the dreaded Moriarty

It is local election time again. Again. Notwithstanding the people's struggle to vote, it seems ironic that there are so many other concerns consider when "making your mark" on the paper to show your choice, and perhaps this is the cause of the great apathy which concerns the government. All the parties campaign by blackening (har har) each other's names, and with slander and "proof" of corruption, clever adverts, and unethical plays on fears or sympathy, but this year, there is something different. I have spotted some humour. I am certain it is unintentional, however funny it is. Today on my way in to work, I nearly drove off the road with laughter upon seeing the grinning face of a local party's candidate proudly proclaiming "vote Moriarty as local Mayor".

After all, everyone knows he escaped in a time machine to get away from Sherlock Holmes, and is clearly at large here to do his worst.

Let the voting begin...

Christmas Freebies

I may have inadvertently discovered the actual origin of the word “freebie”. Perhaps etymology professors all around the world will disagree, quoting tomes of intellectual knowledge to prove me wrong; but in that true and scientifically proven method of empirical proof, I offer the following as my thesis as follows:

I gave my Mother a Lavender plant for Christmas, and when I handed it to her, she asked me what was buzzing. I was confused for a moment, wondering what from my house could have fallen into the gift bag, turned itself on, and started buzzing as she held it. A fleeting catalogue revealed no such item, except for an Acme hand buzzer (still their greatest seller, according to Marvin Acme [okay, yes, I have just finished watching Who framed Roger Rabbit]). Even by suspending my disbelief (which is necessary for unbiased scientific observation, this was most unlikely. Therefore, by applying Ockham’s razor, or perhaps by reciting the maxim of that most excellent fellow – Sherlock Holmes - "that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth." I knew that I was on the right track.

Or maybe, I just got lucky.

Either way, I realised, it was a bee – probably a stowaway from the Lavender bushes at my house. (But don’t worry, I won’t regale you with more info on that score …)

I immediately took the offending buzzer outside, and removed gift bag which was around the plastic bag which around the plant bag – thereby releasing the angry bee. I had put the plant bag in a plastic bag to keep the water from the plant bag from affecting the paper of the gift bag, and causing it to deteriate (sic) and plummet to the ground, spraying mud, sand, and bits of Lavender all over my Mother’s carpet just at the most inopportune time; such as you may see in a re-run of a Roger Rabbit short.

But I have not told you the best bit. As the buzzer started, my Mother first asked me what it was, and once we had figured out that it was not a battery-powered item, she immediately shouted – “Hey! It’s a freebie!” And there you have it.

That’s all folks!


Ps – here is a joke.

Comic 1: what do you know about show business?
Comic 2: only that there’s no business like it. No business I know…

What’s the difference between broccoli and snot?

I carry a Dictaphone in my car so that when brilliant ideas occur to me I can capture them immediately so they do not escape. This ultimately means two things – when I listen to them – they are not so brilliant although they do capture something of a thought process that often leads me down inspiring and creative thought paths, and it also means that when I listen to them I often laugh out loud at what I was thinking at any given time.

Case in point:
One of the client sites I am currently working at takes me about one and a half hours of driving in peak hour traffic. As you can imagine, this gives me plenty of time to watch people in their cars, and come up with more of my brilliant ideas, plan strategies for work challenges, and generally amuse myself at other people’s expense.

About 2 weeks ago, there was a man in front of me in a large, expensive German car that was cleaning his ears out. For at least 20 minutes. I timed him. I could see no evidence of any tissues or a hanky either.

I tried to look away, really I did, but I had to watch the traffic in front of me, and besides, it was like a mesmerising hypnotic thing from which I could not tear my gaze.

He then went on to picking things in his face – presumably pimples. Again – no tissues – just his trousers. And, I should mention, it was with both hands.

Then, to my absolute disgust, he looked up his nose in the rear-view mirror and started picking. I also timed this. Another 20 minutes.

What the hell type of crop can you have going on up there that takes 20 minutes to dig out? And then to top it all off, he started smoothing his hair down. News flash – snot hair is not the thing! Never has been, never will be!

Imagine you have a meeting with this man. He gets out of his car, and strolls up to your office. Shakes your hand, transferring ear wax, pimple goo, and snot. OMG!

Then he committed the ultimate crime. He ate his snot.

Now the joke used to be “what’s the difference between broccoli and snot?”
“Children won’t eat broccoli”

I guess adults won’t eat broccoli either.

After about an hour of this unhygienic adjustment, he looked over the car next to him, and seemed to twig that there was a car next to him, and stopped what he was doing for about 5 minutes, but then carried on.

If the traffic had come to a standstill, I would have issued him with a ticket from the snot police. He definitely wins the Pukeworthy Punk of the day award.

Eeeeeuuuuuuuw is all I have to say about that.

Which part of NO is unclear?

Long story short, my super ears, or superiors (as they prefer to be described) asked be to take on a whole lot more work. I politely declined, stating objective reasons including realistic time frames, actual time lines, hours of work required to complete tasks, etc, and explaining my current work load as well. Two comapy parntners (very high people on the totem pole) agreed that I could not do justice to the tasks, and we agreed that this was not a viable option.

I met with my counsellor (essentially my yoda or performance mentor as is the structure in our comapny) to help me with a structure for the work I currently have (which was too much before they asked me to take on the more they asked me to), and he again said I had to take on the work that I had got agreement that I did not have to do.

Now, I am not confused - three partners (for whom I am doing work, and to whom I directly report) agree that I do not have to do this work, but a manager within my service line says that I have to do it.

I called him again today to say I wasn't able to do it due to blah blah fishpaste objective factual time reasons, and he just said I have to.

I am truly at a loss of what to do.

How do you argue with a person who doesn't listen to you and won't hear you say no?

Fank you to meet you!

I do understand that we are a multi-lingual society, and that signs will have to be translated into various languages. I don't have a problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with people who are not mother-tongue speakers making mistakes. I take my hat off to them for speaking a language other than their own (except for news readers - they should be mother tongue speakers). But surely we have enough resources to have people check signs before we post them all over the show?

Here is the latest in a long line of clearly direc translations:

Clock to enter. (Directly translated from the Afrikaans - knock to enter!)

Watch this space for more.

She loves me

I have a cat.

Like all animal lovers, I am irrational when it comes to my little pumkpin. She is the best thing on four legs, and I love her to bits.

Long story short, I installed a cat flap in my door that works with a magnet on her collar, so that only she can get in and out. (I was sick and tired of coming home to a place that stank of cat spray and seeing other rude cats sitting on her spot in the sun, on my brother's couch, being all happy).

Only problem is, it is magnetic.

She sticks to her food bowl and tips it over. No problem, she has a ceramic one now.
She picks up things in the garden. No problem, they are treasures for me.
She sticks to the pole of my car port. Very funny. Very very funny.

As all cats like to do, she rubs against the pole, especially when she sees me coming home - and rushes out to greet me. Of course, I don't laugh at her - that would be rude, but it is the funniest sight I have seen in a long time - a little pussy cat trying to release herself from a pole that she is stuck to by her magnetic collar. Har har.

And they say cats can't make you laugh.

What the hell do I know?

We all know that any employer will take as much as they can, and abuse any employee as much as possible, but this is ridiculous.

I am now officially working three people's jobs. Okay, maybe two and a half...

My colleague resigned (twice), the first time because she was OVER-stretched. She stayed because she was promised help. She never got it. She was given even more to do. (And they ding me at performance appraisal time for not learning...)

She then resigned again, this time for good. She explaind carefully, using small words to ensure they inderstood what the situation was.

They asked to take over all her work. I am always up for a stretch, but I am already over capacity, and she was doing the work of two people. She has 10 years of experience in this area, I have 6 months.

On a good day, my self esteem is about 3 out of 10 000.

You figure it out.

no mow eenglish

today's phrase:

I have got it in my bag. (Hell, I always thought it was: "It's in the bag").

But what do I know. The proof of this one is definately in the pudding... sic. or perhaps - sick

Janis out

it's not MY responsibility

A few days ago, 5 young lads stole a paddle boat from within an enclosed municipal area in Eastern Johannesburg, and upon taking the boat for a joy ride in the Blauwpan dam, capsized the boat and 2 of them drowned.

You cannot believe the furore that has blown up around this. One radio DJ was heard to comment that although they shouldn’t have stolen the boat, they don’t deserve to be punished by dying.

Indeed, in this case the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. It never does in South Africa (this is another story for another time), and one can only feel enormous amounts of empathy for the families who are left behind at the loss of their sons. They say that the worst thing that can happen is to lose a child. My heart breaks for the parents. But the war cries of the community somehow lessen the empathy and harden my heart towards the mother who speaks out on radio trying to sue the municipality for negligence at leaving the boat in an un-seaworthy (or whatever) condition where it could be used.

First of all, it was in fact locked up in an enclosure behind fences and padlocks. Second, the children did wilfully and with malice break in to that enclosure to steal the boat. That is to take the boat without permission and consent or authorisation even though they all knew that none of the five of them could swim. I mean how thick could you get?

Is the boat yard to blame? I don’t think so. Will this go to trial? I hope not. Should the municipality counter sue? I believe so. Will they? Never in a million years. They dare not because the community wants to blame someone for the loss of a child’s life. They want to blame someone for the dreadful loss – a loss which was avoidable. Not only could it have been avoided, but it should have been avoided. But not by blaming the municipality for having a boat locked up by a dam. Rather let’s point the responsibility back where it belongs – squarely back on the shoulders of the parents. Parents are supposed to teach their children not to steal, not to break in, not to run across busy roads in front of traffic, not to do things that are dangerous, and so on. Parents should accept the responsibility for the lives of their children (and this is children until they become adults and then they are responsible for THEMSELVES) and not keep blaming everything and everyone else for everything that goes wrong.

My child got run over on a highway – let’s sue the driver and the road’s company. NO – teach your children to use the pedestrian crossing and not to run across highways in front of speeding cars.

My child got cancer from cigarettes – let’s sue the cigarette company – NO – read the warning and don’t smoke. Teach your children to take responsibility for what they do.

My child drowned in the deep end – let’s sue the swimming pool – NO YOU look after your children and supervise them and not leave them to their own devices all day and hope that they will magically be all right.

Let’s not perpetuate this folly of assuming that someone else will take the responsibility for everything we do – especially the government. WE ARE ALL responsible for the choices we make, and will have to bear the consequences. WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT.

Grow up and face the music. If you want to do what you want, fine. But then don’t moan if you get what’s coming to you. After all, do the crime, to the time.

Rantings of the insecure

I was at dinner last night with a friend, and while we were eating, he held up a dinner plate, and said “pretend it is a mirror: - do you love the person you see in there?”

I am not sure exactly what nerve it was he hit with that comment, but some secret and well-guarded emotion inside me broke open and I started crying. It suddenly struck me that I don’t really like myself very much, even after years of work at self-esteem, and self-nurturing (something which I am still learning how to do). I am very good at finding fault with myself, and can tell you lists of what I have done wrong from moment to moment of practically each day of my life for ever. But I find it difficult to see any good things. I am working at this, and I thought I had made some progress, but after crying in the restaurant and causing a good friend great discomfort, I wonder if I will ever be able to really accept myself and love the person I am.

How people love themselves? How do people who love themselves, treat themselves? How do they act? How do they get to love themselves in the first place? How can we love ourselves when we are all so flawed and ugly on the inside?

I guess this is a “glass half empty” view and not a “glass half full” view. This is the struggle I am facing – how much weight should negative attributes have in comparison to positive ones? For example, if we have two negatives and four positives, do they cancel each other out? What about one really good one with three slightly bad ones? I don’t know. I do know that we all have good and bad things in us – this is what makes us who we are. I guess it is all part of the plan, but I don’t understand. How can I come to terms with the bad stuff in me? How can I accept that I am not, and never will be, perfect? I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I also don’t know where the journey started, or where it will end, but I do know that I like myself a little bit more each day, but it is not yet enough. It is not enough because I still cry at night when I think about who my friends are, and why they are my friends. There are also times when this causes me to sabotage myself, and I am so mean to my friends that I do chase them away. Almost like I challenge them to see if they will stay when I show them how horrible I can be.

I am sorry.

Maybe if I can be nicer to myself, I can be nicer to you – if you have hung around long enough to see any of the good stuff… perhaps I will have friends who have stayed and have taught be love myself. Thanks.

Tick tock

Manners in the modern world

I saw something very interesting this morning that got me thinking. On the door of a local taxi - "DO NoT SLAM MY DOOR" sic.

This opens up a whole interesting debate of manners, not the least of which would be road manners. Mini bus taxis in this country are notorius for their lack of road manners, their blatant disregard for the law, and their almost purposeful display of law-breaking in any and all situations. For example, you will be waiting in a queue at a robot (for those who are not familiar with this local term, it is a traffic light) waiting to turn right across the oncoming traffic. There is oncoming traffic, so we are all waiting until such time as there is a gap when the traffic light is green and there are no cars. The taxis will actually drive 200 meters down the wrong side of hte road, literally pushing other cars out of hte way to make the right hand turn. But worst of all, the traffic cops standing on the corner just stand there and DO NOTHING.

Never mind manners, what about the rule of law. When do manners and law cross over? I think that South Africa has a serious problem in this regard, and I find that taxi drivers who actually expect manners to be applied to them are seriously out of touch with reality, or phychotic, or both.

There is a third option, perhaps this driver was the statistical anomoly - that one in ten trillion gazillion that actually obeys the traffic laws, has a road-worthy taxi and does have manners. But i doubt it.

I want to carry a bazooka and blow the bastards away when they push in front of me - relying on the fact that I don't want to scratch my car and will stop on a dime etc etc.

I want the judges to come back - the ones from Judge Dread. I am waiting.

but I am not holding my breath.

to bleed or not to bleed

Hi

I am Janis's blood. I regularly get given to other people. I have been donated 43 times, plus a few when they would not take me as I was low on iron. I thought we were supposed to weigh less? Ha ha.

Anyway, they would not take me today as I aparantly have to wait 3 months due to the possibility of developoping Hepetitus. Why? Because my owner had a body piercing. So what this means is ear piercing - or any other body pary ;) - you have to wait for 3 months. Sigh. I thought they were really short on blood. Oh well. At least I did not get a tattoo. If I had I would have had to wait for a whole year. D'oh!

Caution - moaning ahead

So there are many selfish people in this world, but the WORST of all of them has got to be most smokers.

Seriosly. I know their sense of smell is shot to hell, but are they also blind? I rejoiced when the no smoking in doors legislation was taken seriously in this country, and was enforced in most places, because I was actually allowed to breathe without gagging, but there is always one who either won't or can't abide by the rules, isn't there?

There is always one self-absorbed, narcissistic, egocentric, selfish, ungenerous, mean, nasty, unkind, callous, uncaring, and thoroughly unpleasant person who just ruins it all for everone.

Let me explain why. Yes, smokers do perhaps PRETEND to go outside, but have you ever noticed how they stand just over the line separating in from out, and also stand right in the entrance. I mean, are the also blind? I know they cannot smell the smoke pouring into the office, but can they not SEE it? Can they not hear the coughing and waving of hands as the voluminous smoke pours into the pristine office space which is now polluted, contaminated, stained, spoiled, ruined, dirtied, fouled, corrupted, and difficult to breathe? (oy, steady on there...)

I hereby put all smokers on notice: "in this place - ye are off the map - here be dragons!" If you want to go kill yourselves slowly with tar and chemicals, please do so where we don't have to see or smell it. It is bad enough that when you walk back into the room you breathe all over us with breath that is bad enough to knock out the entire WWF RAW and Smackdown rosters combined. (This is a story for another time and place)

Get a clue - BE MORE CONSIDERATE you stupid fuckers!

End.

more, or perhaps, LESS English

Now we serve Ass Salads in the canteen. Okay, I know people are in a hurry to write the menus, but that is taking it a bit too far.

I also saw some prankster; probably a youthful teen (although that may be an unfair assumption) that had been liberal with a spray can - changing the sign for the Spotted Genet Restaurant to the Spotted Genital Restaurant. Not really sure if I want to eat there anymore.

Please - someone help me learn how to post photos - it is a very funny one.

It's not a motor bike dude

What the hell is up with those scooter things with the rooves on them? Seriously?

I am not a princess

Excuse me, it was not a frog, but a toad living in my garden. So says some propeller head who obviously doesn't have a life or anything better to do with his time than know that frogs probably don;t live in the area, and was able to identify the toad from a brief description. Ha ha.

Also, I discover that being a fragile princess is not always a good thing. Imagine being able to feel a single pea from beneath 12 matresses? WTF? More on that later.

Another thing though, the frog has gone. This means that either my cat has eaten it (and will soon puke it up all over some treasured item of clothing I leave for a nano-second on the floor) or the ladies in my cul-de-sac kissed it and it transformed into their prince.

Some of us never have any luck.

Oh well, back to scrubbing the floors...

More English Boobs, I mean, Booboos

It never ends. Yesterday a good friend of mine was telling someone about how well we get on. She was overheard making a derogatory remark about me, and the listener asked how long we had known each other. In fact, we have only just met, but have some sort of connection.

My new friend said "Oh, Janis and I have a very good repetoire." Surely she meant rapport? Sigh.

And another one - which was not a joke, despite the hillarity - upon hearing that a mutual friend had pluracy, he asked me if that meant you see double.

Again, I have to ask myself: "How stupid do you have to be to be able to dress yourself and find your way to work every morning?"

The answer, unfortunatly, is that apparantly, it doesn't matter. One look around my office will confirm this sad fact, and if you stay and listen, you will know that I am right. English doesn't live here anymore.

When your cat laughs at you...

So I started singing lessons recently (I have always loved singing, and want to make the most of the gift I have) and there are several voice training exercises to do every day.

The strangest ones are the sighing, and the one called the siren (yes, it is exactly what you think it is).

The other day I was practising, and my cat came in and looked at me as if I was a piece of strange, mouldy, old cheese. I could swear she almost laughed, meowed at me, and stalked away.

The neighbour’s kids already think I am strange because I play the piano and saxophone from time to time, and I often see them gathering at the gate looking in pointing and laughing, but my cat is supposed to accept me and love me for who I am dammit. I mean, who feeds her after all?

I am not necessarily a wanna-be Diva, but when your cat laughs at you when you sing, it is very discouraging. Besides, the rules for practising specifically say we should practise in a place where we are not hindered by anything such as people who may laugh at us. I think I shall ask her to add cats, dogs, and children too.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh...

We can likes to talk good English!

It always amazes me how badly people talk (or should that be, speak). Now, those people who are not mother tongue English speakers are not the ones I am talking about. Surprisingly, they speak very good English - much better than some of my friends who have never spoken another language in their lives.

Apart from the horrendous over-use of the apostrophe (in cases such as one DVD, many DVD's [aargh!], one PC, many PC's [again, aargh!]) the correct usage of simple spelling and phrases that one would have thought could be mangled are consistently being eroded by everyone around me, and it is driving me crazy!

There are, I will grudgingly admit, some phrases or difficult usages that I can understand may change with use and become accepted in another form, but here are some examples that made me cry with laughter: (I have not figured out how to post photos, so you will have to take my word for the fact that I have seen these)

• At the salad station in the canteen: Cold Statoin (Surely since this was printed it could have been spell checked?!?)
• On the gates in the complex next to me, one gate says visitors and the other residence (I almost crashed my car when I read that)
• On the street sign for my road - Eigth road instead of Eighth Road
  

Apart from signs, I also hear mangled expressions such as those listed below:

• Oh, for crying out loud in a bucket (!?!)
• The proof is in the pudding (really? I always thought it was in the eating)
• She is the epiphany of organisation (surely you mean epitome)

Maybe I am becoming an old fart, but I hate to see the poor language tortured so much. Oh well, nothing much I can do about it.

Y'all have a good day now y'hear. (He he)

Running and rolling

Today I saw something that reminded me how much I love living where I do. I live in an area of town where there is an interesting mixture of open land and business, townhouses and free hold houses.

There are still sheep around the corner from me, and lots of plots for horses as well. I have also seen wild rabbits, some sort of wild dog which looked like a jackal, owls, frogs, and squirrels (or perhaps a mongoose or two).

Today (along the road past the prison) the traffic came to a complete stand still for a few seconds while a family of ducks hurtled across the road. The last little one was trying to cross so quickly that it rolled and fell across the road in a particularly frantic way. The parents waited until they were across and then continued on. This is not really so uncommon. I have seen the same thing by the river when we all came to a screeching halt for a large and beautiful legevaan (large type of amphibius lizard I think, which I cannot spell).

I am encouraged that we still do this in Africa, and it pleases me that we still have so many wild things living around here.

I also have a large frog living in my pond. That is very cool too.

I used to have many more birds in my garden before I got a cat who cathes them for me as presents on a regular basis...

I wonder how many wild things you have in your garden?