to those backing against science. the test tube calculators seem to be making their way onwards to understand and be able to detect gravitational waves. this means that objects, very massive objects, which move through the universe making ripples in the space-time continuum may now be able to be detected...

maybe by 2010 we can been me up scotty?

2007

2007-01-04T22:52:00.000+02:00

the last days of 2006 flew by as quickly as the year did. trying to decide what, where and how we were spending these last days happened in as quick a blur. had anyone stopped to give anything a thought the whole ending and beginning would have been dramatically different.

the decision taken was to depart in the direction of a 4 night 5 day party to concretely stamp out 2006 and march in 2007. sounded like heaps of fun and the best of all options on offer. everything snappily organised, a final check of the weather not going pear shaped and if it does that it will rectify itself to its natural course swiftly had been taken care of.

then the blinkers came on. we were being dazed and confused by the speed that the rotation of the earths axis was taking and scrambled like little blind mice in the rain questioning why we hadn't left earlier? not for a milli-second did anyone stop and say 'should we leave?'. 'will everyone please stop and take note of the downpour we are rushing out into?'. nope! we rushed straight out into it wondering why we hadn't headed out into misty dirty skies sooner?

erecting our semi permanent homes for the next 5 days was accomplished in semi-hysterics as we realised what we had done. during the spitting of the gods we moved everything from our cars into these structures and there we waited.

most of the party was enjoyed in the wet and cold. strangely not many got the brief that winter would come in the midst of summer and nightfall would bring with it below 10 degree temperatures. while this dampened the first night with us contemplating throwing it all in for warmer places the next day fooled you with its teasing of sunshine. the sun never around for long enough to heat you but lingering just enough to keep you comfortable. the result was that come the eve of the 31st the only remaining option was lots of wine, warm coats and non-stop stomping until 2007.

happy 2007!

fa la la la la

2007-01-04T18:27:00.000+02:00

tis the season to be jolly and all that... christmas has come and gone in a blur. one minute i was traveling great lengths to find the perfect gift for everyone within my budget, in most cases massively missing the budget know how and then poof it was over, new years around the corner, slip into a different gear and presto it is 2007.... wow!

i lorve christmas, really, the whole festive dingle, santa, snow, lights, fir trees the whole trillion yards... i love shopping for gifts and jump in with heaps of anticipation. even choosing wrapping paper is important, labeling, maintaining these beauties were dropped off by the big guy from the north pole. most people approach the gift giving stage with what is usually reserved for root canal treatment... not me i jump into the mall, 6 hours later surface with nothing not even a clue of who will be getting what and the next day dive straight into the next shopping mecca. i can spend hours if the shops are empty blissfully contemplating which set of what i should get this one or that one. i start with a budget and then expand it and expand it and finally after all the searching i come up with what i think are the perfect gifts. when i look at something it must say the persons name to me otherwise i drop it and am off to the next shinny object a little like a minor bird...

however this year it seems others took a different stance. they waltzed into the nearest store, pulled off the nearest object, ran home, wrapped it and randomly placed name tags on to their make shift gifts... in past years i have maintained a reasonable amount of grace and dignity and fained amusement, surprise and glee when unwrapping a picture frame from what seems the corner store but not this year. this year i opened, smiled, thanked and ensured that when i left i knew exactly where all the junk came from so that i could promptly restore the crap to where from it came!

why bother with crap gifts is now my mantra. i am not going to be bothered that a certain uncle has chosen to over look who i am, where i am going or what it is that i do. sorry dear but slippers with kittens just isn't going to cut it where i am heading, thanks but no thanks. i spent hours laboring over whether cigars, cigar cutters, shooter games with tiddlywinks or something else would suffice... so back to the store with the beastly gifts so that i can wake up and look at all the wonderful things i have now chosen for myself.

how it should be

2006-12-23T21:02:00.000+02:00

i have discovered a new, no rather, i have found an old favorite....
no matter where i have been hot chocolate just hasn't added up to a cup that i had at a cafe in a small piazza near to the pantheon in rome. everywhere seems to serve up something which is just not as sweet nor as creamy or as beautiful!
i have been trying out some culinary experiments and discovered the problem...
no where has it been hot chocolate. i have boiled up chocolate with sufficient cream to make it into a silky, liquid consistency and presto - hot chocolate. fill an espresso cup, top with some crushed toasted walnuts maybe a biscoti for fun and i have reinvented the wheel!

map wars

2006-12-21T14:56:00.000+02:00

it pains me to report that i am going to hang up my neoworx gloves as the problem just is not coming right and no one is coming to the rescue on a galliant piece of white/black text...

i am sure that if i bothered to pay a subscription fee that the service may or may not be better but as thus far it has been a wholly unsuccessful venture, i am retiring.
clustermaps has served me well thus far and maybe one day they will wake up to the fun of constructing a free service that provides you with the actual location of the cities of your visitors or little maps of their locations etc just as neoworx once successfully provided me...

for simple nastalgia one little remains will survive on the right... fairwell little maps!

ho ho ho

2006-12-18T08:17:00.000+02:00

i have avoided it for as long as is humanly possible. ok that is a lie as usually i will be running around like the rest of the headless masses the day before but this year it will be different. i have promised myself every year whilst doing the chicken dance that this will be the last year, i wont subject myself to inefficiency and lack of planning again!
i will get things done earlier this year. i have been chanting this mantra to maintain sanity as the day that i must exchange gifts with everyone draws closer.... so instead of putting it of any longer that i inevitably wind up the day before crying murder to myself i am going to face the masses today and attempt to be the perfect santa and find a gift for everyone in hopefully what is to be a reasonably painless day in the war zones that are our malls this time of year.

for the love of ?

2006-12-15T21:01:00.000+02:00

the skins in the right sidebar r proving personification of hell...

either science or god needs to come up with how to get the animation to work with the changing of frames and cease the result of freeze frames, stop the alternative which is to have plane skins but choosing them in different colours and only one colour being visible on the site not your actual choice or i am losing all faith in either!