Deus Ex Machina: A Hand Of God

I had this dream my colleagues and I were holding hands, standing in a semi-circle outside a burning building and singing Kumbaya. When I when I woke up, I immediately knew what had to be done. But honestly speaking, every morning I’m quite surprised when I don’t see the fire department trucks when I get to work because I expected someone to have a mental break down by now and seek to end this confusion by burning this office down. I had the same feeling at Pick n Pay, a retailer which launched a loyalty card called a ‘Smart Shopper’ card.

 

Given my card retention skills, or lack thereof, I always have to say “No” whenever they ask me for the damn thing. It’s not that they are impolite when they ask, it’s how they ask. “Smart shopper sir?” Well, I am shopping and I would like to believe I’m smart. So I have started replying “Yes” and then proceeding to stand there motionless and expressionless, enjoying the next few seconds of awkwardness as the till operator holds out their hand expecting a card. In which case, I can understand the looks I get that suggest that I’m a few beers short of being a basket case. Speaking of psychopaths, I received word that two (I want to say friends) people I know are getting married. I resisted the urge to instruct the groom-to-be to get down on his knees so I could pray for him. I congratulated him instead.

 

I started looking at the combination of characters that call each other friends/partners, past and present associates of mine included, and I thought to myself, how did that happen? The mix of certain characters is not predictable. The creation of a bond between two people requires the assumption from both parties that their characters are compatible with each other, otherwise there will have short and pointless interactions riddled with utterances about the weather or the football match last night. In fact, certain characters do not intermingle except when several other factors all mixed together (other friends, certain mood, atmosphere, alcohol, relationship status etc.). This mix of factors is a completely unpredictable, uncontrollable event. The chances of that occurring randomly are the same as the chances of predicting the next lottery numbers. But look at the vast number of known psychopaths that remain married to this day! The fact that this rarity happens so frequently means there is a root to the equation outside our realm of causality, Deus ex machina.

 

 

The fifth and unanticipated

Or, a simpler explanation of this phenomenon would be that the two love birds made space for each other in their lives and once you make space for a psychopath in your life, that void is very difficult to fill. (Look at Liverpool and Suarez, Manchester United and Fergusson. And yes, Fergie was a psychopath.) But I’m not the one to talk, I have been involved with people who are not my type, and neither was I their type.

 

To illustrate, let’s refer to the Book of Murphy:

Corollary (3): Let us say thou art now aware of Murphy’s laws and you take steps to prevent all 4 possible disasters. A fifth and unanticipated disaster shalt strike thee and it shalt be impossible to avert without undoing the other the solutions to the anticipated disasters. Thus sayeth Murphy. Amen.

 

So you have been roaming in the wilderness single as you are for so long that you even believe that there are none left like you. It didn’t occur to you that you might actually meet someone, but meet someone you did! There are a few issues at hand.

i.       This behaviour is weird, and I don’t understand how she is interacting with her friends, she could be a psychopath. Solution: Don’t get involved.

 

ii.     I don’t like that hairstyle. Leave the poor horses alone. #JustSayNoToTHATKindOfWeave. And what kind of sense of dressing is this? Solution: Just stay away. Wait. Actually, I should stand next to her to look good myself.

 

iii.   Small talk has erupted. Very boring. Solution: Close your eyes and repeat “lalalalala”; count to 10 and maybe she will go away. Or casually make an excuse to remove yourself from this scenario.

iv    Trouble has found you, it turns out you have mutual friends and a little group has emerged that you are both a part of. Solution: Keep 2 degrees of separation at all times. When she speaks, let someone else speak first, then wait for another response before adding your own two cents. Avoid direct debate.

 

Congratulations, you have successfully thwarted everything that threatened your tranquillity. But wait, what’s this? Your mutual friend has appeared and is formally introducing you. “Did you know she also does [that hobby that you like,]” he says, “and the two of you are the two of you are probably the most passionate people about [that thing you are very passionate about]?”

 

Hours later you are now deep into conversation with this girl and semi-isolated from the rest of the group. Days later, a fifth and unanticipated problem: She is in your head. You are finally ready to adopt a psychopath.

Risk Management

Yesterday I wanted to write about the guy I saw on TV early in the morning saying some generic words about Robin Williams. By generic, you could have literally transposed his little speech to apply to any dead comedian without offending anyone: he was funny, he made us laugh, one of the greatest of his generation, etc. How.. creative. No, today I’m going to talk about risk management.

What to do when something goes wrong at work
I won’t waste time pointing out the obvious like if you are aware of hidden evidence that implicates you, keep your mouth shut and let naturally occurring incompetence protect you – The Peter Principle*. I say hidden evidence because you don’t want to bury it yourself, nothing stays hidden forever plus dirty hands tell tales. If the evidence implicating you is not so well hidden then what to do depends on your role. If you are an employee, you want to spread as much responsibility as you can; not laterally to your colleagues but upward to management and create an If-I-have-to-go-then-he-goes-too stand-off.

*The Peter Principle: Everyone rises to their level of incompetence. As long as you are competent, you will consistently outperform your colleagues. You will then be given more responsibility and get promoted to a more challenging role. This cycle will continue until you are out of your depth and you are as incompetent as everyone else. Should you be fortunate enough to come across an impressively competent person, don’t get used to them, they won’t be there for long.

In contrast, if you are in management, you have to try and contain the blame, who is getting thrown under the bus? Who is the fall guy? And choose wisely too because you don’t want someone who is going to drag you down too. This reminds me of a conversation I had about football. One of my friends has a giant ego and he has a simple philosophy in desperate situations. Yes you may have fancy skills you can use to get the ball past me through my legs. However between the ball and you, one of two is staying behind here with me. So you either fail your fancy trick and I retain the ball, or you successfully execute your little trick but you are not going anywhere but the floor. If you make that guy the fall guy, your subordinates will not miss you.

When something goes wrong on a date
We all have psychopaths we want to date, but we are not certain if their level of crazy is normal or not. This is the map

If you focus on the correct area then you should have no problems but as you can see, the hotter they are, the less eligible people you can meet. So, we have to delve into the “Desperate times” area or the “High risk area”. As I mentioned, today we are dealing with risk management. Let’s say something socially awkward happens, something naïve, or inexplicably stupid and your friends are looking at you with judgemental eyes because of the actions of your date. You have to ask yourself a few questions:

 

Diagnoses
Ok: They are on the right side of the Hot/Crazy scale. The kids will be alright.

ETI – Episodes of Temporary Insanity: Your partner has a dual complex, their position on the scale depends on how you observe them (adapted from quantum physics). If you measure their craziness, they will be on the “High risk” side. If you measure their hotness there are on the ok side.
EMI – Evidence of Mental Instability: You can’t ‘not sleep with one eye open’.

TII – Total Intellectual Incapacity: Like the classic depiction of a blonde.

Should you fix the light bulb or should you get a blow torch?
I read this joke once. Marriage is like a house. If some minor thing is the matter, like a light stops working, you don’t go and buy a new house, you just fix the light.. Unless the house is a cheating and lying bastard in which case you burn the sucker to the ground. Now that you have successfully identified where your date lies on the scale, what should you do?

ETI – Fix
EMI – Kill it with fire
TII – Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

Happy diagnoses

The unpleasant surprise of a neatly made bed

I was almost always the same story every weekday

When we left home to face a daily task

It seems like life just got in the way

Enough time with each other was too much to ask

 

When we got back tired after a long day

It was back to a familiar but comfortable pile

A bed unmade, yet back in it we lay

Then wake up late after staying up a while

 

Then finally the weekend was upon us

We’d stay in all day and go out at night

Then stay out so late and without a fuss

Return to that little mess, it seemed just right

 

But one day, I walked in to a bed made so neat

She must have taken her time, floor cleanly swept

A depression left on the bed, where she made a seat,

Collected her thoughts before she packed up and left

 

A couple weeks later, a visitor but not a lover

Sharing my space created a familiar trend

Unpleasant surprise came when the weekend was over

On Monday night I returned to a neatly made bed

Fake Charity

I think it is a fantastic name. I need volunteers. Although it doesn’t inspire much confidence, I figured if we make a big campaign, we can get people’s attention. But in order to get them interested, we need a solid idea to sell. I came up with some:

i. We travel around the country auditing and identifying fake charities which inappropriately use people’s funds.

ii. We go around giving talks about apathy in communities. Of course we do not expect attendance to these.

iii. This one is for cat people. We help animals understand the concept that one day they are going to die.

iv. We assist young entrepreneurs who have great ideas but have trouble seeing them through or finishing what th

Atheism is just as silly isn’t it?

The new debate on a deity

As some of you know, due the censorship policies at my workplace, I cannot go wild on this thing called “the internet”. The did allow the use of the UCT website but they will be banning it shortly because I found tons of Open Access content, video lectures on advancements in medicine, public policing, the land re-distribution debate in SA, why the Higgs-Boson matters; things I generally wouldn’t give a bat eye about till they took away YouTube. (NB: By the time I finished working on this article, the UCT site was already blocked.)

On one of these most auspicious of mornings, I came across a lecture podcast: A matter of Gravity: God, The Universe and Stephen Hawking. The talk was on why science and belief in God do not necessarily contradict. Certainly in the past they couldn’t get along because, for example, where scientists were just starting to understand pathogens, most still believed certain illnesses were the wages of sin; some still believe these things today. Most reasonable people (I was tempted to say rational) have accepted some scientific discoveries as fact and their understanding of a deity has evolved. But with each new discovery of information and universal laws that explain (almost) everything between the big bang event and present day, science is closing in on our gaps in knowledge.

Every single god that was invented to explain things we didn’t understand has been dethroned and relegated into a Disney character. Our new understanding of the Big Bang is certainly giving people more confidence in their choice to be infidels. While some of us are still wrangling about Catholic scandals, the role of virgins in heaven and the extent of curiosity in bi-curious people, some of the best intellectual minds have been debating on whether we invented a God to explain creation. We can now explain every significant event that led to life as we know it using universal laws (maybe a few theories here and there). If this is so, this would mean that every single event between the Bang and today did not need a supreme deity to help it along. Everything right up to the discovery of electricity, invention of flight technology and, more importantly, weaponry was not by chance; it was inevitable.

Our ability to explain the events is not where the debate of the existence of a deity lies, this isn’t as simple as the story of how the sun god Ra was adequately ousted by the law of gravity. The crux of the debate was that
i.  Some claim that the big bang itself and the existence of the universe, and its precise laws, was spontaneous and inevitable. And by precise I mean the slightest variation would almost mean certain end to the universe as we know it. The theory goes a step further and says that in fact, there are infinitely different universes where each possibility exhausted.

ii.  The other side simply says actually, the precise nature of the conditions and laws that brought us into existence are evidence that there is at least one supreme being that meticulously set it all in motion, a grand architect. We are only beginning to understand some of the instruments used to create the universe, like gravity. It’s the weakest of all the fundamental forces and everyone understands how it works but no one really knows what gravity is exactly or where it comes from.

Religion/Politics, what’s the difference? Its all big business

I paid attention to a shelf of cigarettes in a shop once. “This will kill your babies, decimate your lungs and give you generous helpings of cancer”; they don’t even advertise this stuff yet half of the kids born each year will soon start to smoke proving once again that the assumption of rational thinking can be very misleading. Now if only I had a product that is legal, has guaranteed inelastic demand yet no advertising necessary then I would be typing this from a space shuttle.

But what else has survived the highest tax rates, protests, health awareness campaigns, generational trends and advances in technology like this that you can profit from?

Many people generalise that government departments are inefficient but this is only because they have not been to the tax collection department. Its world class and like clockwork, every month I contribute to the 1st lady’s shoes from my payslip. But this is not the only thing the government is good at because over the centuries, they have been extremely efficient in imposing ideas on its people and controlling information we have access to.

Now we don’t really know what happened 2000 – 4000 years ago. Heck, most of us don’t even recall what happened last Friday night. Now imagine if you overheard one side of a telephone conversation that went something like this:

– Yes this is Joseph. [Silence]

– *Excited voice* Hi Honey how are you? [Silence]

– I promise I won’t get mad, what do you want to tell me?

– Wow, uhm.. congratulations love how many weeks in are you?

– What do you mean 4 weeks when I have been in on site in Cape Town for the last 3 months launching this project? Are you kidding me, how can you be pregnant unless…

– He did wh….. I mean the Gabe told you what?

– Oh, that makes sense, I can’t wait to come see you……….. [meaningless conversation].

You keep your deductions to yourself after hearing this but a bunch of months later you are reading somewhere in the Daily Sun that there was a miracle virgin birth. But the Daily Sun is the only paper capable of printing this crap that no one else will touch. If 7 generations later, the survivors of the long awaited Zombie Apocalypse stumble upon this edition of the Daily Sun preserved deep in the rubble and for lack of a better source, they believe this is the definitive moment in history when Black Jesus arrived, it is entirely within their rights to start their own religion. If the following reaches a critical mass i.e. they have a significant slice of the population believing in this, then someone will die protecting that belief, someone will kill in the name of this belief. And then a holy book emerges, someone with resources funds research that authenticates it. A man steps up and claims to be the voice of Black Jesus, a public believer gets a landslide vote and rules the nation, through repetition and propaganda, an army of the dark saviour is assembled to reclaim the holy lands described in the holy book. These lands just happen to be in the region in Zimbabwe where the diamond deposits are being described as a freak of nature. The wheel turns…. But that’s just a fantasy. Besides, soon some infidels will uncover the truth about Black Jesus and how the mistake of a broken condom led an otherwise decent mom to lie to her husband. They will be swiftly and quietly be burnt together with any remaining copies of the Daily Sun before they release any evidence. New versions of the Daily Sun will be re-written. Why is this story important?

Actually, it doesn’t matter..

It’s nothing new, and if you put enough make up on a pig, someone will eventually kiss it. Rather, if you want to sell a little lie, a really small one, you should wrap it in truth. Everyone does it. America and its protection human rights in oil rich countries, the crusades to save the holy city of Jerusalem, colonial powers trying to spread the gospel in a backward Africa bursting with resources. None of these agents could out rightly say ” we want oil/wealth/slaves”; always some noble cause. I was once banned from talking to a specific girl who I actually had no intention of pursuing any form of relationship with because my gf was picking up a ‘vibe’. ?. As far as I was concerned, I was doing nothing wrong so when she asked me out for drinks, I did not decline. When I got to dinner late, my suspicious gf asked how I spent the day. I gave specific details, all random events, my exact movements and whereabouts; every detail she asked. Except instead of saying “Jane and I then jumped on a taxi”, it was “Sam and I jumped on a taxi”. Three years later, I actually have flashbacks of that day with Sam in the memory.

Now, has religious belief been used as an instrument of oppression by governments? You need not look very far for evidence of this. Do governments have a reputation of manipulating information to advance their causes? What self-respecting government wouldn’t do that? Did any governing body manipulate religious text to advance their causes? [Insert your opinion here and then proceed to draw conclusions]. I want to be clear that while I believe there is a lot of truth hidden in religious text, we cannot authenticate everything. Where else would be perfect to hide a little lie besides a holy book. Something minor like “don’t question authority which was placed there by God”, “give to Caesar…” (remember that one efficient government department?), women should be submissive e.t.c, and the preacher says this is what god has commanded, and everybody says amen.

The value that religion can add to society can be as immeasurable as its potential for destruction, as we have seen. It all starts with… belief in something that you have learnt or been taught, and keeping faith. I will not go into much detail but I do tend to wonder why atheist on tv these days are quick to point this out as a weakness when they claim that God does not exist. Can this be proven or is it just another brand of blind faith. The absence of irrefutable evidence is what makes it okay to choose your faith, be monotheistic, polytheistic or atheist believe; it’s all blind faith. We are right, we are all wrong; moral relativism. What ever, it doesn’t matter.

A disgruntled but not (yet) former Gooner part 2

By Tiny Manyonga

Is there something terribly wrong with this club?

Good Day, you Gooners.

Allow me first to apologize. I do, like you, love the Arsenal unconditionally since my early days of childhood after converting from those wretched red devils, as I wrote here when I was particularly frustrated by the impending departure of RVP. However, it seems to be quite a significantly discrediting factor that I haven’t known as much of pre-’90s Arsenal as most of you undoubtedly do and that I am in no position to clap off the team after an 8-2 or 3-1 thrashing at the beginning of the season like some of you are privileged to do.

But as (still) a loyal fan, I thought I would take some time to reflect on our present situation and perhaps remind us all of what may, sadly, no longer be remembered, by taking time out of my life to post a little note. The truth is there is something terribly wrong with this club, isn’t there? Lack of silverware, an agonizingly long period of fan unrest, a seeming lack of response from those who can bring change, a manager who undoubtedly was brilliant but has since become the face of deterioration and desperation in the club, and a seeming lack of commitment to ambition and success domestically and internationally. And whereas fans should have the voices to object, a platform to air concerns about the team and changes as you see fit, you seemingly have an authoritative audience deafened by profits piling from their pockets up to their ears.

How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Certainly there are those who are more responsible than others. And they will (hopefully) be relieved of their duties. But again, truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were sold and you bought into a dream. Who wouldn’t be excited? Here was a manager who had a knack for finding talent. He brought you a 49-game unbeaten run (f*** you red devils), legends who commanded a cult following and multitude of trophies never seen before in London in that era. A history which, in hindsight, conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense when the signs of a need for change appeared. Your past glory made you weak, victory had defeated you. So you kept on buying into the dream, paying for season tickets, funding terrorism. Wenger’s track record got the better of you. When your captains started leaving, and your rivals started spending and strengthening, you turned to the now High Chancellor Arsène Wenger. He delivered you a new stadium and promised a generation of teams that would be the envy of Europe’s elite, but without the massive debt or a billionaire sugar daddy. And all he demanded in return was your patience with youngsters and season ticket renewals – silent, obedient consent.

And then some of you sought to end that silence as your patience ran out. Some of you marched, wrote open letters and blogged (who reads those things anyway?) to remind this club of what it has forgotten. That football isn’t (just) a business. That trophies aren’t merely temporary titles. That ambition, pride and “Victoria Concordia Crescit” are more than words. They are perspectives.

One day we all woke up to a shock; we are a selling club, the fourth-spot trophy etc.. Then came this rise of AKBs, believing the board was holding us ransom; denial of our manager’s inadequacies. But the reason I believe that the fault lies with the man in the mirror is what followed. We got to a stage sometime after the departure of Cesc and during RvP’s unrest; a lot of anger and dissatisfaction was flying around. Usmanov was making a lot of noise and finger-pointing was the norm. RvP got his f***ing wish at United but still, as it stands, we are firmly divided between those stuck in a bargaining stage, wanting signings that will give “our rightful and fearless leader” traction to aim higher than fourth each season, and those calling for Wenger’s head, and the upheaval of his cohorts and henchmen in the boardroom. Is this not a classic “five stages of grief” model? I’ll be damned if I accept our state as the norm. I am not content to be competing with Tottenham!

We have been victimized and we are still acting like victims of bad management and corporate greed. Who is going to remove Stan and Arsène? Who is the target of this ongoing tantrum? Surely it can’t be the team. We love the lads. The board’s ears are firmly padded with layers of profits, the majority shareholder seems to have no concept of football. What do they know about the horrors of Tottenham finishing above Arsenal?

Side note – Abramovich is so hands-on and involved with his team but I hardly see Stan at the stadium, whereas Abramovich was in the dressing-room last weekend. Which is the lesser evil here?

We are not in a good place, but I’m sure most will agree that better this Arsenal than Chelski, Mancs or Spuds. We are the Arsenal; Jack Wilshere and co are the team we love. But the businessmen saw a business opportunity and converted our passion into a product and our loyalty into profit. As we have seen over the years, there is only one language that this regime understands and it comes in the form of numbers and figures. They will not respond to open letters and marches, but they will respond to a balance sheet. Let’s kick them where it hurts, in the bank!

*For f***’s sakes, STOP buying season tickets!*

Yes, I am a fan of “V for Vendetta” and I am still plotting a move to London.

23rd August 2013

A disgruntled but not (yet) former Gooner

By Tiny Manyonga

South African based supporter expresses frustration

My first soccer team was Manchester United. After a trip to England, I returned to Africa with a David Beckham No.7 shirt and, strangely enough, a pair of Liverpool socks! But like some fans I know, sometime in 2000 or so, I discovered Arsenal football. I was just 12 years old at the time and, as I got into my teen years, Arsenal football was roaring and my beloved No.14 became an icon and a hero in my life. We all know what happens in the middle, which brings us to the beginning of last season.

Are you an AKB, AMG or AKBBHIBHRWADBTB?

I discovered this forum about 12-14 months ago. I was just tired of suffering alone as United had won a record 20th title. My friends and family did not “defect” (as they call it) to Arsenal and it seemed as if their loyalty to Man Utd was worth it. As I became increasingly nervous about El Capitan leaving, I sought out opinions from fellow goners, which brought me here.

A terribly cagey start to last season drove me to the edge, and reading articles by people who were livid kept me sane. I wanted to break away from the AKB camp and start my own AKBBHIBHRWADBTB camp (Arsène knows best but he is being held ransom with a dildo by the board). Yes, this is a board that keeps profits in their pockets and shows a middle finger to the fans.

Then the tussle of the elephants seemed to have been settling and I had be brainwashed to believe that Silent Stan was the best option and would not pull off a needless, excessive spending-spree similar to what happens in the blue corners of London and Manchester, which I do not approve of simply because I want to see good football and a great team earn (not buy) trophies.

The season kicked off and after the first two months the Emirates looked like a city without a hero and the fans suffered like a nation without a voice. How could the board go to sleep at night when they were subjecting us to this emotional trauma? I would go to my local bars here in Cape Town during Arsenal matches. They were emptier than during Man C or United or Chelski games; even the network was beginning to move Arsenal matches to random alternate channels when other teams were playing. And each match-day became like an addicts’ meeting – same Arsenal fans, same expectations and hopes before the match, same disappointment at the end. At the end of the match there were the same disgruntled ramblings. It was like writing to Santa Claus to request a change in weather patterns – pointless.

What could I do? This is the only team I love and the only manager I know. Then an old legend appeared on our shores as if to answer the cries. Cometh the hour, Thierry Henry brought tears to my eyes and once again I was proud to be a gooner, so very proud. (At this point in time, I was writing a letter that if we couldn’t get Hazard, at least name a stand after Henry again.) RvP carried the team so well and once again we were united behind our boys with a common goal to finish third (is this who we have become?). Come the final day of the season, it felt like a hollow victory, but a victory nevertheless.

This brings me to an open letter, THE open letter. Fourth of July, what a day to forget! After much speculation and anxiety, Captain Vantastic is leaving. This is like “El Capitan” all over again. But why would RvP do this to me? Have I not loved and supported this man through the years and now he has had his first 20+ goal season and he wants to leave? Does he not remember what happened a year ago? Yes, I and a million other people felt abandoned. Regardless of his issues with the board, why leave? Why not stand and fight with us, the gooners, instead of leaving the battlefield? (Who can blame him? He is looking for his best interests. But who can blame me for how I feel?)

This brings me to another open letter. As I read something that resonated with my thoughts and feelings, some questions came up. Was Usmanov ever a bad guy here? This guy seems to be one of us, a Gooner at heart and core. And he is making a lot of noise for the board on our behalf. I say f**k it and let’s all join in and make noise for this board. We’ve had enough f***ing profits, I want results! I think it is time for our voices to get louder. Don’t let these punks sell our captain; we still have time before the transfer window closes. Maybe our Captain is pulling a “Rooney”; let’s make them spend!

11th July 2012

My good friend Monday

As we all know, there are 52 weeks in a year. Of those 52 weeks, there are probably 47 Monday mornings we have to be in office. (I know, ridiculous right.) Of all those Monday mornings, does anyone else ever get tired of smiling and saying to a colleague, not asking but saying “How was your weekend” then immediately switching off their brain and not listening to the colleague’s response. The response is usually “blah blah blah blah, then blah [insert a reference to kids, alcohol, weather, bf/gf/spouse, being broke or being in bed here] blah blah but it was great how was yours?” I get this all the time.

In the first few weeks I actually paid attention, but now I have an out of mind auto-response. “Yeah, my weekend was great/good/chilled/ bad/crazy/broke [omit inapplicable] too. Enjoy your day *Smile, walk away*”. This response is appropriate most of the time. E.g if someone says “I had a chilled weekend, I was in bed”; “I was too broke so I watched movies”; “it was crazy got drunk”. It crumbles when someone talks about a funeral or wedding etc. in which case, if an awkward moment arises due to the auto-response being inappropriate, then the fault lies with the person who was telling you something way too personal on a Monday morning when you are just trying to ease into the week.

Which brings me to the point I wanted to make in the first place: I can’t be the only one who thinks that instead of pretending to be interested in stories of your weekend or pictures of your buck-toothed children, why don’t we all just carry swords or battle-axes, whatever can help us communicate better in the office?

On a different note, how was you guys’ weekend? Mine was awesome blah blah blah [insert reference to World cup/Alcohol/Hating Monday morning/Weekend is too short/Braai here].

A picture only worth a bunch of words

Dear friends and future AA colleagues,

You know that show “I shouldn’t be alive right now”? Well I shouldn’t be awake right now. I woke up from an unusually long and refreshing sleep only to wonder why it was unusually bright outside. I checked my clock, it was Late O’clock. So I looked at the time set for the alarm, 14:29hrs. Who sets an alarm for anything at 14:29????? Clearly this was the work of the underpants gnomes.

*For all those not familiar with the underpants gnomes, they used to steal underwear based on this theory: Step 1: Collect underwear – Step 2: ? – Step 3: Make profit. They couldn’t figure out Step 2 so they went rogue. They are responsible for insuring you can’t find matching socks when you are late, muffling your alarm in the mornings; they wait till you cuddle up in bed and then they turn your bathroom tap just enough to make a loud dripping sound. They also hide your keys in your room when you are late in the mornings and make sure that when you come back from a late night, after you have checked three times that your phone is indeed plugged in the charger, they just pull it out slightly and make it look like you were too drunk to plug it in properly.

Now, as you know, I don’t have a phone at the moment, again the work of underpants gnomes. I wanted to take a picture from the front seat of a car on my way to work this morning. I would say it’s worth a thousand words but it really isn’t. Picture this, you’re a third in line from a red traffic light. The man on the radio is saying the time is “F_ck–this–sh_t” O’clock and you notice that the traffic lights after the ones you are waiting on have been green for a while now. Surely they will turn red any moment now. And just beyond that, is someone pressing a button to stop all traffic on a zebra crossing. Got the image? How many words is it worth? The bidding is capped at 20 words, image will be sold to the lowest bidder.

Investors wanted

Hi people,

I did not fire at Reeva.

Is anyone else peeved by the rain today? My umbrella was upside down and in pieces by the time I got to work so I came up with a new innovation. I can imagine the commercial now:

“Are you tired of Cape Town’s combination of wind and rain putting sand paper up your a*s and making your umbrella look like this  Now we have umbrella designed specifically for Cape Town! Introducing the Umbr-holer! The holes on the umbrella cover about 33.26% of the surface area ensuring that the wind that was going to make your Umbrella look like this  can safely pass through without making you look like an idiot in front of that hot girl; she is walking in the same direction you are going but she will never acknowledge your presence. Will you get wet? Sure you will, there are holes in the damn thing. But you will get less wet than you would have with this Umbrella ”

I think I can sell the product if I keep reminding them of how annoying it is to have the wind flip your umbrella inside out. And speaking of walking in the same direction with someone, this girl actually stopped me one day and asked me to pick between the following brochures:

• Why is there suffering on earth?
• Can the dead come back to life?
• God’s Plan for your wealth (Ambiguous, I’m not sure if they meant “How our God intends to spend your money”)
• Have you bought all of Jesus’ CDs?*

*I’m not sure if that’s the correct title

I chose the second one because I thought it would be interesting to read the progress so far on our attempts to have a zombie apocalypse. There wasn’t much information about that. If this happens to you, attempt to sell them drugs.