Friday Ramble 30/09/2005
Good afternoon people of the flock. I’m feeling a little bit lost for inspiration for today’s ramble. Sorry about that.
Lets see… big excitement in Jo’burg because of the imminent Rhodes Reunion. It’s for the people who graduated after ’86 so maybe I will find myself a nice thirty-something lady who’s just listed her company on the JSE and wants a youngster to throw money at. The more likely scenario though, goes something like this - Innocent Angelic King Prawn arrives at Knappy’s house; Falls into the clutches of Gump the evil purveyor of smut and alcohol (lawsuit pending); Drinks substantially more than is good for him because having led such a clean life up until then, he knows no better; Mistakes Knappy for a rooibos plant[1] and relieves himself on its roots; Knappy, being the agile fellow that he is, reacts several millennia later; Is dragged, kicking and screaming disgusting allusions to Knappy’s sister to the venue (there is a possibility at this point that his friends get him to drive, but hopefully they know better); Thinks he is the life of the party, but people are mostly just laughing because he is funny. He is convinced that every girl/lady/column of cement is attracted to him; He tries to make several subtle advances[2]; He retreats without shame, because he knows they were all just intimidated because they aren’t in his league; Falls asleep on a table somewhere; Regains memory in the back of someone’s car, spooning a massive pile of vomit; Has losers for the remainder of the weekend. Ahhh, good times.
It was about 30 degrees in the shade yesterday and I saw some pretentious journalist type[3] wearing the standard attire for such people: brown suede or corduroy jacket and bright red scarf. I don’t know if anyone can answer my follow up question: is it not possible to be pretentious in short sleeves? Just a random thought.
As there are still members of this mailing list who have not yet met, I thought I might as well make some introductions.
Figure 1: The obvious resemblance between Knappy and a rooibos plant
Gump (right): cape coloured drunk
Left to right: Greek Legend; The Porn Empire Heiress; Laa-Laa - “you say I was weaned on Malawi gin like it’s a bad thing”.
Top to bottom: Smythers; the Red Planet
Right to Left: Boarders: ladies he’s single and lives with his folks in Bedforview; Chip: go on, just pull in; Nick the Brick; Smythers, jealous in the background.
How did that sneak in?
Back Row: Smythers: always trying to put his handsome face in the photo
Middle: Corne; Red; Vleis; Jan-Hendrick
Front: Twakkie; Some random guy
Is this not the best photo ever?
Now you know.
Later, people of the party.
Also, if you are feeling random, go to http://philosophersoftheflux.blogspot.com
Love and kisses
Yours forever and a day
Be my valentine
That sort of thing
Ps. Embarrassing photos for publication, please.[1] See Figure 1: The obvious similarities between Knappy and a rooibos plant
[2] Using such famous lines as: “Sssss ngnnnhhh, huh?”, “can I touch it?” or the ever popular “want to touch it?”
[3] This is seriously not a dig at my journalist hippie friends: you guys aren’t pretentious.
Friday Ramble 23/09/2005
I was driving home yesterday and I saw the most ridiculous thing. A middle aged white guy driving some sort of Nissan sports car. Ridiculous? No, not really. What was was that his personalized license plate was “BLING”. Dude, it may be a relatively nice car, but in no country, under no circumstance, unless maybe you are in rural Japan does a Nissan constitute “bling”. Drive that into Harlem and see how many seconds you last. Hey, sounds like a great idea for a new Olympic sport. It could pick up all the slack in viewership left by the new rule that female volleyball players must wear ‘more’ clothes.
Then coming to work this morning I got stuck behind another middle aged white guy. This chap was driving a Beemer M3 at about 80 km/h in the fast lane. Annoying enough - but his license? “2QUIK4U”. Mate, if you are going to have a stupid license plate like that, at least drive like it. Middle aged white guys going through mid-life crises are funny.
This week in the news… Chopper has a job. In the true spirit of struggling musicians everywhere, it is spitting in the coffee he makes for rich folks. Nice one Chopper.
I really love hot food but The Old Man loves to test just how hot I can take it (after a decade of living as a bachelor, on Indian food, scotch and cheap women, he no longer has any of his taste-buds). He made a chicken stir-fry and I would love to say I’m exaggerating, but he honestly added an entire packet of chillis. I thought my eyeballs were going to hemorrhage. As you can imagine, the next two days of my life were…uncomfortable.
I just sat in this meeting where guys who have been working here for 20 years were being told that they have to change their methods of working to what my ideas dictated. I had a better time writing a maths prelim I hadn’t studied for. Agony.
I don’t know how many of you are into Terry Pratchett, but I’m a very big fan of his writing. If you don’t appreciate well-written humour so dry you can drink it, then skip these quotes, crawl into a hole and cuddle with your seriousness.
“The little flickering part of his brain that was still sparking coherent thought through the fog of mind-numbing terror that filled Colon's head was telling him that he was so far out of his depth that the fish had lights on their noses."
-- Sounds like me in my final tax exam last year.
“Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”
-- Take heed Knappy AKA the fire mongrel. Actually, come to think of it – did someone set you on fire already?
-- It occurred to me that I’m always making Knappy jokes, but that there may be some people who don’t (crazy as this sounds) know who The Redness himself is. Well here is a present for you:
“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
-- !!!!
“He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting “All the Gods are bastards.””
“People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."”
-- That makes me think of all the drunken ass-kickings I have avoided because Sheep was standing behind me. Quick Sheep - handsome face!
“The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.”
-- Again. Knappy. Except substitute the charm bit for splooge[1].
“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”
-- Like people with personalized licenses. Except, of course, ones that say “Kends”
“You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.”
--
""I would like a question answered today," said Tiffany.
"Provided it's not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs," said the man.
"No, " said Tiffany patiently. "It's about zoology."
"Zoology eh? That's a big word, isn't it?"
"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.""
-- Little Sister, somehow I can see you at the blunt end of that conversation.
"Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up"
-- Rum, you aren’t fooling anyone son. Just because you wear glasses, it doesn’t make you a genius.
"And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason."
-- Ne’er a truer word…
If you enjoy George W. bashing as much as I do, check out Whitehouse.org. It’s bloody hilarious if you like that sort of thing. If you are in a very crude mood, go to www.coloringbookland.festeringass.com . My sense of humour is far too well developed to find any of that kind of filth funny. But I thought some of you more simple-minded folk might enjoy.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………….
Where was I?
Oh, that’s right. Goodbye, enjoy the weekend and that sort of thing.
Love and kisses
What? Oh, you want to see a picture of me?
Hope I lived up to your expectations Borders.
[1] The Shorter Oxford Definition of Splooge: (n) the trait of talking to girls in a manner such that your friends are compelled to vomit.
Friday Ramble 16/09/2005
The moment of the week I know you have all been anticipating.
There is an ad on the radio for some medical aid company at the moment and their angle is something like “We capture all the information you send. Electronically!” Not for the first time in my life, I can’t help but wonder at the capacity people have to be gigantically stupid. I mean talk about a company on the cutting edge of technology. I bet that if someone invented some sort of ‘device’ that through an ‘interface’ you could manually enter numbers and it would ‘automatically’ perform mathematic calculations on those numbers, they would use one too.
Common Sense (Pty) Ltd started out as a joke with The Old Man, but the more I look at it, the more serious I become about starting it. Here is my business proposal (in all its technical glory): People bring their business plans and whatnot to me, and I say either “I like it” or “You are being an idiot. Go sit in the corner and think about what you have done”. Half the advertising agencies will be out of business within a week. Between the Mugabe administration and the Bush family, there aren’t enough corners in all the world.
I thought this was quite funny: Isn't it a violation of the Georgia sodomy law for the Supreme Court to have its head up its ass? ~Letter to Playboy magazine, February 1987 (I’m assuming the letter was dealing with gay rights).
Blou Bulle: Destroy the gay province poesse, without injuring any of our boks. Thanks.
Bong: Spoke to Jim when he was a little bit hammered, but managed to gather you had an op on your knee. Hope you are feeling ok my guy. What date have you set to snap it again in some drunken accident? (ie. When are you next getting drunk?) Actually Jimbo said something about putting you up on a tennis umpire’s chair and making you funnel, so it’s probably already happened.
Mrs. Smythers: Thanks for making me dust off my Pink Floyd’s the Wall and remembering what a fantastic album it is.
Knaps: You sneaky puffadder
Hobbo: You even sneakier puffadder
Jo’burg people:
Celebrate we will
Because life is short but sweet for certain
We’re climbing two by two
To be sure these days continue,
These things we cannot change
All the other people: A couple of deep thoughts courtesy Jack Handy…
- I wonder if angels believe in ghosts.
- Too bad Lassie didn't know how to ice skate, because then if she was in Holland on vacation in winter and someone said "Lassie, go skate for help," she could do it.
- I have to laugh when I think of the first cigar, because it was probably just a bunch of rolled-up tobacco leaves.
- Instead of studying for finals, what about just going to the Bahamas and catching some rays? Maybe you'll flunk, but you might have flunked anyway; that's my point.
As we head on into the weekend, I thought W. Somerset Maugham came up with an excuse as good as any: “Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit”. Have an exhilarating weekend party people.
