Category: Life

The freak brought a hammer…

Hammertime!Anyone who’s been to my flat a few times should know the freak from downstairs. He’s the resident conspiracy theorist nutjob who regularly knocks on my door threatening to call the cops unless I stop “moving the chairs around”. This happens regardless of whether I am in fact moving chairs around.

To give you some background; this is a guy who told Joe at Futurex that he likes fishing trade shows because they give away hats, told Jean that “they (we don’t know who) are out to get him” and told Neil (in the lift) that he steals things from the flats of people who have moved out.

Needless to say, he’s not a fun guy to have at parties, and to be honest, perhaps even a little scary.

So today while I sat at the dinner table with some friends having a quiet dinner he knocks on the door…We open it. He has a hammer and tells me to “get a carpet or else”… perhaps he brought the hammer to help install a carpet? or perhaps the hammer was part of the “or else” option? However I don’t want a carpet. I like my wooden floors.

Anyway, I calmly told him to leave while encouraging him to follow through on his threat of phoning the police and reporting me for disturbing the peace. Did I mention that he was only wearing shorts? I had impressionable females in the the room and he’s half naked and wielding a hammer… and I’m disturbing the peace?

I tried to close the door but he pushed it back open and again threatened me. I have an amazing ability to stay calm in situations like this but to be honest I was a little scared since he was giving me the crazy eyes. However slightly deeper than my desire of self preservation was a small hope that he would in fact take a swing at me — “Claw Hammer Wound” is the journalistic equivalent of a Home Run. I eventually got the door closed and sat back down to try and enjoy the rest of my dinner.

After discussing it thoroughly with the dinnersphere we decided it would be best if I reported it to the police. He might be harmless… he might be a psychopath. So tomorrow I will take a drive and make a report… I’m not sure if it constitutes “assault” but it must come pretty damn close. I’d really just like it if he never knocked on my door again.

Until then: if I am discovered dead in my bed with head trauma caused by a blunt object, have a look in 404 Schoonmill, I think you’ll find a claw hammer with traces of of my DNA on it.

ath.

Simple shot, beautiful result…

Bonnet FlippingMaybe it’s just me but I really like this photograph. I took it through a window at 5:30am after having just woken up to the sound of a bang and some screeching tires. I love my camera.

Yes, I realise that those of you who read this stuff and happen to teach photography will probably see a gazillion problems with the photograph. But I love it and that’s all that matters.

ps. Gav, your input is still welcome.

Remote Control

bombs1.jpgAt a party this weekend someone questioned why we don’t see robots fighting wars… postulating that they could be controlled by armies of highly skilled, pimply faced, teenaged gamers, somewhere safe in the American heartland.

The sad truth is; If we can put men on the moon and land a rover on Mars then we definitely have the know-how to build a robot ready for battle… but when it comes to the economics of war, it is currently far cheaper to repeatedly send droves of pimply faced teenagers to die in a foreign land than to build a robot that can be reliably controlled remotely.

I wonder what a robot would need to cost before the Military Industrial Complex saw fit to replace death with robots… Probably less than the salary of a soldier multiplied by their average life expentancy.

Twenty Years…

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain

Oh and another thing…

3G aint so cool. I’ve been looking at the numbers and basically, if you don’t use up all the MB you paid for in your data bundle, after 31 days they are forfeited… And if you use more than the MB in your data bundle you get molested with stupidly high “out-of-bundle” per MB fees, some (most) as high at R2 per megabyte. (A megabyte should be costing anything from 10 cents to 40 cents)

Why do companies take advantage of their customers like that? It’s just pure greed. It’s like walking into Pick and Pay and buying 100 tins of tuna and instead of them saying “wow, cool, here’s a discount” they say “Oh, 100 tins… you must have money, that’ll be 2000% more per tin, kthx”

Does anyone know what I get charged for 3G use on my vodacom phone? I “enabled data” a few years back and now that my new phone supports 3G I’ve been using that a bit. I never bought a data bundle or anything. I asked in a vodashop and they were amazingly unable to answer the question, but gave me a phone number to call.

I should go to bed, I’m starting to get moody.

j.

I love my Camera

I own a Canon 20D. When I bought it it was state of the art and cost a small fortune. Now, a couple of years later it has been replaced by a few generations of better cameras; and I must admit that I do have camera envy when I look at the new stuff on the market.

But then I take a picture like this and I’m all happy again. I love you 20D.

Dark Sunset

Shameless link to my flickr stream

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

– Dylan Thomas

———————

No no, no one died… I just believe that perhaps deaths door is a little too late to begin raging… plus, I like the poem.