Lost in Semantics

Chess Pieces

2008-10-23T12:42:00.001+02:00

Chess Pieces
Originally uploaded by zYhed

My Attempt at 'Real' Photography

2008-10-23T12:37:00.001+02:00

Chess Pieces
Originally uploaded by zYhed

The skyline I get to see everyday

2008-06-21T15:42:00.000+02:00

Wimpy coffee rocks!

2008-06-06T15:03:00.001+02:00

Xenophobia...

2008-05-20T14:19:00.005+02:00

The events of the last 2 weeks are utterly shocking and disturbing. Those 2 words dont adequately describe the events that have taken place...the long term repercussions of this, for the country as a whole will be severe im sure...

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

Another work day

2008-05-18T08:18:00.000+02:00

Ok so probabaly not the most dramatic way to try n resurrect a dead blog but I figure if I don't have time to blog than perhaps I should moblog?

My Brain and Me

2007-06-25T10:31:00.000+02:00

Ive been tossing and turning and turning and tossing for the last hour and 15mins trying in vain to fall asleep. Its 11pm now, and my mind is racing, contemplating, trying to find an end to this maze of questions floating in my head.

I haven’t felt like this in a very long time – that feeling that your life is not headed in the direction you envisaged…that somewhere along the line you’ve faulted…that you should be in a place right now that you’re not…that feeling of unfulfillment…that feeling of urgency.

Its 11:10pm now – its taken me 10mins to write those 2 paragraphs…I could have written it better. Just like I feel about everything else tonight – I could have done this or that better. I should have done it this way. I should have approached it that way. Why didn’t I think of that approach? Hmmm, maybe if I went with that, rather than this, it would have been more beneficial.

The thing is hindsight is a bitch. Pity that it only comes ‘after’ rather than ‘before’ the decision has to be made. But I’m just rambling on right now and no doubt confusing you. Of course there is no ONE decision that has been bugging me; it’s a combination of so many things that has ultimately brought me to this point.

“You’re lazy.” – That’s what my head keeps on telling me tonight. It says it like it hasn’t been partly responsible for that! But that’s such a strange statement to make I tell my brain, because in the last couple months I’ve worked harder then ever before…how can I be lazy, if I’ve been working? My head ignores my remark and reiterates its statement: “You’re lazy.”

Maybe it’s concerned, maybe its trying to motivate me? Maybe it’s trying to motivate me, by demotivating me…if that make sense? A doctor friend of mine once told me that doctors tend to make their medical students feel worthless – they (the doctors) believe, that it encourages them (the students) to work harder. I argued that that theory made no sense at all – it’s a known fact that in order to motivate a person, negative signals or comments should be avoided. And if my brain is using this ‘demotivating’ technique on me tonight, than I can say with absolute certainty that it does not work! It’s my opinion that doctors in teaching positions, really only employ this technique because it re-enforces their superiority complex…okayyyy, im veering off the topic now…where was i?

Oh yes, I need something to motivate me. Something to keep me going, something to keep pushing me, something that shows me how to get from point A (where I am right now) to point B (where I want to be). Problem is, I don’t know where point B is and because I don’t know where it is, I’m not sure if I have to go straight to point B or via point C and D to get to point B…wish I had a damn map.

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

wanna own a town?

2007-06-24T08:28:00.000+02:00

If u have some spare cash lying around…to the tune of say, 2.5million dollars you might want to think of buying yourself a nice lil town – you know, as part of that retirement plan?

Yes ladies and gentleman, for a limited time only you can buy yourself a town – have your own police force, your own residents to pet and stroke, your own fire station, set local town budgets…it’ll be like your own real live version of simcity!

The town of Albert, Texas, “Located in the beautiful Wine Region of the Texas Hill Country” is up for sale. Now wouldn’t it be awesome to finally be able to squash those parking fines? – cause now you’ll have ‘pull’…ive always wanted pull. Hmmm, maybe I should crack open that piggy bank and c if I can scrape together the 2.5 mil they looking for?

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

Oh Crap!!! Did i forget to update?

2007-06-07T05:28:00.000+02:00

Got nothing much to say besides the fact that clumsy me dropped a kettle of boiling hot water on my feet last night and ended up being treated at Milpark Casualty for second degree burns.

Note to self: There must be easier ways of getting a day off from work...

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

Optical Illusion 1

2006-12-26T06:33:00.000+02:00

The team here at Lost in Semantics will be taking a short break until mid January or so...and by team i mean ME.

So hope to see your all then. Take Care. I'm outta here!

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

BLOGGER BETA RuLeZ!!!!!

2006-12-18T10:47:00.000+02:00

Yes boyz and girls – ive made the switch and I’m loving it! For the technologically challenged (like myself), beta is the way to go. The things that Ive always wanted to do with my blog but could never do because of the HTML stumbling block, I now can achieve - because with Beta, there is hardly any need to play around with the HTML. Its allllllll about widgets baby!

The thing that scared the shit out me initially was all the beta horror stories I was hearing of and the bottom line was – DON’T MAKE THE SWITCH. But in essence it is a progressive move and by not switching I was only prolonging the inevitable. So decisions were made, comfort zones were challenged and eventually blogger confidence was found.

Now sure, your layout will be totally shredded to bits and any 3rd party feeds/thingy’s on your blog will disappear. And lets not forget that your links and banner and the like will all disappear into oblivion. So what im really saying is that after u make the switch – youll basically have a skeleton for a blog.

But hey its not all that bad, within a day you’ll be up and running again – your blog will have a new skin, the skeleton will be covered and it’ll sport all the latest fashions and accessories.

My blog for example since its makeover has been very brand conscious – it has, amongst other things, a poll from bravenet, a clock from WorldTimeServer, a 3 column layout from Hackoshpere, A recent comments section from Beautiful Beta, and a scrolling ticker from Ticker Widget.

Now the scrolling ticker requires special mention since it would not have existed on my blog had Tech Heavyweight Jon Aquino not come to my rescue and gave me some suggestions on how to tweak it a bit to achieve the desired result (ok so im bugged him a little – but im sure he’ll forgive me in time). I browsed through some of his blogs and all pretty impressive. Have a look at them – im sure you’ll find his blogS very interesting.

And of course it was ever faithful Tech Support that pointed me in the right direction to make maximum use of Beta.

Okay, what else can I put on my blog….

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

Spare a Thought for the Children Today...

2006-12-10T10:49:00.000+02:00

www.islamic-relief.com

http://www.redcross.int/

http://www.ifrc.org/

www.aqsa.org.za

http://www.pcwf.org/

www.childwelfare.com/

www.jhbchildwelfare.org.za/

www.childwelfaresa.org.za

www.ncsacw.samhsa.gov

www.blackadministrators.org

www.childwelfare.net

lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER

2006-12-08T09:03:00.000+02:00

So ive made the switch over to blogger beta today. This is my first post in it and it feels pretty normal, but i have been forewarned by Mak that it gets pretty technical and even cumbersome in certain areas...hopefully i wont need whatever areas those are and i will be a happy blogger to the end. Of course we all know that will not happen, but its all about thinking happy thoughts people.

editing and updating the blog is much quicker which is cool. The downside is that i can no longer comment via my mobile because it doesnt seem to pick up the 'publish comment' icon there. You can see the icon - u just cant use it.

The tags are pretty cool though...does that mean that technoratti will save me the trouble and leech on to my tags or will i have to physcially spoon feed them with seperate tags of their own? And on that topic, what benefit is there in having technoratti tags? im not sure. oh well, lets hope the beta version is kind to me.

On to other things...my lil sis's title changed from Miss to Mrs in December last year and last night it changed once again - from now on, she will be foreever referred to a Dr ***** :)
Congrats sis! Six years of hard work has finally paid off. You are now officially a MD!
Now can you pleeeeeez sort out all those little ailments i've been having;)

Thats it from me.

PS: New Poll Today: What would you like to have with you, had u been stranded on an island?

http://lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

JOBURG AND RSS FEEDS

2006-12-02T11:43:00.000+02:00

Its always baffled me at how certain bloggers out there would know exactly when I updated my page. I would not blog for weeks on end and the day I post, a few hours later, *BANG*, I have a few comments already.

I mean I’m not that popular for people to want to check my site evvvery hour in the hope that I posted….well ok, maybe I am, but still, it’s always puzzled me. I mean how much time do ‘these’ people spend on the net? And where do they find the time? What was their secret I always asked myself? How do they do it? They must be really organized to be able to work, study, read, comment and blog all at the same time. Whilst I can’t keep up with the barrage of new posts and articles appearing on the various blogs and websites, others seem to manage it effortlessly.

Then the problem comes up with having to find the time to go to every site to find out if it has been updated or not…and this as most will agree takes time.

And then last week I learn about something called a RSS feed. Put simply this enables the user of the feed to know exactly which sites have been updated. Neat huh!? Now put that together with a news/feed reader and you have a pretty powerful combination. As always,It took a quick email to Tech Support to clear up any queries that I had had and after that I was ready to progress to the next stage of the blogolution. Forget the power of the technoratti – this is the shit! Actually I cant understand why the CIA feels the need to spend billions and billions of dollars every year in developing systems and software that can monitor individuals and organizations…all they have to do is go online and download it for free!

I was so blown away by this new discovery I had made I felt I needed to share it with as many bloggers as possible….but nobody seemed to care - well all except for Green Eyes who was just as thrilled about it as I was. We leaned on the tips Mak had sent me via email and after discussing this and that - voila! - within a day we were capitalizing on RSS feeds from various sites. Now the nice thing about Fatima is that get her excited enough about something and with a little time she’ll come back with a million alternatives and cool nifty tools that can be used in conjunction with, in this case, an RSS feed. After that I was all set to brave the new world in which I now find myself in.

So now instead of me going to the blogs, the blogs come to me!

So that’s what’s been keeping me busy during the week…my new toy :)

But the past weekend itself was also super! I was in joburg (my home away from home) for three fun filled days. I had an awesome time – it made me realize how much I was missing out on. In the past 3 months in the farm I haven’t longed to be back in the city once – not once. But when the weekend was over, and it was time for me to head back home I was actually quite sad. But just one idle thought about the traffic on Ben Schoeman Highway was enough to set me straight and leave with a smile on my face, thinking: “schmucks”.

But ah yes the weekend was good I met up with the boys – the GlobeTrotter , the Cynic, the Immigrant, the Soon to be Illegal Immigrant, the Doc, the Banker, the Accountant, the Poster Boy for Toyota, the Leftist from Durbs, and a whole bunch of other guys…and that was just the one clique I had met up with!

It was a non stop, always on the go weekend. On the first night in town, we (myself, GlobeTrotter and the Leftist from Durban) went to pick up a bud of ours in his suburb…think Beirut.

I hate going there at night, but it felt like a good night to die. So off we go into the thick of Beirut on a recon mission. Beirut is scary – dimly lit streets, deserted and with the three of us in a black VW, I felt as if I was going to be party to a drive-by shooting. It’s the sort of place, where u expect to get hijacked, and when you do get hijacked, narrating this harrowing tale thereafter will not evoke much sympathy from those around you. At most you might get a “I’m sorry to hear about that, but really, what did u expect by going there?”

Anywayz we pick up The Man from Beirut (that is, after we got lost and had to circle back to get to his place) and as always, the conversations were brilliant – zany and whacky – but brilliant. For example, as we tried to get out this place alive, the following short conversation takes place in the car:

Leftist from Durban: is your place really as bad as these two make it out to be?
The Man from Beirut: *shrugs it off* - no not that bad. *pauses and thinks* I mean my uncle has been shot at a few times and there was a double homicide across the road from us…but yeah.
Leftist from Durban: *silence* dude…that’s kinda bad.

On to other things though - Ive started a little mini poll this week and hopefully every week ill have a new poll (that’s optimism right there). Today’s poll: Which direction do u write the number 0 or the letter O – clockwise or anticlockwise.

Cheers all.

http://lostinsemantics.blogspot.com

MUSIC TRIVIA

2006-11-17T10:06:00.000+02:00

Right boys and girls, lets see how well you all know your music.

But FIRST the RULES:

I want an artist and title for the songs below.

NO CHEATING – like googling it or something – any pansy can do that…

NOW FOR SOME GENERAL HINTS:
1. all of the songs below were hits way back in 1996 – that’s TEN yrs ago!
2. They are famous for their lyrics…either because people would end up singing em in their cars or in instances where the lyrics were terrible, they were complimented by catchy tunes which made them hits

ONE:
This one is eazzeeeee
"im sitting here in the boring room, its just another rainy sunny afternoon, im wasting my time, I got nothing to do, im hanging around, im waiting for u but nothing ever happens and I wonder…"

TWO:
this one is a bit of a toughie. He was a huge RnB artist in the early 90's and this song was one of the most played back in 1996...in fact ive heard it being played a couple times this year on the airwaves as well, so it seems it still requested. So what is it? Go on sweat it out!
"baby baby I no, n baby I love u so, but u don’t feel like I do and tell me what can I do but I got to be strong, girl u did me wrong when I thought we were really down, so u say u want me, girl make up your mind cause im not gonna be here for long..."

THREE:
verrrrry very famous uptil today!
"Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words…"

FOUR:
A one hit wonder - bursted on the airwaves and became one of the most played songs...well at least in my car. Lyrics are dumb but what a catchy tune. The artist is a brit, if im not mistaken...Say MAK, u should know this song!
"Well I tried to tell u so but I guess u didn’t know as I said the story goes baby now I got the flow cause I know it from the start, baby when u broke my heart that I had to come again and show u that im real. You lied to me all those times I said that I loved u, u lied to me yes I tried, yes I tried, u lied to me, even though u knew id die for u, u lied to me…"

FIVE:
This is tooooo easy for words...i mean which are other song has such unique lyrics???
"brother peles in the back, sweet zena’s in the front cruising down the freeway, in the hot, hot sun, suddenly, red, blue lights flash us from behind, loud voice booming please step out onto the line. Pele preaches words of comfort, zena just hides her eyes, policeman taps his shades - is that a chevy ’69?"

SIX:
Another one hit wonder. The song had a tropical feel to it and became one of summers most played songs back in the day. Again lyrics not really that impressive, but hey it was a GOOD song! hmmm, mysterious aint it?
"Baby girl…i said tonight is your lucky night, (artists name given), I stop and stare at u, walking on the shore, I try to concentrate my mind wants to explore, the tropical scent of u takes me up above and girl, when I look at u, oh I fall in love"

SEVEN:
This is probably one of the greatest...if not the greatest band to come out of britain. The group are known for their moodiness and their lyrics are on a whole new level. This wonder group made it BIG with this song and is to this day one of my favourites. If u do not know this song that u deserve to be put up against a wall and shot!
"Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you. By now you should've somehow realized what you gotta do. I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now. Backbeat the word was on the street that the fire in your heart is out. I'm sure you've heard it all before but you never really had a doubt I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now..."

EIGHT:
Genre: METAL - and hence will be very difficult to fall asleep to a song like this
"Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side. So tear me open and pour me out. There's things inside that scream and shout and the pain still hates me."

NINE:
This man is regarded as one of the best lyric writers in the business. If im not mistaken, this song appeared in the soundtrack to Phenomenon, starring John Travolta
"If I could reach the stars I'd pull one down for you, shine it on my heart so you could see the truth, that this love I have inside is everything it seems, but for now I find it's only in my dreams."

TEN:
This artist was critiscised by some English Pofessors arguing that her use of certain words...or rather a word was not appropriate for the song and actually had nothing to do with the song...this word is also the title of the song
"An old man turned ninety-eight, He won the lottery and died the next day. It's a black fly in your Chardonnay, It's a death row pardon two minutes too late, And..."

well, lets see what u guys come up with.... :)

btw, tom's my blog's bday...u can send ecards to my blog at lostinsemantics@gmail.com

news that caught my attention

2006-11-09T22:28:00.000+02:00

hanna i thought u might enjoy the cartoon strip above :)

ANYWAY, that had nothing to do with the post, so lets carry on to the news!

Democrats take control over the senate - they won by a narrow margin but this is damaging to the republicans
Rumsfeld resigns....good riddence
The world's largest commercial airship takes off from London to Dubai today...London seemed to be havin awesome weather!!!
Interest rate goes up a quarter of a percent to 5% in the UK - there may be a slight increase in foreign investment into the country
Craig Sweeny gets life for raping a small girl....but he becomes eligible for parole in just 5yrs....how wrong is that!!!
Israel responsible for yet another massacre - this time in Beit Hanoun. have a look at Massacre at Beit Hanoun
Sadaam to meet the Hangman
US Trade Defecit comes in at $60bn dollars...and thats an IMPROVEMENT for the US

any other interesting news u guys came across this week????

Farm Town Life

2006-11-07T21:27:00.000+02:00

Now seeing that im gonna be in my farm town till the end of December, I figured I might as well tell u a little about farm town living. So over the course of my stay in this little town ill give u a glimpse into my life! :)

But first, after chatting to a number of bloggers ive come to realise that no one seems to understand what a farm town really is – and somehow ive taken it for granted that everyone understood what I was talking about, forgetting that not everyone is from SA.

A farm town is any small town. It usually is a sleepy town in which nothing really happens – a one horse town – a dead town – so when something does happen it kinda rocks the town and ppl end up blowing it all out of proportion - if for example a car is broken into – this would be big news and people will talk about it for weeks on end! In cities this happens everyday and people don’t even bother mentioning it anymore.

Farm towns are generally developed little towns unlike its rural counterparts, or villages as they are more commonly known as. Farm towns historically started when farming communities moved to a specific area – With that people moved in, in search of work and hence the community grew until businesses started catering not only for the farmers but for the rest of the community’s needs.

Now small mining towns are also regarded as farm towns – in other words, today we regard any small sleepy town as a farm town. But larger mining towns, life Burgersfort are however referred to as mining towns.

And population size is not a factor in classifying a town as a farm town or not. For example my town has a population of, i dunno, anything between 30’000 and 50’000 people and together with the surrounding districts will give u a population of around 200’000 people. But it is a poor town – mainly because of mismanagement by the local town council – but that’s a discussion for another day.
Other towns that are regarded as cities based on population size are still regarded as farm towns cause of their slow paced, sleepy nature.
And yet other towns have populations of maybe 3-4000 ppl and sum prob even smaller and regarded as farm towns

So it all just depends – but u get the point.

Lets take a step back shall we?

2006-10-30T21:40:00.000+02:00

I sometimes wonder whether we’re doing justice to our time by spending so much of it in the blogosphere? Shouldn’t we be utilising our time for better, more important things that affect not only us but people in general? The world seems to moving faster and faster and we – or rather I – feel like I’m getting left behind. As the saying goes: “Youth is wasted on the Young” – so maybe we should take heed of this simple yet valid point and aspire to be greater then ourselves.

My point is this: Personal blogs are great – u get the opportunity to talk about yourself, flatter yourself even. You get to discuss what’s on your mind, what you did over the weekend, what you’ve heard, rant about this and that, talk about your travels, write about dreams for the future and you get to meet a whole bunch of people from all over the world that you would otherwise never have met. So no matter in which country you might find yourself, you will always have somebody to ‘hook’ up with for lunch, coffee or even just for a small chat – the world becomes so much more smaller – so much cosier:))))))

But it’s a fantasy world…a world in which you can forget about the world, with all its misery and pain, if you so choose. But as individuals – as communities – we have an obligation to speak out against oppression, we have an obligation to highlight the damage being done to the environment, we have an obligation to stamp out torture, we have an obligation to protect our little furry friends from animal cruelty and we have an obligation to spread whatever knowledge we have to those in our communities – and we have our very own little virtual community right here.

We always complain about how the mass media tends to ignore the important facts of any situation and generally tends to follow what politics determines to be the truth. With the internet, we have a golden opportunity to speak our minds and we can be sure that someone, somewhere out there will read what we have to say.

So lets all create new blogs or websites that we can utilise as a tool for spreading news and information that otherwise tends to slip through the nets of mainstream media.

So if you’re a tree hugger, make people aware of the disastrous effects that destroying the Amazon could have on the environment, or go on a ‘save the beaver campaign’. There is so much that we as individuals and communities can do – speak out against state terrorism, draw attention to plight of the Palestinian people, campaign against allowing our neighbouring countries to go through famine whilst we sit back and enjoy a nice juicy filling meal – after all, those countries have communities just like ours, they have families just like ours, they have Mothers, Fathers, Sons and Daughters just as we have and they feel pain just as we would have.

As far as I know, there is only one person in our group that has non-personal blog – Muhammad of Front-Line…let’s follow suit.

And on that note, I’ve created a non personal blog – A Case for Palestine – which Mak and Bilal have agreed to partner in on. So with these two intellectual heavyweights, the blog is sure to be super success!!!!
If anyone else is interested in joining in, please feel free or if u have any suggestions on how to make it better – gimme a shout.

We will also have to discuss our approach for the blog etc etc etc, but thats just detail.

Take care and keep the passion :)

My Adoring Public

2006-10-28T18:01:00.000+02:00

THE DEFINITION OF SWEETNESS

2006-10-24T18:31:00.000+02:00

It’s time once again to give some attention to my links section. Today there is one addition, I re-link, and one name change.

The re-link goes to none other than Z after I had kicked him off my links page for not having posted in like 6 months! And seeing that he is now posting more than most, I cannot re-link him under the original name I had given him, i.e. ‘rarely updates’. So after some suggestions from his adoring public, the votes are unanimous and he will be forever known as ‘finicky and flirtatious’
Note to Z* - don’t look at me…you wanted it put to the fans ;)

The name change goes to Muhammad’s link. Mak’s Front-Line, as all will agree, does not really fall under the category of Personal Blogging, and hence really deserves to be in my non personal blog section. But I had figured he’d probably be very lonely up there all on his lonesome and thus linked him in the personal section. But now that Mak has created his own personal blog, my dilemma has been solved – Front-Line will move to the top and Waiting in Transit (his personal blog) will fall under the personals. Ahhh, order has been restored to my links page once again! :)

But on to the business of today:

Today’s new link and hence today’s intro tells the story of an 18yr old Turkish girl residing in Germany. It is the story of a girl in the process of finishing up school and who has the aspiration of becoming a doctor one day. It is the story of a girl so afraid of spiders that she has on occasion burst out into tears in front of family members at the very thought of a spider being near her. This is the story of Cevris :)

Cevris was born in a little town in Germany, a place that is still home to her today. She currently has 10 courses that she’s taking at school – her 2 favourites are English and Bio. Now I’ve met very few people in my life that have claimed to enjoy English or anything Language. So it is with no sarcasm that I say it takes a very special person to find enjoyment in a course that is generally disliked by many. It says plenty about that person’s outlook to life and the ability of that person to find enjoyment in everything that he/she does. And this is how I see Cevris – a person that is able to find delight in everything - and that is a characteristic that we all should admire.

Now Cev is an amazing woman and has got to be the sweetest thing in the blogosphere! For one, she is rarely in a bad mood and I imagine, always has a smile on her face and serves as a ray of sunshine to whom ever she meets. Another thing that separate’s her from the rest is her deep rooted love for her family – now we all love our families, but how many of us take the time of expressing this love? Cev is one of the very few – and that people, is a quality that is becoming ever so rare which makes her a role model for all of us.

She is soft hearted and always tries to keep the harmony. She feels that she gets a wee bit sentimental at times which is something that she is not too happy with. But the way I see it, a little bit of sentimentalism keeps you human right? :)

Cevris is super smart, funny, mature and so so friendly! Which is why its such a pleasure to read her blog. In fact, whenever I clear out an evening or afternoon to muse through all the blogs out there, cev’s blog is always one of the first 5 that I read…I love it!

Now besides the fact that she speaks six languages, loves to go diving and shoots a few hoops every once in a while, she also plays the guitar! She tells me she plays it only when she’s alone because as she says: “it's for the sake of their sense of hearing” lol, I get the feeling she’s being modest….and what do you know – that’s another good trait that she has! :) Oh! Oh! Oh!…she’s also a super chef supremo! So if you’re ever in Germany and need a great home cooked meal, then Cev is the girl to hook up with!! :)

On her list of things to do is a trip around the world…say, maybe our very own GlobeTrotter Bilal, could give her tips on how to go about it :) *sigh* a trip around the world would be soooooo good though.

As I mentioned earlier, cev has the ambition of becoming a doctor someday…she describes this ambition of hers as the meaning of her life. Isn’t it so awesome that she knows exactly what she’d like to do and what she’d like to achieve in this world, in this life? I remember that in my last schooling year, I still was not sure which direction/path to follow as regards a profession and future career – and the scary thing was that I was not the only one!

The person that she would love to meet the most, had she had the opportunity to do so would have been Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Who!!??????
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president. Most agree that very few have accomplished what he had in such a short period. But I’m not intro’ing him…so lets move on shall we? :) The other people on her list, ahem, besides me that is! :) – includes Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Chancellor of Turkey, and not surprisingly, Sami Yusuf :)

Interestingly enough, her dreams always revolve around her family and the sea…ahhh sweet dreams for a real sweetie !!! :)
And her nightmares revolve around her exams…lol I found that really funny, but shame it must be stressful for our Turkish blogger!:) But something tells me she’s dreamt of a spider or 2 as well ;)

Her funniest moments were at family get-togethers, when dad, uncles and aunts masquerade as “God knows what and begin to sing and dance.” She has such a cool family no? :) I’m quite envious cev!

So if you’re looking for a smile, a ray of sunshine or just a pleasant read, check out Cevris! :)

And that’s it from me…

Btw, Eid Mubarak!

PS: check out my rules for linking

Embarrasing Moments

2006-10-19T12:27:00.000+02:00

Now ordinarily I would never dream of discussing my worst moments with my friends, let alone airing them on a public forum like a blog….but seeing as we all need a good laugh now and then I’ve decided to humiliate myself a little more by sharing my most embarrassing moments – well at least these are the ones I can think of at present.

This little post is dedicated to my good pals, Henna and Z with the aim of distracting them for a little while (so guys act distracted ok!) c’mon people – smile :)

8: The day my mum came running up after me at school, when I forgot my lunch box. Why do mothers do that??

7: Being the teachers pet... This label does not help one develop street credit, especially if you’re a guy! And God knows I tried to get into trouble but at most I would get a slap on the wrist. And getting into trouble is a sure way of gaining recognition from your peers that you're the man! Meanwhile, when my classmates would undergo a temporary inferiority complex, they would pull out their trump card out on me – “But zee, he doesn’t have to worry – he’s the teachers pet” – I so hated that line. Now if you’re a guy, you cannot afford to get stuck with this label – it makes it that much harder to be a guy. Seriously. And when it came to me, I had that reputation the day I walked into my first ever ever class and it stayed with me right up till the day I left school – that’s 12 yrs right there! So unfortunately I never developed street cred growing up.

6: Back in the days when I fumbled around, tried to act ‘cool’ and generally couldn't come up with coherent sentences in front of my first ‘crush’...it was horrible. In them days, she was in the cool crowd...I wasn't. But now that I have a blog........

5: The first (hot) girl I ever called up over the phone with hidden agendas......utter disaster would b putting it mildly! It was then that I realized I was not a player. Looking back at it now, it may not necessarily have been a bad thing :)

4: The first time I attended, not just a birthday party, but a ‘sweet 16’ birthday party. Now because of all the peer pressure surrounding such events and because it is the norm of such functions, I was required to get down n dance. It was then that I (and not to mention the 50 other ppl that were present) came to realise that I had 2 left feet. By the end of the following day the entire school had heard about the story of how I 'thought' i could dance but was in fact terrible at it. For the record, i KNEW i couldnt dance - i did not THINK that i could dance. How do they come up with shit like that? It took me a very long time to bury it. And now i've resurrected it *sigh*

3: The day I met n old aquaintance whom I had not seen in about 2 years. Nice guy. On that particular day, he was walking with a slight limp and I asked him, ' hey whats with the limp?' or something of that sort. He replied...' I lost my leg last year in a quad biking accident' ....way da go Zee, that was real genius on your side. Needless to say he was not impressed at my comment and neither was I. I felt really bad afterwards though. That’s the problem with me – I just say shit.

2: The day I accidently walked in on my aunt getting dressed....Now even though I was only yay high – about 6 or 7 years old, it scarred me for life people :( Up till today, some 20 years later, when I think about it I shudder. And she wasn’t completely undressed – that wasn’t the problem – it was the fact that as I walked in she gave a shriek that would have even made the dead turn in their graves. When she realized it was just me, a little boy, she burst out laughing – but it was toooo late for laughs – the damage had been done on my poor innocent mind. I don't even know what she was doing in that room...she shouldn't have even been there!!!!!!!!!! That woman screwed up my mind !

1: As is customary at weddings and other functions, the boys generally help out with serving the food and drinks to the guests. And on one such occasion, about 10 -12yrs back, I had a momentary lapse of concentration and my right hand that was holding a platter of very oily chicken tilted slightly. Out pours the thick gravy sauce from the platter on one of the guests. She was female. She was wearing white. enough said.

Now please.....just dont tell anyone ok :)

Hanna? Z? Are u smiling yet??????? :))))))))))

Be Grateful

2006-10-17T16:13:00.000+02:00

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness,
you are more blessed than the million who won't survive the week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle,
the loneliness of imprisonment,
the agony of torture or
the pangs of starvation,
you are ahead of 20 million people around the world.

If you attend a religious meeting without fear of
harassment,arrest, torture, or death,
you are more blessed than almost three billion people in the world.

If you have food in your refrigerator,
clothes on your back,
a roof over your head and a place to sleep,
you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank,in your wallet, and spare change in a dish some place,
you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still married and alive,you are very rare,especially in the United States.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful,
you are blessed because the majority can,but most do not.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder,
you are blessed because you can offer God's healing touch.

If you can read this message,
you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read anything at all.

You are so blessed in ways you may never even know."

ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL FOR THAT WHICH YOU HAVE.

PS: the pic above is entitled 'Good Morning Bali' - Yoga, 2005

Just another Monday Morning

2006-10-16T08:26:00.000+02:00

This past weekend i was actually hoping to complete my intro to my next link, but me being the silly goat that i am forgot my notebook charger in Johannesburg when i left to come to my hometown. And seeing that my draft copy is on that notebook, that idea went down the tubes. Oh well, i guess that will have to wait for the coming weekend.

So i sat the whole weekend thinking of something to write about. i attempted in vain once again to give a detailed description about the dreams i've been having - i dont even know why i bother - i've been trying for the last couple of weeks to put it to paper (as Green Eyes knows very well!), but it always seems to come out very very dull.

Then there was the idea of writing about small town life but that came out pretty dull as well..

So today i said, "Spot it! im gonna write about whatever comes to mind" - and thats what im doing right now - typing whatever comes to mind...so forgive me if its not polished and if the standard of this post is not up to par.

I somehow ended up with the office keys over the weekend and thus had to be here at 8am sharp this morning. The main offices of the company that i work for is based in my hometown and thus when i come back home, im not really on vacation because i'm still working a full day. Anywayz, so i had to get up around 730am today to make it there at around 8ish - thats the beauty of small town living - everything is so close by. If i leave home at 8, i'll be at work at 8:03am. Of course if there's traffic, it takes much longer - say 8:05am!!!!

This compared to the 2 hours i spend on the road everyday going and coming back from work in Jo'burg!

As im typing this sentence, the secretary has just left the office in which i sit. She came and asked me: "Sal jy a koppie koffie wil he?" (Would you like a cup of coffee?). She knows i'm fasting, but she probably felt it necessary to ask me, after seeing me in this zombie like state that i find myself in today (i usually get to work at around 9am - ramdan time). But coffee would really be good right now...i can even smell the coffee brewing 2 rooms away. It smells really really good.

Oh well, im stuck here, wasting time and posting a really lousy post only because instinct tells me, a few bloggers (read as: Saals, QL, Z, Ruby and friends) will be commenting on my non-bloggin'ness pretty soon - this is just to satisfy them.

This morning i dreamt i was back at my Gran's place (she passed away a couple years back) and although the place looked different in the dream (looked bigger and rooms not where they were supposed to have been), i knew, as you just know in some dreams, that it was her place. It had the same feel, the same warmth, the same atmosphere.

It felt like....home.

I dreamt i read Fajr in her living room while everyone was asleep. After that i got dressed and was planning on leaving for work without waking anyone, but my Gran was awake and insisted on making breakfast for me. I politely refused (becaue i generally do not have breakfast) but she continued insisting and so i accepted a cup of tea.

The alarm bloody goes off at that point - a submarine radar like sound from my phone - you know the sound im talking about, the one thats in all those movies set at sea - beebeebeeep beebeebeeeep beebeebeeeep - telling me it's 730am and another Monday is about to begin.

And as i end this post, the radio in the secretary's office sends out the tunes of REM's 'Losing my Religion'....hmmm interesting song to be listening to in Ramadan hey? - being the highlight of the Islamic Calender?

And thats it from me :)

Keep Well, Play nice, Stay happy and always try to experience life through the five senses.

zee.

Shhhh…the Technorati are watching

2006-10-10T22:09:00.000+02:00

All my life I've never liked the idea that there were ppl/groups out there watching ones every move - the CIA, FBI, Mossad, The Scorpions, KGB, The Receiver of Revenue, my mum, and God knows who else! - I couldn't handle the fact that someone somewhere out there knew intimate details of my life.

Here at home, with the introduction of the FICA BILL (Financial Intelligence Centre Act), the Receiver of Revenue (or any other party that is able to get access to the network) can learn all about a person's finances at the push of a button. Add this to the already existing information networks out there and you can practically learn all there is to know about a person. What car u drive, how much u earn, who u call, where u live, your eating habits, where u fill up gas, etc etc etc.

What's scarier is that if some unauthorized person were able to get access to the system, your life is an open book - your movements, your daily routine...heck with a little bit of digging, he would be able to find out where your kids go to school...a stalkers paradise.

When FICA was born, me being the paranoid freak that I am, decided that I would not divulge to the government where I stayed (not because I have anything to hide-rather as I just said, I didn't like the idea of Big Brother watching me)...so instead of registering my home address in Johannesburg, I registered my home address as the one in my little hometown...4 hours away!!
Lol, I remember my first conversation with the Bank clerk when I handed in my FICA documentation:

Clerk: Sir it says here your residence is ******. And you work in Pretoria? Is that correct?
Me: Yes.
Clerk: ok, im just checking.

After that I honestly thought I had the upper hand and that I beat the system - boy was I wrong.

Because now every time I needed to apply for something, be it a credit card, a few measly shares on the stock market, or even a simple mailbox, I had to have additional paperwork filled out. I needed an affidavit from my dad confirming that I resided at that particular house. I needed the originals so I had to somehow get it from my hometown to Johannesburg which always ended up being a real mission. And it had to be recent documentation so I couldn't just get a few signed and keep them in the event that I may need them in the future. So eventually I succumbed to the all mighty government (cause Lord knows I already have enough paperwork to contend with at work...I don't need that hassle at home) and so eventually registered my Johannesburg address with them - I get to live a hassle free life and they (the gov) get the info they require.

Of course, my dad gave me the ‘I told u so’ look.

At work we make extensive use of information systems that pertain to a client’s credit profile. Entering a few simple details of the client will throw out an entire financial history of that specific person. How well has he been paying his accounts? Has he been blacklisted? Handed over perhaps? What's the total value of accounts that he's indebted for etc etc etc. If I wanted, I could make use of a system called HAWK which would tell me exactly where a customer currently resides and if he's moved - where to.

Another system that I could get access to, is one in which extensive details of a persons accounts are kept. This will tell a person how you've paid each account held by you on a month to month basis. Your telephone bill, Woolworths account (our version of Marks n Spencer) and others, are all open to scrutiny to those who require it – for a price. It will tell you, not only the amounts that you've paid each month, but also in which months you've underpaid or perhaps skipped and if so by how much.

When I first starting blogging, I soon became aware, as do most bloggers at some point or another about 'technorati'. Technorati is an internet based company that tracks approx 56MILLION blogs on the web. It provides a number of stats pertaining to each blog and is thus able to determine what are the most talked about subjects, and by that token i would guess, would be able to draw inferences as to what people in general are thinking. An advertiser’s paradise.

Once again I hated the idea of someone watching me – this time in the blogosphere, so I CHOSE NOT TO register with technorati. I felt so smug at the time, once again feeling like I had cunningly out manoveoured Big Brother.

But last night, while browsing through sweet essence’s blog, I came across a technorati tag on the blog and I thought to myself: "green eyes, you silly silly girl- now they busy tracking all your movements in the blogosphere and all that u post"

Anyway, I clicked on the tag and it takes me to all the people that link to her. Now me being the vain person that I am, clicked on my own name just to see where it would take me.

My jaw dropped when up pops a screen with all sorts of stats bout MY BLOG! Even though I hadn't registered with them, they, 'the technorati', were still tracking me...BASTARDS!

And here I thought I had won the battle by a simple matter of choice...and a little voice in my head says: "so zee, who's da silly one now?" So after loathing in the disappointment of this new discovery for a few minutes, I figured that since I am being tracked I might as well get some benefit out of it and have now joined the technorati fad.

But there is some interesting stats on the technorati website...like the fact that I'm ranked 182’209 (now I'm not exactly too sure what the rank means but I'm guessing the lower u are the better) and comparing myself to a few other bloggers out there (yes I know I'm really vain), I realized I kick some serious blogger butt!!

But saaleha out does me (124’568) and Muhammad from Front Line fame is like a demi blogging god! Ranked 29337! Mak u da man!

So just remember that whatever you might do in the blogoshpere...’the technorati’ will always have their eyes on u.

Resistance is futile…

Ramadan Mubarak!

2006-10-01T02:07:00.000+02:00

Ramadan: One of the months on the Islamic calendar. This is also our fasting month

Mubarak:: Arabic word that literally means ‘Blessings’

Taraweeh: taraweeh are extra prayers performed at night during the month of Ramadan and takes about 1 ¼ hours to complete. The taraweeh consists of 20 rakaah’s (cycles) and is usually performed whilst following an imam. Each rakaah (cycle) consists of 4 parts:
Standing in Prayer
Bowing to the waist in Prayer
Prostration with hands, knees and forehead touching the ground
Sitting in Prayer

Witr: 3 rakaahs (cycles) performed at the end of the night as the closing off prayers

Sehri: sehri is eating a meal in the last hour of the night just before sunrise. Sehri is sunnah (way of the prophet). This is the first and last meal a muslim will have for the day until the fast is broken at sunset.

Jummah: Friday is the day of Jummah and literally means 'day of congregation'- a very special and holy day for muslims. A special Jummah Prayer is also made on Fridays which muslims will rearrange their schedules around just to make it for the prayer.
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QoD: “There’s nothing that will change someone’s moral outlook quicker than cash in large sums.” (Larry Flynt)

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Every so often I send out a ‘QoD’ (Quote of the Day) to about a 100 hundred different ppl via sms. The sms is meant to add some comic relief to the recipients day and at other times its meant to be a little thought provoking.

In the past week I sent out the above QoD by Larry Flynt (you know…the guy that owns Hustler Magazine??). I got 2 pleasant replies and as was expected, about a dozen “Have u no shame sending out a quote by larry flynt in ramadan and you’ll definitely burn in hell for doing something so irresponsible!!!!” type of replies :)))

Isn’t it amazing how we can just switch on the spirituality in this month and forget about it so easily once it comes to an end? Had I sent it after ramadaan I would have got a dozen replies saying how good the quote was! Lol, people are funny like that :)

People tend to ignore what’s important and almost always focus on what could be potentially ‘controversial’ – well at least in their eyes. Hmmm, maybe I should have said some great sheikh in the middle east had said it and im betting I would have got much more positive responses:)

But ok I gotta confess - I sent it out cause I knew it would be slightly controversial (even though there was no need for it to be seen in that way…but I knew) – and admittedly I felt a bit smug after receiving those replies. :)

Bottom Line – Larry Flynt was right irrespective of what he does for a living. And seeing that it is Ramadan, the month in which we are to take stock of our lives, its important to consider if and how our ethical and moral values can be swayed when confronted with materialism.

But ahhh yes, ramadaan is here and with it comes the taraweeh.

Taraweeh is difficult.

You stand, you listen, you follow.

I think I dread the taraweeh more than the fast during this month. On the first night of attending the taraweeh, I spent my time, in deep meditation, thinking deep meditative thoughts like:

“Man, can this Imam be reading any slower than he is right now” and

“Maybe I should have gone to the other mosque…I bet they gonna finish off earlier than we are” and

“This Imam is so mono-toned – im feeling so sleepy” and

“My back hurts” and

“I mustn’t forget to get those papers signed on Tuesday at work” and the list carries on and on

And have you have noticed what a false sense of relief it is to complete the 20 rakaahs of taraweeh on any particular night? Because after that you still have THREE more rakaahs of witr to complete :)

*zee looks at his readers*

Oh don’t give me that ‘I cant believe you just said that’ kind of a look…we all think it – I’m just saying it ;)

But that’s taraweeh – the important thing is to try as best as possible to focus your mind. But nothing helps more with focussing your mind than an Imam with a good voice. On the first night of taraweeh, there was this reciter, who read from rakaahs 11 – 16…blew my mind. I settled down so quickly. My restlessness faded away and my mind focussed on prayer with relative ease. It was amazing.

And lets not forget that with Ramadaan comes Sehri. It was exactly a year ago, one sehri when my microwave packed up on me…with 10 minutes to go before sehri would close and my fast would begin. I thought it was such a cruel joke for the forces that be to be playing on me!

And since I live alone, losing my microwave was like losing a close friend. It was a sad moment – 8 years together. ahhh good times…good times.

But a year later today, I have not replaced the microwave, and have actually become quite proficient at using the oven. Its healthier as well. So maybe my long friendship was meant to come to an end on that cold, sehri night, about a year ago. It was for the best I guess.

But yesterday we also had the first Jummah Prayers of the Ramadaan Month.

Yesterday, during the Jummah Prayers, as is the case sometimes, little kiddies will start walking up and down the prayer rows just passing the time until prayers are over. So yesterday, whilst I was standing in prayers, this little 4yr old came strolling down our line and stopped by me. I had my sunglasses with me on this particular day and left them on the floor in front of me. He looked down at the sunglasses and then up at me. Then again at the sunglasses and then back up at me. Now obviously I knew what was going through his mind!

The kid was going for my sunglasses, and it seemed, he was having a moral dilemma as to whether he should take it or not. But what could I do? I couldn’t pick up my shades because I was in a state of prayer (or at least my body was – my mind however was on the 4yr old) and I mean, I couldnt really kick the kid now could i?????

And next thing I know, the kid makes off with my pair of shades!

I spent 15 minutes after prayers looking for that little brat. Met his dad. The version the dad heard was that 'some uncle' gave it to him. kids!

And whats with the 'uncle' thing...im not that old...am i?

But while I poke fun about this and that, there is no doubt that this month is a truly blessed month. It’s a month when Muslims all over the world make new resolutions to be better/greater then themselves. Our real ‘new years resolutions’ are made during this month and if there was any doubt as to whether there was any goodness left in the world – we only have to look at the generosity of people during this month to renew our faith in mankind.

So this ramadaan try to make the best of your free time. Spend it well, pray hard and remember us all in your duaas InshaAllah.

Betawfiq.

I've been tagged!

2006-09-25T22:10:00.000+02:00

Ive been tagged by the lovely Cheh - and on a subject that I happen to love – MUSIC

tHe TaG:
'List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal/blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.'

The songs in my current playlist in the car include the following:

Promiscuous Girl – Nelly Furtado (this has got to be my favourite favourite song at the mo)

SexyBack – Justin Timberlake (not the usual Justin timberlake, but it grows onto u)

Fergi – London Bridge (catchy song)

AFI – Miss Murder (love the chorus)

Nerina Pallot – Everyones gone to war (my favourite line in this song is ‘for every man that’s wants to rule the world, there’ll be a man that just wants to be free')

Borderline – Michael Gray (love the beat)

Right where u want me - Jesse Mcartney (ok ok, so i like bubblegum music)

hmmm....i tag - Z, Saals, QL, Ruby, Cevris, Kimya and Green Eyes

ok i'll post dammit!!

2006-09-07T23:04:00.000+02:00

The one thing that’s going lead to the downfall of mankind is CLUTTER. Seriously.

I think mankind is going to drown itself in clutter before some crazed dictator (or some dumb ass democratically elected president of the, ahem, ‘free world’) gets the opportunity of pushing that little red button and nuking the whole damn planet!

As I sit here, I have a desk full of paper and a floor full of paper…you see I have managerial organization down to a fine art: Things I can do today - on my desk. Things I cant manage today – on the floor. Now this has got to be the most efficient system known to man!

But in the last couple weeks I have set myself the challenging task of becoming clutter free – or at least 90% free of it. So hopefully in a month or so ill be able to say that everything from my desk to my PDA task list is ‘C L U T T E R F R E E’.

Email is another one of those clutter nodes. 2 nights ago, I started clearing out my email inbox – I had a 169 unread emails. No word of lie. The problem was that I had stayed up to date with my all work related mails and ignored all socially related emails. 169 emails sounds like a hefty figure but really its not. If u work on an average of say 20 mails day, it means it was just under 10 days worth of mail. Than I have all those ‘read emails’ in my mailbox that I want to keep but don’t know where/what to store it under – so it just builds up and up in my inbox until it starts resembling my desk at work! So what did I do?

I selected some that I would like to read and the rest –

‘shift+del’

the problem is that I love email. I love all the forwarded email I get and of course the personal ones – and so it was a difficult thing for me to hit ‘delete’….even more difficult to simultaneously hold down ‘shift’ !

/me takes a deep breath at this point

Just thinking about it makes me feel overwhelmed. After organizing all the paper and emails and tasks on my pda – I still have all those unwanted files on my notebook to clear – and that’s gonna be a nightmare! You see, in the past a ton of ppl used to use my notebook, storing stuff and forgetting to delete it – leaving me with the problem.

But I have a month to reach my objective and I think ill be able to do it – that’s a month to remove the clutter AND to remain free of it thereafter!

My family as whole – immediate and extended – are amazingly efficient at limiting the clutter in their lives and because of this, there is immense peer pressure to be free of it as well!!! :) Take my dad for example – he has this little notebook that he carries with him wherever he goes, jotting down notes, reminders and tasks that he needs to complete urgently – and he gets it done. And he believes in getting it done immediately, no room for procrastination – which is something you got to admire.

As a last comment - clutter, impedes on your ability to be efficient at completing tasks. Get rid of the clutter and a few problems are taken care of all at once – i.e. clutter, inefficiency, and procrastination.

Trust me.

PS: this post is dedicated to

Saaleha, QL, Z and Ruby for starting a little discussion on my non-postingness in the comments page of the last post.

There i've posted.

:)

L I N K S

2006-08-23T23:23:00.000+02:00

Its time to update my links page once again – today I add one more link with another soon to follow.

Sweet Essence is quickly becoming one of my more personal favorites. It is the personal blog of Fatima. Fatima is a farm town girl turned city slicker. Some know her as belladonna and others know her as fati.

The green eyed farm girl packed her bags and left her little town to experience the bright lights of the city. There she enjoyed living the life of a student and later the life of corporate type when she landed a job with a BIG COMPANY in the heart of the city. This gave her the opportunity of experiencing the noise, the buzz, the atmosphere, the traffic, the people – and not to mention the morning coffee sessions that have become a norm in the workplace (alas no hot chocolate!). But then her company (or rather her division) moved to the northern suburbs where she got to experience the yuppie lifestyle for just a short period. I say short period cause about a month later she packed her bags once more, caught a cab, and moved back to the little town she calls home.

So green eyes is 21yrs old, lives for the company of good friends and has, as she calls them - “two menacing nephews” whom she adores deeply. Like any person in their 20-somethings, she has all sorts of decisions and choices to make. For one, she feels tempted to get back into a career that matches her chosen profession – i.e, law but that would mean, I’m guessing, moving back to the city. But we’ll leave time to decide what happens with that.

So now that she’s back at home, she helps out at her dads store, takes out the kiddies for drives, movies and the like – all the things a good aunt does and ahhh yes, she shops for CoCoNuTs!:)

Intelligent, hard working and studious –Now even though I’ve only known her for a few months, I can tell you straight away that these are the words that describe her. If she sets her mind on something, she does it, gets it done – unlike me, who always finds a means to procrastinate!

Hmmm…so what else? Did I mention she’s got green eyes? :)

Actually this is as much as I feel I can post without getting a lawsuit filed against me by the dazzling green eyed lawyer to be!

Its always good to have friends that are professionals….FREE ADVICE ;)

And what will happen to our city girl, leading the farm town existence? – hop on over to her blog and find out.

PS: As of yesterday, she is now also the proud aunt of a baby girl…yip she now has a niece :)

PeRsOnAL NoTeS

2006-08-13T16:39:00.000+02:00

CEVRIS: he did sound rather young :) At first I was shocked, then amused, but on the whole a leeetle confused!

FATIMA: did u send the email yet or did u chicken out? On another note – I hate being predictable!

KIMYA: didn’t work as well as I thought. I guess ill have to go bak to that courting manual!. Btw, when u say cute doctor friend – are we talking ‘female cute’ huh? :)

RUBY: QLC does so exist!

Z: thanx for the free advertising bud

QL: u should have come – it would have given me the opportunity to meet another blogger in the flesh! Virtual frends are nice, but meeting em in person is sooooo much better

FIDA: lol, I have no idea why the chicken crossed the road! Nice it made me smile.

SAMMY: I was beginning to wonder whether there was such a thing as email in Switzerland!

SAALEHA: The more I think about it, the more I realise that you should write em controversial articles for me.

Creative Advertising

2006-08-13T15:44:00.000+02:00

The advantage of having chicken pox is that u get to have a paid vacation – granted you are in quarantine and cant do anything really but watch tv, blog and read – but there is still no work involved.

However with writers block, you can scratch off blogging from that list because no matter how hard you try, whatever you write looks like shit. Even comments made on other blogs doesn’t quite have the feel and style that it should have. And I’m only writing all of this because I really don’t have anything else to say and the stuff I want to write about just doesn’t seem to want to come out right.

So after trying to write a decent piece on comparative, competitive and non-competitive advertising, I finally have given up on the idea of sounding intelligent and have decided to let a series of 3 print ads published not so long ago do the talking.

But just to throw a question out there – what do you think about competitive advertising? Good or Bad for the consumer?

BMW started it all off with:

Audi Responds:

Subaru delivers the final blow:

CAUTION: THIS BLOG MAY BE CONTAGIOUS

2006-08-08T00:18:00.000+02:00

The past week was one looooooong week. Attended a wedding tis wknd and as is the norm with Indian (Asian) weddings , the previous week was FILLED with pre-wedding functions. By the time Sunday Nite came I was exhausted. But whilst it was a busy week, I was still a bit surprised at how tired I really was.

That was all cleared up tis morning when I discovered I had chicken pox. Yes boys and girls - Chicken Pox! AT MY AGE! Can u believe it?

So I figured that since I could not go into work, I might as well make a holiday out of it – so packed my bags and drove down to my little hometown!

DAY 1 of living with the virus proved to be rather unexciting – 7-8 red spots on my body, resembling little mosquito bites and a little bit of nausea in the morning but other than that nothing really.

(http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infections/skin/chicken_pox.html)

The contagious period for the virus begins roughly 2 days before the rash appears and lasts until the rash is gone…which means everyone at the wedding is in serious shit cause I was there too!

a warning to those who have chicken pox already:
Anyone who has had chickenpox as a child is at risk for a complication later in life called shingles. After an infection, some of the varicella-zoster virus may remain inactive in nerve cells near the spinal cord. Many years later, the virus can reactivate and resurface as shingles. When it reactivates, it affects the nerve to the skin. Symptoms, such as a tingling feeling, itching, or pain followed by a rash with red bumps and blisters appear only in the area of the skin that the nerve goes to.
(Taken from the same website as above.)

Lets see how day 2 goes…

its flippant cold today

2006-08-02T12:03:00.000+02:00

NOTICE ANYTHING BOUT MY SIDEBAR!?

2006-07-26T23:27:00.000+02:00

Thanx to Tech Support, I finally have a SIDE side bar, instead of a BOTTOM side bar – thanx Mak, really appreciate it! YOU'RE THE MAN!
Isheeta, my junior techie also tried to resolve the problem, but it seemed that the hole I had dug for myself proved to be deeper than even she had expected! But seeing that she is the more good looking of the 2, I’ll give her an equal amount of brownie points for resolving the issue! Yes I know that is sooo typical of a guy, but hey, its my brownie points to give! ;)

But back to my sidebar – JUST LOOK AT IT! – isn’t it a work of art? Isn’t it amazing how it’s, just, well, THERE for a change :)

Now, I’ve always maintained that the Belgian Chocolate – Cote d`Or Bouchees is the closest thing to an orgasm! – and today, I can say that having a SIDE side bar is the closest thing to a Cote d’Or Bouchees!

And while we are on the topic, when writing this, I decided to go to the Cote d`Or website to perv over the chocolates and guess what I discovered? I CAN SPEAK FLUENT, uhhh, fluent… BELGIAN! – en die rede is dat ek kan baie goeie Afrikaans praat! (the reason is that I can speak very good Afrikaans)

Afrikaans is one of the ELEVEN national languages of South Africa and the similarities between this language and DUTCH are astonishing. I’ve heard people comment on the similarities but never thought much of it – well that is until I went on to the website today and actually found that I could navigate through the pages with relative ease – I even read a bit about the history of chocolate in Belgian Dutch! AWESOME AINT IT!?

Other than that I don’t really have anything else 2 say – although I still feel like writing a little bit more (is that strange?) - So it is with great regret that I end here for the night.

Take Care.

Could this really be true

2006-07-26T11:59:00.000+02:00

So here are one of those old emails making its rounds again - but can it be possible?

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.
Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assasinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assasinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.
Lincoln was shot at the theatre named 'Ford'.
Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln' made by 'Ford'.
Booth and Oswald were assasinated before their trials.
And here's the kicker.....

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Creepy huh?

Now i'm not really too sure if the facts are accurate, but i'm way 2 lazy to google it - so if someone's got the time, let me know how accurate it is.

Ciao4Now.

Emotions run high

2006-07-24T22:03:00.000+02:00

i've been meaning to write a little something on the Israel-Lebanon Crisis....wait did i just use 'crisis'? Did i just use the media's toned down version of what really is a WAR!? Me? Cant Be? Impossible.

But as i was saying - i've been meaning to write a little on the Israel-Lebanon WAR...the one sided war - but everytime i start typing out something, i just get so irritated at what's going on! Irritated at the fact that the US keeps on saying one thing and continues to do something else. Irritated at the fact, that Israel keeps on getting sympathy and the poor Palestinians catch the brunt of the accusations. Irritated at the fact that the world cries out for DEMOCRACY in the Mid East and finally when a government gets democratically elected in the region, Miss Condo- excuse me, Professor Condoleezza Rice goes around asking the world to boycott the Palestinians - including Humanitarian Aid! And now, i feel like hurling this notebook of mine against the wall, as i watch footage of Lebanon - where civillian casualties have exceeded 350!

As you can see, i am not in the correct frame of mind to write out a well poised article about the current situation. So instead i refer you to 2 fantastic articles which in a way explains my frustration.

The first, is from Maks Blog - US DOINGS ITS PART IN ISRAELS WAR

The second, is from Queen Lestat's Blog - WE WOKE UP TO WAR

Strangely Bizarre

2006-07-21T09:37:00.000+02:00

Everyday I look for something to make me laugh and today it came quite early – in fact, reading the Pretoria News Headlines this morning is what caused the outburst of laughter. The headline read:

“SA SHIP STOLEN”

No, not a boat – a SHIP – you know – a container carrying ship – those huge, massive, metal floating devices!

Now I suppose its quite a serious issue for the Namibian Ports Authority (since it was stolen from their port) and probably very serious for their defence force who are out at sea looking for it and probably serious for the company owning the ship and even more of a worry for the Insurance company doing the Insuring (if it was insured) – but I just think its freakin hilarious!

HOW DOES A SHIP GET STOLEN!? I MEAN IT’S A SHIP FOR GOD’S SAKE.

And moreover, i'd reeeely like to know what Captain Hook and his band of pirate loving criminals are planning on doing with this ship? Parking it off somewhere and then laying low for a while!?????

Man, this is too funny :)

Ahoy there Mattie! Steady as she goes! – (This last sentence has got nothing to do with anything, but I just felt like saying it. You know, getting into the spirit of things).

Yip, today is going to be a good day – I can feel it :)

Later!

zee

Guess who's in town!

2006-07-19T22:55:00.001+02:00

Leila Khaled, 70's icon, and one time poster girl for the Palestinian cause is in South Africa. She is accompanying a documentary made about her entitled: 'Leila Khaled - Hijacker'...oh yes i forgot to mention that she was the first woman to hijack a plane!

Probably one of the most fascinating things about her, is the ring on her finger. Look carefully at the photo below and you will notice that the ring on her finger has...no, not a diamond, but a BULLET! Leila made the ring from the pin of a grenade and it is this that i suppose defines her, describes her and illustrates what her purpose and lifes goal was and still is today.

This pic btw became the iconic photograph that made her the symbol of the Palestinian Resistance.

But besides being seen a revolutionary and hijacker, she was also seen as being truly feminine.

"She is the pin-up of armed struggle; like her hero, Che Guevara, Khaled had the glamour as well as the belief." (The Guardian, 26 January 2001).

Her sexuality was always emphasised and she is supposed to have been the inspiration for Leela, Dr Who's foxy sidekick in 1975.

Leila, the woman with the "deadly beauty", was part of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She underwent cosmetic surgery - just do it all over again - the hijacking of another plane! Leila opted to do the surgery without a general anaesthatic because, as she says in her book, "I have a cause higher and nobler than my own, a cause to which all private interests and concerns must be subordinated."

But 'is she a terrorist? "Whenever I hear this word I ask another question," she says. "Who planted terrorism in our area? Some came and took our land, forced us to leave, forced us to live in camps. I think this is terrorism. Using means to resist this terrorism and stop its effects - this is called struggle." She recalls in her memoirs thinking of the risk to children she saw on the plane she was hijacking, and telling herself: "We Palestinians are children too and we are a part of the human race."

But things seem to have changed for Khaled. "I no longer think it's necessary to prove ourselves as women by imitating men," she says. "I have learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist, and that she can fall in love, and be loved, she can be married, have children, be a mother. ' (The Guardian)

So to all you South Africans, if your plan was to go and catch the documentary playing at Hyde Park this wknd - 2 words:

"SOLD OUT"

Yip, no seats left - absolutely nothing! But, there is another alternative and probably a much more enlightening alternative - the documentary will also be showing in Soweto and Mayfair on Fri Night and Sat Afternoon respectively and the best part is that she will be there in person to be part of a little Q&A Session after the 'docie'

From the guys and gals i've spoken to, most seem keen to go to Soweto on Fri Night, so if u can make it, i highly suggest you come.

DIPPING BELOW THE RADAR

2006-07-14T00:31:00.000+02:00

Its 12:20 am and just got back from watching Superman.

Superman Rocks!

I honestly thought it was going to be a lousy show, but ended up going cause we had made plans in the weekend to watch it already – and ppl - I was more than impressed. It’s actually quite freaky how much of a resemblance there is between Brandon Routh and Christopher Reeve. But that’s all I’m gonna say on the topic.

I’m not really that tired, although I’ve had a hectic day – maybe its got a little to do with the fact, that as I sit here, on the floor, pounding the keys on my notebook, I’m finishing off the remains of my EIGHTH cup of coffee for the day!

Today I got to work a full hour earlier than usual. It’s amazing how much you can get done just by adding an extra hour to your day and ensuring that each successive hour after that is doused with caffeine – lots of caffeine. It was amazing – the paperwork got done (well almost), I had time to send out some emails, and still had enough time to get some additional tasks out of the way that I had relegated to the coming week.

On a different note, A big shout out to kimya, who gave me a good laugh this afternoon, when, after reading her email, I realised she still wasn’t sure exactly who I was and if I was who she thought I was – Kimya, lady, I thought after a month you would have pieced it together! ;)

But now that I’m back in the blogosphere and no longer below the radar, I must mention a few changes that have been made to my links page – two new links have been added and I’ve killed one.

I’ve linked Ruby and this will serve as an introduction to her (if u haven’t read it as yet) and Bilal is the other – read the post below for an introduction.
My good pal, z, has moved from Rarely Updates to Never Updates and so I had to let him go…sorry bud – but when you start again, you can reapply ;)

Now my criterion for linking is very simple:
1. Once I get to know u well enuf
2. Once I’ve diggin up enuf dirt on u! AND
3. Once, as has become a ‘Lost in Semantics’ tradition, I’ve posted a small profile (a sort of introduction) to u

So whilst I may not do it straight away – I’ll definitely get round to it (and there are def a good few ppl out there that I’d like to link!) – and naturally, the quicker I get to know u, the quicker ill link u – capice?

On that topic – ‘lazy_d’ – buddy, bud, pal, friend, captain – I cant link you because of the following stumbling blocks that have come my way:

1. I cant link you because the last time u commented on my blog was – oh yeah, that’s right – NEVER!
2. it would also be handy to leave a link to your blog when sending out email of this nature, because, well frankly, what do u want me to link to – your email addy????? ;))))

Lastly, CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHY MY SIDEBAR HAS FOUND ITSELF ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE – I leave the blogosphere for about a month and all hell breaks loose!!!!!! - How did this happen? Why to me? How do I fix it? Can somebody please tell me! it’s driving me nutz! – This is my version of the ‘I broke a nail and nobody loves me anymore’ scenario ;)

So figure it out and let me know!

Finally, should you feel like, here's a little needed info on those that link here:
links-links-links
another super link
things have really changed

That’s it from me – I’m off to bed.

The Enigma that is Bilal

2006-07-11T22:13:00.000+02:00

The next link to be added to the illustrious few is BilalsBlog .

Bilal is a Globe Trotter – a citizen of the world, an adventurer, a tourist, an explorer, a traveller, a free spirit, a wanderer – a man with a love for the outdoors.

Bilal is 24 and has done, seen and achieved more than most ppl I know. And it is because of this, that Bilal makes for very interesting and entertaining company…it is also because of this, that he has made lots and lots of enemies (but more about that later!!!!) :)

One thing about Bilal though, is that there is a phenomenal amount of peer pressure involved in being his friend – no really! – before Bill packed his bags and left the the coastal habitat which he called home throughout his campus years, and moved to the concrete Jungle we call Joburg in search of the ‘Green Gold’, guys were quite happy to go out for a movie, have some popcorn and even a cup of coffee afterwards…now we have guys climbing mountains, jumping off planes, bridges and buildings. We have scuba diving licenses being acquired at a faster pace than tuna fish being caught off the nets of a Chinese fishing trawler! We have guys planning all sorts of road trips and making arrangements for travel abroad to all sorts of amazing destinations…Morocco, Tanzania, Turkey, The Far East, Brazil and a countless number of other beautiful regions.

That being said, what happens when you eventually crack under the weight of all this peer pressure being exerted on you? Answer – you start a HATE BLOG. Yes ladies and gentleman, Bilal is the only person I know that has an ENTIRE blog dedicated to smearing his good name. Your popularity is unquestionable, once you’ve achieved the highest form of praise known to mankind – HATE MAIL

Now I must admit, that when I first came to learn of the infamous anti-Bilal Blog, I thought it was a prank started by one of the guys/gals in the circle. Why would I think this?
Well, for starters, I got the link to the AntiBlog through none other than Bilal’s Blog!!…who in their right minds advertisers a blog that attempts to do a character assassination on them!?:) Apparently Bilal! :)
Its only in the last 2 to 3weeks or so that I’ve come to learn that it is in fact a real real hate blog (making it even more impressive!)…which also kinda makes me feel very stupid now seeing that I, well… kinda… in a way, commented on the blog – at the time playing along with it. Put Simply – I was not kind! Sorry Dude, but I hope you know me well enough by now, not to have taken my comment seriously…my comment was a public statement, so consider this a public apology.

Btw Bilal, how do you get so much leave? ;)

Cheers for now,
zee

Silly Joke #5

2006-06-13T20:48:00.000+02:00

I almost forgot about my SJ Series until, Ish, thru a passing comment reminded me of it.

Today's Silly Joke, is in the form of a cartoon and is courtesy of Ruby. Before I post the joke, here’s a little introduction to Ruby:

Ruby is one of those super-intelligent women who are only destined for great things. She’s 23 (I think), busy with a masters in Bio-something and will most probably end up doing a Phd in something or another – u cant fight destiny.

Ruby, is of Indian decent and because of this little fact, she now has the whole marriage thing on her head –

A little need to know info on Indian Culture:
There comes a time in your life (between 20 and 25) when all Indians must get married – it’s an unwritten rule but spoken plenty. Your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, long lost relatives, the uncle nobody speaks about, friends and acquaintances all come together to play cupid. Now you may think I’m exaggerating but I’m not – this happens all over the world – just ask an Indian friend of yours if you have one and it’ll be confirmed.

As a case in point, lets take Ruby – Ruby could write a book about the do’s and dont's on blind dates. She is in search of Mr Right, which is obviously a very difficult thing to come by, since guys will be guys and are therefore bound to muck up sometime or another – its in our genes, so we cant fight it either…which could also mean that’s its not really our fault:)

So Ruby, is in search of Mr Right (as is the case with every woman out there) and has been on dozens of blind dates set up by friends of hers – needless to say none of them ended being Mr Right. She’s now at a point in her life where she’s a bit dismayed that her friends don’t really know her in the sense that they’ve set her up with all the wrong types of guys.

She also believes that guys are a bit intimidated by intelligent women – she says that just uttering the words “Masters Degree” is enough to scare a guy off and possibly even cause him to leave the country!

I ended up having coffee with her one morning and I mentioned to her something I had read a while back on Isheeta’s blog – she posts as “Indian Girl Dating”) – Ish, basically said something to the effect of (not sure of the exact wording she used):
If only there were still a thing as arranged marriages – it would have been so much easier than going on date after date...
After I repeated this to Ruby, I saw her eyes widen slightly and than she looked at me and said – u know, that’s true, it would have been so much easier….

And now for the silly, silly cartoon:

man, i think that is so brilliant... i couldnt stop laughing! :)

Through a Mother's Eyes

2006-06-10T18:19:00.000+02:00

Like I had mentioned in an earlier post, I had started reading “Our Generation” by Zubeida Jaffer. Since then, I have only managed to finish about a third of the book. The week has been so hectic and as usual I’ve been only getting to bed at 1230 – 1am, which kinda like makes it impossible to get in a good ‘read’ session before knocking off. I end up reading a few pages, before feeling the drowsiness set in, and before I know it, the day has started all over again.

But, the book, thus far, has not left me feeling disappointed. She’s a great writer (being a journalist by profession) and describes the ‘struggle’, not only through the eyes of an activist, but through the eyes of a mother as well. And this is what grips my fascination. Every action taken, is followed by a thought as to how it would affect her child.

What follows is an excerpt from the book – read the whole thing from start to finish and tell me what you think

‘The lieutenant turns his attention to me. “Vat haar weg!” (Take her away) he orders one of his men, who drags me off the pavement and across the street to where a police van is waiting. I feel like one of the drunks they toss into the vans on a Friday night when they come speeding down our back street. He pushes me into the back of the van with no regard for the baby in my arms.

Beads of sweat gather on her tiny brow. She is so unusually quiet. With one arm, I hold her tightly against my breast. With the other, I try to find a grip on the roof of the police van. They are driving at a tremendous speed. I concentrate all my efforts on ensuring that I am not flung across the van, hurting my child. I am stiff as a board as they swing around the corners, making their way to Wynberg Police station. And all the while her round eyes look up at me. She is so unusually quiet. I expect her to wail. But she is quiet. As if she understands.

For a moment I wonder if she will one day regret this life into which she has been born. No frills and soft cots for her. Just motion. Constant motion. From one place to another. For the past five years, the pressure has been relentless. Detentions, arrests, beatings, shootings, teargas. But then I was on my own. Now I have her. A child, nine weeks old, with a tough body but a soft heart who is sending me a message: Handle with care.’

We Need Justice

2006-06-08T10:47:00.000+02:00

i came across an article yesterday which i found on Mak's blog - my link - Informed and Dangerous will take u there. i think this is a must read for everyone.

To be truly part of the Global Village, it's imperative that we understand this 'community' that we live in - and not just those aspects of the community we'd like to understand. What follows is an excerpt from ths article. click on the link below to read the full article - which you have to click on

"American taxpayers give Israel three billion dollars every year. The money goes for weapons. When I came here I was surprised to see poor, homeless people. Your country needs to care for these people. I think if ordinary people here knew what was happening to ordinary people in Palestine, they would be more compassionate. We need food, water and homes. We need work and access to the world. We need justice." - Fida Qeshta

Fida Qeshta, The Electronic Intifada, 3 June 2006

I’m currently on my first visit to the United States. I find most Americans don’t know much about the lives of Palestinians like me.

My family and I live in Rafah. On January 21, 2004, our neighbor,Abu Jamil, woke us at 2:00 AM. He asked for help because the Israeli military came to bulldoze his home. My mother and I helped his family to empty their house. By 6:00 AM it was demolished.

I took a shower and studied for an exam. I made tea for everyone. I thought they wouldn’t destroy more houses, but soon my grandmother, my aunt, my uncles and cousins appeared, because their homes had just been demolished. We all sat in one room. I thought we were safe although I heard bulldozers outside, but soon our neighbor warned us that they had started destroying our home. Everyone left the house. I helped my grandmother because she has trouble walking. My mother passed out and couldn’t get up, but I dragged her to a safer place.

Then I realized I forgot my bag with all my important papers. I returned home to get it, and just as I left, the house’s last concrete blocks fell right behind me. That day Israeli bulldozers destroyed 50 homes in our neighborhood.

Since then, we have moved seven times. I have two brothers, four sisters and my parents. It’s hard because we are never in our own home.

Since 1967 Israel has demolished 12,000 Palestinian homes. During this uprising, Israel has demolished 2000 homes in Rafah, mostly near the border with Egypt, and 3,000 houses in the Gaza Strip. In Rafah 3,000 people remain homeless.

The Israelis say they destroyed homes in Rafah because they hid tunnels for smuggling weapons. Do 2000 houses in Rafah hide tunnels?Israel’s real reason for flattening entire neighborhoods was to build a wall, twice as high as the Berlin Wall, on the border between Egypt and Palestine.

I once asked a man who lived in an isolated home far from the border why they demolished his house? He said that the bulldozer driver told him, “To make you suffer.”

After my home was demolished, I was inspired by the example of theAmerican activist Rachel Corrie who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, and my friends and I decided to organize to help families near the border. But I wanted to do more. I started working with children, and succeeded by opening Life Makers, a children's educational center. We started with 40 children and now we have 300.

Many of the children have been traumatized. Some of their homes have been bulldozed, and their family and friends killed. So we try to teach them to play nonviolent games and to act like children.

Most Americans think we are free after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza. But since then more than 50 Gazans have been killed by Israeli missiles. The Israelis left Gaza’s land, but they still occupy the air.Gaza is like a prison, with only one exit, to Egypt.

I am asked most why Palestinians voted for Hamas. The US government sent observers to monitor our elections. They accepted Hamas as a participant. Hamas was democratically chosen and that must be respected. Some of the Palestinian Authority was corrupt. They lost the people’s trust. Hamas’ slogan was ‘Rebuilding and Change’, and for several years they have been working on building social infrastructure and improvements that people see in their daily lives. I believe this was why they won.

Hamas needs to be given a chance first. Instead, the world is punishing us all – no salaries, food, gas, medicine, and no money transferred from outside. I know some families who now eat just one meal a day.

American taxpayers give Israel three billion dollars every year. The money goes for weapons. When I came here I was surprised to see poor, homeless people. Your country needs to care for these people. I think if ordinary people here knew what was happening to ordinary people in Palestine, they would be more compassionate. We need food, water and homes. We need work and access to the world. We need justice.

When Palestinians have justice there will be peace. [source]

Obviously Unprepared

2006-06-05T22:27:00.000+02:00

My Profile Pic

2006-06-05T16:19:00.000+02:00

As of today I have decided to adopt the Chinese symbol for luck as my signature – well to be technical it’s actually a ‘kanji’ symbol for luck. Kanji, is Chinese characters in the Japanese language…don’t ask – I’m still trying to figure that one out myself! :)

To be honest, I’m not even sure why I chose it. There’s something about it that just fascinates me. The weird thing though, is that I don’t really believe in luck, even though phrases like, “I’m feeling lucky today” and “Luck smiles on me once again” are phrases that I use over and over.

But no, I don’t believe in luck – I believe that a person gets what he/she wants through determination and a healthy dose of Divine Intervention.

Of course there are those who will say that what I call 'Divine Intervention', is 'Luck' to somebody else. That may be so, but I view them as two entirely different things.

Luck is based on chance – you have no way of changing the outcome – nobody does. Divine Intervention on the other hand requires the belief that there is a Divine Being out there who could change the condition of an individual or for that matter, the condition of a people.

So yes, I’m still plagued by why the symbol attracts me to it so much. I wish I could say its just aesthetics, but no…there is something else to it.

Take Care and Keep Well.

Google is my new fascination

2006-06-03T16:58:00.000+02:00

To say that I’m a BIG fan of Google would be an understatement. If Google was a superstar, I would be the insane stalker! :)

Yes, I know it’s been around for a while now, but I’ve never really experimented with all that Google has to offer until just recently. I’ve tried the standard, image and news search engines…but that’s where it stopped.

But now I’m at a stage of my ‘www-ness’ where I find myself clicking more and more on…well, ‘more’!! - you’ll find this link next to the ‘news’ link on the Google site. There you’ll find a host of things to keep your little minds busy – check it out.

For the Astronauts in all of us: Google Mars

For the FBI Agents in all of us: Google Earth

For the Statisticians in all us: Google Trends.

Google Trends is my favourite Google link at the mo. It allows you to see what people in general are searching for. Really cool, really nifty.

But maybe you couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about what ppl are searching for and looking at Mars pictures aint your cup of tea. Maybe you just don’t like Google and all you’re really looking for is something to get you through the hectic day…in that case you need to breathe (to achieve a state of zen) and check out this site (to relieve stress): Bubblewrap

Take Care.

PoEtRy

2006-05-23T20:45:00.000+02:00

I’ve never been much of a poetry lover – never really understood it, never really appreciated it and could never seem to 'see' what the poet wanted me to 'see'.

But once in a while I’ll stumble across a poem that leaves me speechless, once in a while a poem will catch me off guard and once in a while a poem will leave me dumbfounded…dumbfounded as to how a few simple sentences, placed in just the right way, can have such a profound effect on a person.

Two nights ago I started reading “Our Generation” by Zubeida Jaffar. The preface to the book was such a poem by Njabulo Ndebele. I must have read it a dozen times, each time finding myself more absorbed in it than the previous time:

Be gentle on my mind
please do be gentle,
soft;
do not crowd my mind
with studied images of my past;
let me feel it first:
do not display my carved rituals
at the British Museum,
for little do they say;
let me feel them first.

It is the fairy tale in me,
the story book
that is the pure tale of my being.
Do go gentle on my mind,
softly please,
soft.

If I’m not mistaken, Njabulo Ndebele - Professor Njabulo Ndebele is the current Vice Chancellor of UCT (University of Cape Town).

Let me know what you think.

Enjoy the day.

Professor Virginia Tilley : Funding Cut-Off

2006-05-22T19:32:00.000+02:00

I found this article rather interesting and thought i might as well share it with the rest of you.

Virginia Tilley is associate professor of Political Science and International Relations, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock. She is currently at the Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, South Africa

Professor Virginia Tilley : Making (Non) Sense of the Funding Cut-Off --Hamas and Israel's "Right to Exist"

CounterPunch May 12, 2006

To the great consternation of most of the world, the European Union, followed now by Norway and Canada, has halted payments to the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The stated reason is that Hamas has not recognized Israel's "right to exist" or "renounced violence," but the action so violates all common sense that its logic requires our closer scrutiny.

Let us first be clear: no conceivable good can come from this policy. It will slash the PA's capacity to govern a shattered and desperate population. It will wreck the capacity of Hamas to mediate and contain tense factional divides. It could even demoralize and destroy the Palestinians' long-standing commitment to democracy, ruining Palestinian political stability and therefore any possibility of peace negotiations. So why impose sanctions that can only result in dangerous disintegration of the political situation?

A certain withered diplomatic logic does underlie this measure. The PA itself was invented in 1995 to administer Oslo's implicit two-state solution. Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel's "right to exist" would seem to negate the diplomatic agreement that established the terms of its own authority. Until it agrees to those terms, the international community might deem that Hamas has rendered the PA's legitimacy uncertain.

Unfortunately for its proponents, this rationale has crashed on one glaring pitfall: the premise that Israel itself supports the terms of Oslo or the Road Map. Prime Minister Olmert has openly declared the "Road Map" a dead letter. His stated policy of "ingathering" settlers into the major West Bank settlement blocs is accepted by everyone as signaling Israel's intent permanently to annex major portions of the West Bank. The advancing Wall and settlement construction are ample material evidence that this plan is Israel's real program and is already half-achieved. No one disagrees that these developments signify permanent territorial dismemberment of any Palestinian "state." No one disagrees that the terms of Oslo have vanished like the morning mist.

It must therefore be evident even to the EU, Norway, and Canada that Israel has negated the diplomatic agreement that established the terms of its recognition by the Palestinians. So why pretend that Israel has not openly cast onto the trash heap of history the very peace deal that these countries now insist Hamas endorse?

The first answer is too obvious to belabor: craven capitulation to US pressure. The entire international community has been cajoled or threatened into continuing lip service to the Road Map while standing by passively as the US and Israel render the Road Map obsolete. Diplomatic nonsense always requires some political or moralistic palliative, however. The cover story is that Hamas's recognizing Israel's "right to exist" and abandoning armed struggle will somehow restore the diplomatic conditions of the Road Map, trigger comprehensive Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, and allow peace finally to break out. Let us take this argument step by step.

First, it is simply unbelievable. All agree that Israel's withdrawal of major settlement blocs in the West Bank (especially, the major cities of Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, and Gush Etzion) is not foreseeable. The Israeli government itself has declared them permanent. No international actor or combination of actors has the political will and/or clout to change Israeli policy. Israel will not withdraw the major settlement blocs under any circumstances short of a national emergency. Hamas's suddenly waxing nice will not constitute that emergency.

Second, the argument adopts specious Israeli claims about Arab logics that only dwindling ranks of Israel's die-hard supporters still believe. Israeli propaganda holds that Arab "hatred" for Israel is irrational, born solely of Judeophobia, religious zealotry, and cultural backwardness, and that tough measures can therefore leverage Arab capitulation to reality even while the occupation continues. In this view, Israel's hold on the West Bank is not really an "occupation," serving a program of land annexation, but only a benign "administration," forced on Israel by collective Arab and Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel's "right to exist."

The funding cut-off endorses this fantasy in holding that Hamas has rejected Israel's authentic "promise of peace" due to its rejectionist Islamic dogma and not because Hamas has graphic evidence that Israel has no intention of permitting Palestinians a viable state. In this twisted view, cutting vital funds should make Hamas rethink this "irrationality," abandon its "extremism," recognize Israel's "right to exist," and end all hostile actions toward it. Hamas and the PA will then be rewarded (it is hinted vacantly) with a return to the Road Map.

Aside from its transparent tomfoolery (full awareness the US and Israel are eliminating the conditions for the Road Map as quickly as possible), deeper problems plague this papery notion. For if we look more closely at what Hamas is being asked to do, none of it makes sense either.

What does a "right to exist" mean exactly? There is no "right to exist" for states under international law. The formula has arisen in international diplomacy uniquely regarding Israel. It does not mean simply diplomatic recognition, which is the "fact" of existence. It does not mean recognizing Israel's "right to self-determination," either, or we would be using that famous term.

Let us pretend for a moment that Hamas is being asked to recognize Israel in the normal diplomatic sense. In this case, however, the EU position is unsupportable, because diplomatic recognition of a state routinely requires one bit of vital information: "right to exist" where? Israel's borders are not set. Even its plans for those borders are not known; with impressive brashness, Mr. Olmert has announced that we will not know until 2010.

It is entirely legitimate for Hamas to require firm confirmation of Israel's borders before recognizing it. It should also be incumbent on the international community to confirm where those borders will be before insisting that Hamas recognize Israel's "right" to them. Otherwise, recognizing Israel's "right to exist" could be construed to mean that Israel has a "right to exist" within whatever borders it chooses in coming years.

As the Palestinians stand to lose most of what is left of their homeland to this fuzziness, Hamas is refusing to endorse it. Is this extremist Islamic intransigence, warranting a funding freeze? Let us run a little thought experiment: Would Canadian, or Norwegian, or English, or French governments be called on the international carpet for not recognizing the "right to exist" of a neighboring state that is, with military force, settling its own ethnically defined population within contiguous walled cities and enclaves in Canadian, Norwegian, English or French national territories, while promising to carve those nations into "cantons?"

Absent clear borders, recognizing Israel's "right to exist" must mean something else. And of course it does. Clearly implicit in the term is Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. In other words, the "right" Hamas is being required to endorse is that Israel can legitimately compose itself as a state in Palestine that is populated and run primarily by Jews, primarily for Jews. Such a state would thus be authorized by Hamas to sustain whatever laws and policies necessary to preserving its Jewish majority, even rejecting the return of Palestinian refugees mandated by international law. Or building a massive Wall on Palestinian land designed to protect the Jewish state from the "demographic threat" of mass non-Jewish citizenship-i.e., the Palestinians. Israel's would also be legitimized for past actions on the same agenda, such as expelling the Palestinians from their homes in 1948, and for its future plans, such as confining Palestine's indigenous people to cantons.

Israel's leadership has declared all these measures necessary to preserve Israel as "a Jewish and democratic state," as phrased in Israel's Basic Law (and reiterated by Mr. Sharon, Mr. Olmert, and almost every Israeli party across the political spectrum). Yet it is not the fact of this open policy of ethnic cleansing, but Israel's right to pursue it, that is expressed in the phrase, "right to exist."

Hence bitter reluctance by the PLO, the Arab states, and much of the Muslim world to do so for many decades. They abandoned that position in 1989-90, as a pragmatic gesture toward a two-state solution. Cannot the EU then insist that Hamas recognize Israel's "right to exist" if the PLO, the PA, and all other governments in the world have recognized it?

The problem is that the quid pro quo that supported this recognition, formalized in the Oslo process, is now clearly wrecked by Israel's unilateral annexations of land. Carving the West Bank into cantons has eliminated any hope of a viable Palestinian state. The two-state solution is not working. In these conditions, should Hamas recognize Israel's "right to exist" if it is recognized to be eliminating Palestinian sovereignty altogether?

The more embarrassing problem, however, is that the EU itself has not explicitly recognized Israel's "right to exist" in this sense. Nor has Canada, or Norway. The United Nations has not done so, either. They haven't, because they can't.

This may take some people by surprise, but the UN has not used the term "Jewish state" since 1947. Resolution 181 then called for a "Jewish state" and an "Arab state," with gerrymandered borders designed to craft Jewish and Arab majorities in each state. But the attempt was rendered obsolete when Zionist forces established "Israel" on a much greater swath of territory that had, in total, held a substantial Arab majority, and expelled most of the Arab residents. As refugees, according to the Geneva Conventions, those Arab residents have the right to return to their homes, villages, towns and cities. But their return would eliminate the Jewish majority in what became "Israel," so Israel hasn't allowed this.

Hence the UN cannot confirm Israel as a Jewish state (i.e., a state that can legitimately sustain a Jewish majority) without contradicting international law regarding the right of refugees. When the UN refers to "Israel" today, it does not understand Israel as the "Jewish state" in the old ethnic-majority terms of 1947, because Israel can be granted no "right" to an ethnic demography that would prevent the return of refugees.

Also, times have simply changed. In 1947, ethnic nationalism still made some belated sense, although it was already discredited by the dreadful abuses wreaked by Germany and Japan. Today, recognizing the "right" of any state to compose itself legally as an ethnic-majority state would clearly flout UN conventions on human rights and non-discrimination. The UN and EU therefore cannot openly endorse Israel's right to compose itself as one. It would make hash of international efforts in Rwanda, the Sudan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and many other crisis spots.

So the US has lured the EU, Canada, and Norway into a trap. If they hold that Hamas must recognize Israel as a Jewish state (with a right to preserve an ethnic-Jewish majority), then they must state clearly that it endorses ethnic-majority governance. But them themselves cannot explicitly endorse Israel's right to ethnocracy, because it would contradict international law as well as its own diplomacy in a host of other conflict zones, so on what grounds does they require Hamas to do so?

Worse for them, they are adhering to international norms in insisting that the State of Palestine must comprise a stable democracy that secures equal rights for all its citizens irrespective of religion or race. But if they hold Palestine to this standard, then why are they not holding Israel to the same standard?

But if they did hold Israel to that standard, then the entire rationale for a two-state solution would evaporate. The Road Map is based on the supposition that the only peaceful solution in Palestine is to establish one state for Jews and another for everyone else. If Israel's "right to exist" does not entail sustaining a Jewish majority (which necessitates discriminatory legislation, ethnic cleansing, land grabs, and social engineering), then the ethnic logic supporting two states disappears. Why agree to compose two secular-democratic states sitting next to each other in this small land? No one can articulate an answer, because ethnic demography is their only rationale.

So what are the EU, Norway and Canada requiring Hamas to do? Recognize Israel as an ethnic state with a "right to exist" wherever it decides to set its borders-even though doing so would not only mean Palestinian national suicide but would violate principles that govern their own diplomacy as well as their own internal laws and values about nondiscrimination? Or is Hamas supposed to evade the issue by recognizing Israel's "right to exist" simply as a normal state, even though "normal" (non-ethnic) status would then obligate Israel to permit Palestinian refugees to return-thus implying that the EU, Norway and Canada do not support Israel in sustaining a Jewish majority?

This conundrum should have diplomats, parliamentarians, and foreign ministries huddled in their back rooms trying to sort out their own positions, rather than attempting to starve the Palestinians into Hamas's capitulation. For it is not only the funding freeze that has become rampant nonsense. The entire Road Map logic has become nonsense, too.

May its dutiful proponents in foreign capitals lie sleepless in their beds contemplating their own confusion and the terrible bloody consequences it is likely to wreak.

The Economy for Dummies

2006-05-19T17:34:00.000+02:00

This is one of the oldest emails I have but never get tired of reading it.

SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows; the Government takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have 2 cows; the Government takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The Government takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM: You have 2 cows; the Government takes both, shoots one, milks the other and throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

Things have really changed!

2006-05-17T22:11:00.000+02:00

So in my spare time I’ve been doing some ‘catching up’ reading of some of the blogs I frequent and woweeee – things have really changed! :)

So whats new I here u say? Well for one, BF, the Canadian, has now decided to explore religion and politics on his blog…surprise surprise! The ever pleasant sisters, Zephra and Valerie have given their blogs a facelift (making mine look so boring in comparison). Ruby, who’s new to the blogosphere (and who does not want her blog publicised) seems to be getting the hang of the ‘blog thing’ – she’s got a pink background btw…typical of a girl hey Ruby ;) Bilal continues his travels, Saaleha continues chasing the Pulitzer and z, has not posted a single thing since I’ve linked him (ok, so that isn’t anything new!). Mak’s blog has a busier look to it than ever and Isheeta (Indian Girl Dating) decided to start a new blog which can only be accessed if you have the secret password – ooooooooo, now this definitely requires an entire paragraph to be dedicated to it - so read on after I skip a line…

You know you’ve reached the next stage in blogolution when you decide to apply a password control system to your blog… you know your blog has evolved when obtaining hits on your site becomes secondary to restricting entry on to your blog!!!!!! When priority number one is CONTROL. Now if the question on your mind is ‘Why??’ – “Why on Earth would she block off and isolate herself from the rest of the planet, the universe and any other parallel universes out there?” – than hop on over to her original blog and read her last entry…my link will take u there. This girl never seizes to amaze me :) When I grow up, I also want a password controlled blog! :)

Have also been reading some new blogs…its amazing how different people are from one another – u have the serious, the funny, the stressed, the intellectual heavyweights, the not so intellectual heavyweights, the paranoid, the frustrated, the happy and the oblivious…and all seem to make for entertaining and thought provoking reading.

PS: I’m selling Ish’s password – bids start at a $1000….ok, the USD is going down the tubes, so lets say €1000. Don’t worry Ish, ill split the takings with u;)

Have a great day!

Another Super Link

2006-05-14T18:08:00.000+02:00

The next link to be added to my ‘privileged’ few is to the awesome 'Front Line'>

The author, m. aka Mak, aka Muhammed aka Muhammed Kariem has been a good friend of mine since campus days and hence I could probably dedicate an entire blog to the man! But I figure what follows should be sufficient enough to introduce him to the rest.

Mak is a Marketing whiz, PR Extraordinaire, activitst, socialist, family man and IT genius all rolled up into one…put simply – MAK IS THE MAN!

Mak and I protested together, campaigned together, did social work together and got involved in student organizations together. Campus ended - I exchanged my ‘placard’ for a calculator and became a slave to the capitalist system. Mak on the other hand kept his ‘placard’ and continued to voice his opinion on matters that were closest to him – and thus continues to be an inspiration to all those around him.

Mak currently works in the field of media and marketing for a really really big firm

The name of his blog,'FRONT LINE', originated from a song sung by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.

Check out his blog for more.

PS: One more link still to come...

The Travel Bug

2006-05-12T22:43:00.000+02:00

The thing I like most is travel. I love it. Agreed, I haven’t done as much travelling in recent times as I had done in the past but it is still something that is always on my mind. When I’m bored, or daydreaming, or staring at the ceiling just before I doze off, I think of places far away (and places just around the corner). I think about past experiences – what I loved the most, what I hated, what I wished I had done and what I regretted not having done in new unchartered areas.

Maybe this is why the weather channel is my third most favourite channel to watch (after FTV and MTV!). It’s great to look at the weather and say “Oh, I see Rome has sunny weather today” – and somehow feel so much closer to a place that is miles and miles away from where I am. I gloat every time I see London’s weather, knowing that the weather in Johannesburg kicks ASS. I smile everytime they predict below zero temperatures for New York as it brings back fab memories of the city I loved so much when I was young. That smile however is short lived. Now when I think of the NY, I think Bush, I think Iraq, I think Guantanamo Bay, I think Nicaragua, I think Afghanistan…I lose any feeling for wanting to go back to the States.

In the near future, I would like to visit China, the Far East and Morocco. Locally, I would like to visit Richards Bay and Stellenbosch.

Btw, I watch FTV for the –ahem- FASHION ;)

Ciao!

No i did not die!

2006-05-11T14:33:00.000+02:00

How do people manage to find the time to live in the blogoshere and the real world all at the same time. I can only live one life at a time – so for the past few months I’ve been enjoying the real world – full of real problems, real people and real happenings. While the real world has its own share of problems and complications, I actually find it more relaxing and calming on the nerves than life in the blogosphere.

In the blogosphere, there’s real pressure to come up with new material every-single-day. Your brain practically goes into overdrive to come up with something worth blogging about or something that you hope people will enjoy reading about. Theres only so much you can write about as regards work and what you did on the weekend – and I wasn’t prepared to write about that again!

Another difference is the persona you take on in this world vs the other. The person I am in this world is so different from the person I am in the flesh – not good, not bad, just different – personally, I don’t think you can truly know a person unless you’ve met them in the flesh. Also, people tend to be more ‘extrovert-ish’ or ‘introvert-ish’ in the blogoshpere than they would otherwise have been in the real world. Again, I don’t think that’s really a big deal – i’m just stating the obvious

I would like to think that writing helps bring these 2 distinct persona’s together – making the individual stronger through the experience of blogging – haven’t been doing it for too long but would like to think that there is some personal benefit from it.

Hope everyone has been doing well. Will try to do some ‘catch up’ reading of everyone’s blogs.

Till the next post. Ciao!

LINKS LINKS LINKS

2006-02-14T21:08:00.000+02:00

So in effort to make my blog ‘smart’, I’ve decided to add a few links to it. I thought of adding 4 links at a time – not really sure why, but I figure its better than 3 and not as overdone as 5.

And the winners are……………….

The first link I have to add and believe me, this specific one has been long overdue, is the one to ‘Chronicles of an Exhausted Mom’. This is the home of Zephra. Zeph is married, has 4 kids and is a SAHM. Zeph is probably one of the nicest ppl I’ve met thus far in the Global Village. She was my first commentor and hence my first blog friend! Zeph is way friendly and tries to please everyone and at the same time hopes everyone will just get along! Now this could be a blessing or curse – still haven’t made up my mind about that as yet! :) A little feel good story about zeph: Zephra, as I understand it, lost contact with her sis during the childhood yrs and just in the last year or so has reunited with her…the makings of a good book hey!? Trot over to her blog and read the full story – truly inspirational.
Its good to know that there is a person like her out there in the world – the world is surely a better place for it. I also visit her sis’s blog every now and then and it’s also an amazing read – check out her sis at ‘Adventures in Parenting’

The second link I have to add is to 'Round Table'. This is the home of z – I’ve know z for at least 3-4 years but have only got to know him really well in the past few months. Its surprising how much we have in common…come to think of it – its actually a bit scary to know!! Unfortunately he rarely updates his blog, which makes me question why I’m putting him on my links page in the first place *hint hint*. Z is budding lawyer (always good to know at least one of them) but cant seem to make up his mind whether he’d like to stay in the profession or pursue some other goal. If you think I have issues, than wait till u meet z!!!!!!!

The third link is to the Home of Isheeta, who really does do justice to the name of her URL, i.e "DesiCupcake":). I’ve known Ish for a very short time but she is quickly becoming one of my most liked people and hence scores big in my books. Ish is funny, serious and super intelligent all rolled up into one. Ish goes under the handle of ‘Indian girl dating’. Now I’m not to sure if this was her intent, but the phrase ‘Indian Girl Dating’ is such a contradiction in terms…let me explain:
Historically speaking – it was taboo for Indians to ‘date’ and maybe to a certain extent it still is – everything was done through arranged marriages. So if you think about it, it’s a very creative play on words! Very cool right!? Ish has an amazing style of writing and great way of making the ordinary seem extraordinary….watch her space – one of her posts could very well become one of tomorrows Hollywood blockbusters.

The fourth and final link – well at least for now – is the home of saaleha (aka “Journalist in Training”). Now whilst I have only recently made her acquaintance, it doesnt take one very long to see that she's got "Pulitzer Prize" written all over her. The most refreshing part about her blog is that you are almost always guaranteed to find an opposing opinion to what the media and society in general would accept as the norm/standard to the usual questions/subjects – be it something ordinary like Valentines Day or to the more serious like the Danish Cartoons that have caused so much controversy around the world. In her profile she writes: “I’m a Believer and zealously hold that God has a sense of humour. This blog isn’t a rest stop on the path to enlightenment; kill your own damn Buddhas.” - need i say anymore?????? :)

PS: Saaleha, i hope you dont mind, but i kinda 'stole' the "Make Poverty History" banner from your site....ummmm thanx though ;)

Celebrity Skin

2006-02-04T17:19:00.000+02:00

Its nice to know that in these past weeks of my hibernation, I’ve become famous – yip – F-A-M-O-U-S

What am I going on about? Run a “I’m feeling lucky” Google search on “Lost in Semantics” and see where it takes u ;) – yes boys and girls – Google has made me famous :) Now why on earth am I so thrilled about it? Well, think about it. “Lost in Semantics” is not the most common of phrases but its not altogether uncommon. So out of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people making use of this phrase, mine is the most popular – spelt P-O-P-U-L-A-R.

Yes boys and girls, I’m famous and popular! What can I say – I’m the man! – spelt, M-A-N and stress on the word ‘the’

Now we celebrities are busy people so I may not have time to reply all your emails and comments…sorry but that’s just the way it goes. I’m a celebrity now…spelt C-E-L-E-B-R-I-T-Y

Hehe, I’m so enjoying this. To give myself more opportunity to gloat, let me mention a specific email I got couple weeks back…this dude, this british dude, offers to buy my blog from me (shit, u can actually do that!???) Now he either wanted the name of my blog or he wanted a memento of somebody
F-A-M-O-U-S. I can understand that.

When I read that email I felt so Donald Trump like and replied his email beginning my first sentence like this – “I’m thinking of a number…”

So not only am I a celebrity that’s like really famous and popular, I may also give good ol Bill a run for his money (i.e. Bill Gates...i am now on a first name basis with him)….i may become super rich (spelt, R-I-C-H) and therefore all you minions out there will have to stand in line for my autograph…I may not give u an autograph though cause I’m still deciding what sort of celebrity I’d like to be…famous and snobbish or famous and friendly….hmmm.

Yeah oh yeah its sooooo good to gloat:)

Back to Posting

2006-01-30T20:49:00.000+02:00

Its been a really long time since I’ve posted anything on this blog – kinda feels like the virgin experience all over again.

Its been an interesting couple of weeks – caught the flu, lost the flu, worked hard, played hard, met some really interesting people, started reading a book – haven’t done that in a while – and paid another speeding fine.

Here than are some of the things that have been on my mind:

Work is work – its always going to be there – unless of course you’re Paris Hilton, heir to a mega fortune. But I guess someone reading this at some point in time is going to say: “Hey, making a porn movie is hard work ok” – in that case, Paris Hilton also understands the concept of work – hard work. Work has been stressing me out and that’s probably the reason why I haven’t posted anything in a while. I tried my hand at tutoring the Admin Department in new, more efficient ways of getting things done. Really no big deal – straightforward, simple procedures - but honestly at times I felt like I was giving a course in rocket science. Also, I had the unfortunate experience of having to suspend someone and eventually fire that someone. It’s not a nice thing to have to do, but it had to be done and unfortunately that responsibility is my responsibility. Needless to say we’re not friends anymore.

Speeding Fines suck – it’s the worst thing to pay for – because there’s no end value in it. Honestly, what does one have at the end of the month to show for that ‘financial exchange’? – Shit I don’t even think we can call it an exchange! Of course there will be the bright spark (who probably majored in economics) who will say: “Actually there is benefit – u have paid money for the ‘marginal benefit’ of experiencing the thrill of driving fast” To the economics major – no offence dude, but that’s a bunch of crap!

Started reading a book – Bourne Identity – remember it? The movie, which was released a few years back, was based on this novel. You know you’re sitting with a great piece of literature if reading the book interests you more than watching that little box in your living room and even more if you become so absorbed in it that you become completely oblivious to your surroundings.

Couple of weeks ago, one morning, I woke up to find some sticky, glittery substance all over my windows – never seen anything like it before. Tried some water to remove it – didn’t work. Tried a window cleaner – didn’t work. I was irritated and intrigued by it at the same time. It was a ‘type of dirt’ I hadn’t seen before – and what’s more is that it was all over my north and east facing windows. It was really weird – have you ever seen ‘glittering dirt’?? Didn’t think so. Anyway got into my car and headed off for work. On my way, I heard one of the local DJ’s commenting on the same thing – he said that he had this stuff all over his lawn. He figured it must have something to do with that little NASA Mars machine digging up the martian landscape! Maybe somebody should have told him that the little machine had only dug up an equivalent of one teaspoon’s worth of dirt…but it was weird – I mean it GLITTERED for God’s sake! So for the rest of the journey I tried to think of clever ways of trying to remove space dust from my windows. I ended up using my lunch break (about an hour) to find a suitable window cleaner. I ended up going into the supermarket and spent most of my time in one aisle – comparing window cleaners – there is, quite surprisingly, a large number of window cleaning agents to choose from. I ended up reading the compositions of the various products, trying to find out what each was good for – and once u know what it’s good for, it becomes quite obvious what it’s not good for. Unfortunately none of the products there seemed to cater for space dust – so I ended up buying 2 products that I thought would do the job. When I got back home that evening, the space dust had disappeared, just as mysteriously as it came. Honestly, it was a bit of an anticlimax – Yes I wanted it gone, but I wanted to be the one to make it gone! I wanted to try out my new products on the space dust and there I was – staring at a clean window. I felt cheated for the rest of the night.

And that Ladies and Germs is what i've been doing over the last couple of weeks - what about all of u?

Back on the road again

2006-01-10T23:48:00.000+02:00

Today saw me back on the road again – traveling the country side once more. There is something very therapeutic about being alone on the road and in the countryside. It, I guess, allows one to assess and ponder over life, love and everything else.

Whenever I come down this route, I tend to stop in a town called Klerksdorp, which is quite a nice place to stretch, unwind, and refresh. There’s this nice little restaurant there (actually more of a diner than a restaurant) where I usually have a bite to eat. Without fail I’ll always end up ordering a ‘cheese and tomato’ sandwich and a cup of coffee.

This little diner makes the WORST cup of coffee I have ever tasted – and I’ve visited this place on a number of occasions and sorry to say, the flavor never grows on you. Therein lies the irony – I go into this diner knowing full well that the coffee is terrible and yet I still order it! As I’m placing my order, I tell myself that the coffee is terrible and yet I request it – hehe, honestly I have no idea why I do that each and every time I’m down there. Still trying to figure that one out and as soon as I can come up with a sound, reasonable and logical answer I will let you all know.

Their ‘cheese and tomato’ sandwich however is fabulous! I cant understand what they do to make it so different from the ones I make? How can such a simple sandwich be so difficult to replicate? I just don’t know.

Do you have a favorite dish when on the road?

Layout layout layout!

2006-01-08T14:52:00.000+02:00

For me, the worst thing about visiting other blogs, is the realization that my blog sucks BIG TIME!

And I’m not talking about content (uhum, everyone knows mines the best!) but more about layout. People really do take a lot of time in preparing their blog layout which is soooo kewl! I’ve thought about revamping my layout – seeing that sammy has left it to me (hint hint), but I cant seem to find the time – which is a really silly thing to say because every night when I’m in bed and I think about the day gone by, I cant seem to understand where the hours, minutes and seconds went. Its like money and speeding fines – you have a whole lot of it at the beginning and by the end, you are left severely depleted with nothing to show for it!!!!!

I think ones layout should reflect one’s character…mine’s doesn’t. The colour scheme has to change, the links section has to be seriously updated, and I need to add one or two java applets to my page. Problem with me is that I always have this need to do it from scratch – so I’ll probably end up studying HTML and JAVA, which will take some time and will thus give me the lame excuse of not doing it! This is something I gotta make sure doesn’t happen.

Than I have to decide what to write in the “ABOUT ME” section. Am I serious/funny? Boring/Interesting? Lazy/energetic? Extrovert/introvert? World-weary/High on Life? What is the most interesting part about being me? Basically, what do I care to tell ppl that is not uninteresting, yet not a complete lie!

Now all i gotta do is find the time!

Sheesh, talk about pressure to update!!

2006-01-06T21:44:00.001+02:00

Seeing that someone has finally commented on that last post, I can now end my silent protest and start blogging again! :) sheesh, talk about pressure to update! :)

Lol, but seriously though, the reason I haven’t posted anything recently is because work has been HECTIC (I cant stress that more). Its been a long time since I’ve been crapped on by the ‘Top Brass’ like I’ve been in the past week. It was gruesome, stressful and nerve wrecking!

Nobody likes being reprimanded – especially, if it wasn’t your fault but rather someone under u. but believe it or not, whilst I don’t like it, I do appreciate it.

SAY WHAT!!!!???????????

Yip its true – sometimes I even hope for it! The logic behind it is simple: You can bet, that the minute it happens, I’ll never make that same mistake again. Also I start seeing errors, problems, potential problems and loopholes in the system that I never saw before – making me more experienced and more capable of doing the job. So it’s part of the learning process……

So the days have been really long and the last thing I wanted to see when I got home was another computer screen! There were however a number of things that I wanted to blog about:

There was the hotel that collapsed in Saudi Arabia but the entire post would probably be dedicated to my criticism of the country rather than the hotel incident so I decided not to go into that.
There was the story of Ariel Sharon, his operation and how he has been portrayed by the media – yes another post that would undoubtedly end up being a huge political debate and with the week I’d been having, I was not in the mood to discuss politics. Agreed, he is a Big Player in the Mid East – but by no means the only player and by no means the person who was going to bring peace to the region and by no means the knight in shining armour that the media has portrayed him to be. Obviously there are opposing opinions and I respect those opinions, but the above, in summary, is my opinion.
There was my work, but I really don’t want to discuss that!

Anyway, there were a whole bunch of other things that I wanted to discuss – some personal (surprise, surprise) and others of a more general nature. I wanted to discuss Prisons, Clouds and Schools. Also Petrol Filling Stations, which btw are known in South Africa as ‘garages’, ‘petrol garages’, or ‘petrol stations’. I hardly hear ppl using the phrase ‘filling station’ or ‘gas station’.

But the week has come and gone and all those potential posts are now just distant memories in my head.

Hope this rushed post was decent enough – right now though on my way out for a good meal and who knows what after that. i dont really care what i do tonight, just as long as i can unwind a bit before tomorrow - which should be another day of interogation!

Cheers.

News that caught my attention

2006-01-01T17:30:00.000+02:00

Virgin Galactic, a space tourism firm and brainchild of Richard Branson announced that a spaceport would be built in New Mexico. Flights are scheduled to take off in 2008

The US agreed to participate in future United Nations Climate Change Conferences….as long as mandatory emissions targets were not on the agenda (as much as I’d like to comment on this, I’m not gonna say anything)

For the first time in history, has PepsiCo’s Market Cap overtaken that of Coca-Cola’s. (This has probably got to do with the fact that Pepsi has accurately predicted the change in consumer tastes to things that are perceived to be more healthier. Only 20% of PepsiCo’s revenue now comes from carbonated drinks as opposed to Coca-cola’s 80%)

America’s Federal Reserve put up its key interest rate by 25 basis points (one quarter of a percentage point) for the 13th consecutive time

Time’s Persons of the Year were the Gateses (Bill and Melinda Gates) and Bono for their social work efforts.

Paramount Pictures agreed to buy world famous DreamWorks, brainchild of Steven Spielberg

Standard and Poor’s, the credit rating agency, has cut its rating of General Motors and gave its starkest warning yet that the struggling carmaker will eventually file for bankruptcy protection. (this is really scary seeing that GM employs approx 325000 ppl worldwide and about half of those employees come from the US. Assuming a family of 4 - it means that about 1.3million ppl's lives will be affected by any adverse change in GM's current situation)

My Week

2005-12-27T10:53:00.000+02:00

The strangest thing about this post is that I did NOT want to write it – if anything I felt compelled to write it. And the weird thing is that my week wasn’t marred by controversy, nor was it enshrouded in secrecy. It was a week like any other.

I had decided on the topic a week ago but kept putting it off. The topic was initially meant to be about my 3 week vacation to my little hometown, than it changed to just discussing my weekend and a week later today I find myself writing about the week gone by.

I really don’t know what this feeling is the result of – maybe its because I’m very wary of the net and have a hard time becoming too personal on it; maybe I feel that my week was a week just like any other and if I myself will probably never read this post again what are the chances of others wanting to read it? Or maybe its because I feel that this blog lacks direction – think about it – we’ve discussed everything from the silly to the serious! Every other blog out there has a general theme – be it discussing their friends, family, politics, religion, comedy, day to day events, etc, there is a general theme to their writing. Well all except mine of course! I guess that’s why its called ‘Lost in Semantics’ ey!?

So to a strike a compromise between my two-selves – i.e. the part of me wanting to write about it vs. the part of me that doesn’t want to write about it, here is a summary of what I did with myself in the past week:

This past week saw me back at work after a very pleasant 3 week vacation. I must admit that I still feel weary from the year gone by and will probably need another 2 weeks or so to recover – if only I had another 2 weeks…*sigh*.

Work has been hectic! Got back and immediately found myself immersed in paperwork. What really pissed me off was the fact that the admin department conveniently forgot how to follow protocol in the weeks that I was gone and so guess who had to do the cleanup?

When I wasn’t at work, I was out till the wee hours of the night – twice with ZM till I think 3am, once with an old acquaintance from out of town and once to pick up a bud (also around 3am) who got stuck on the highway in one of the most notorious hijacking spots in Johannesburg – so as can be expected, I was a bit edgy driving out there but than you can imagine how my friend felt sitting out there all alone! But I’d still like to know what he was doing in that area at 3am in the morning!

A few nights ago ZM and myself found ourselves having coffee at one of the more bourgeoisie areas of Joburg (affectionate name, South African’s know Johannesburg by). At around 1am, just as we are about to call it a night, we strike up a conversation with this guy, Daryll (at that point a total stranger to us) sitting alone on the table next to us. We offered him to join us and he gladly accepted.

Daryll kept us going for at least another 2 hours or so! He was actually very good company – its amazing how guys can get along so well by just discussing sports and women. :)

Christmas Day was spent at the zoo (yes, a real zoo with animals and stuff!) and that summarizes what I did with myself during the week.

and that concludes the post on my week - well at least i think it was a post on my week...

Top 5 Brands of 2004

2005-12-23T23:52:00.000+02:00

The top 5 brands of 2004 were as follows:

Starbucks
Ikea
Apple
Google
Al Jazeera

It'll be interesting to see how this changes when the survey is done for 2005.

World's Top Public Intellectual

2005-12-23T23:38:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to Professor Noam Chomsky for being voted the World's Top Public Intellectual according to a poll by British Magazine 'Prospect'.

Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at MIT and very well known as a critic of US Foreign Policy. To read some of his articles click on the link to the ZNet Blog.

Silly Joke #4

2005-12-22T10:10:00.000+02:00

Courtesy of my cuz, we have our next instalment in the “Silly Joke” series. He is the only person I know that loves these jokes more than I do!

He is also the only person I know (well at least the only person I can think of at the moment) that has an apostrophe in his name. Apparently it’s a real mission to get registered every year on campus cause the admin department either keeps forgetting to put the apostrophe in his name or when they do insert it in, the computer treats the letters before and after the apostrophe as 2 separate names of 2 distinct individuals…hence as far as the computer goes he doesn’t exist!

So thanx to the artist currently known as ( ‘ ) herewith follows our next exciting instalment of the SJ series!

Q: Whats brown and sticky?

A: a stick.

Haha I love that one!

What's the deal with Christmas?

2005-12-21T07:14:00.000+02:00

Speaking to sammy via email day before yesterday and she gave me this whole rundown on the “War on Christmas” Debate – who would have thought there was such a big debate going on about it.

It’s all so confusing – is it a ‘war’ between liberals and conservatives, a ‘war’ between Christianity and other religions or a ‘war’ between Christianity and Politics?

Anyway, she told me that while the debate in South Africa is quite small and insignificant – in Australia its quite the talk! And when I did some research on the net (Yes I did research on the net about it), I found that it’s even bigger in the States. Apparently the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) want all public displays of Christmas banned…by that I take it to mean the Christmas trees, the fairy lights and all other decorations.

Now tell me…why on earth would somebody want to ban the Christmas Lights!?

When I was growing up I remember how exciting it was to go into my uncle’s store during the Christmas Season – there would be big and little Christmas trees being used as decorations, fairy lights lining virtually every part of the store, mixed needle garlands lying virtually everywhere, Christmas songs would be playing over the loud speakers and everybody was in such a good mood. Even now when I think about those days I get goose bumps :)

I remember how our parents used to take us into town to see the lights at the beginning of the season when they were just put up – I remember how many cars would be out at that time of the night, all with their families, all looking at the same thing we were.

And I remember, when, towards the end of my Primary (Junior) Schooling years our family vacationed in the States. We landed in New York and my jaw dropped when I saw how many lights the Americans put up! I remember telling my dad – “Now this is how u put up Christmas Lights!”

I may not be Christian, but I’m a HUGE fan of Christmas!

I can understand the counter-argument though – that ppl are afraid they may be sidelining/offending other religious groups during this ‘festive season’ (ey! See I just used it interchangeably – no biggy!) – but, personally I don’t think it offends anybody to be calling it the Christmas Season – it is the Christmas Season afterall (and if it does its probably a very small segment of the population)

It doesn’t offend me - ok ok so I may be regarded as a bit of a ‘moderate’ but than how do u explain friends and family of mine who tend to be more on the ‘conservative’ side loving the Christmas season as well??

So to all – a merry Christmas or a happy festive season or whatever else you’d like to call it – but for Pete’s sake, please don’t ban the Christmas Lights!

In Summary...

2005-12-20T03:02:00.000+02:00

So it seems my little, tiny, insignificant, pathetic and innocent question has raised some controversy! - I LOVE IT! :)

The question wasn’t meant to draw the lines between who’s right and who’s wrong – I don’t assume to think that my pointless blog will make a dent in world opinion – however I had hoped for some kind of understanding of what ppl in general felt about it. This I got…well sort of :)

We are ruled by emotion (as can be seen from most of the comments) and this is not always the best approach when dealing with ppl of different religious, cultural and racial backgrounds – I add ‘racial’ here, because every South African can write a book on it!

But irrespective of all the controversy, I think it is a subject we should explore in the future…after everyone cools down :)

What’s your opinion – explore or not to explore?

Thanx 4 ALL the opinions – i posted em all cause it jus wouldn’t be my style otherwise!

Ciao!

zee

My Good Friend BF

2005-12-16T14:46:00.000+02:00

Probably one of the most amazing people I've met via these blog's is a man who i only know as BF. I met him when I stumbled onto his blog, which he has kindly asked me not to mention. But if I were to re-name his blog, I would probably entitle it – "Seeing the World through the Eye of my Mind". I have been chatting to him for the past 6 months – way before I had my own blog.

BF is a devout Christian, speaks 6 languages fluently, 38 yrs old, has toured many many parts of the world, spent 6 months in South Africa, 2 years in Italy, 4 months in Belgium, 2 months in Greece and about 3 years in the States.

BF is a Canadian – born and bred, and as he explains me, the Americans and Canadians have never seen eye to eye on many issues – one of them being Bush's Foreign Policy – maybe that's why I get along with him so well!

Anyway, so over the past 6 months we've been communicating via email – always discussing religion and philosophy – not always agreeing with each other's points of view though. This has probably got more to do with the fact that his Christian and I'm not, but it nevertheless makes for interesting debate.

BF has spent the better part of the last 12 years focused on Religious Studies – he believes that one of the greatest problems facing mankind today is Religious Tolerance and on this point I agree with him.

I've been thinking a lot about our discussions lately, as I come across more and more websites and blogs that don't seem to have a clue about what religious tolerance is. I find more and more websites giving their opinion on this and that without understanding the full cause of the problem, who speak more from emotion than from logic and reason.

What do you think about religious tolerance? Do you believe that people talk more from emotion than from reason? How many ppl have u met or come across that seem to think that they understand exactly how things work but in reality don't have a clue?

Peace Out.

Bushisms

2005-12-16T00:13:00.000+02:00

Irrespective of whether u're a democrat or republican, Bush supporter or not, u gotta give it to George W Bush for having such a huge support base.

I remember, during his second election run, the media mentioned one very interesting stat - that George W Bush has the backing of 60million Orthodox Christians behind him - making it the biggest lobby group in the history of American Politics. the BIGGEST.

Just imagine - 60 million, thats 60'000'000 (60 with six zeros behind it) voters behind him. heck, thats like the whole of South Africa voting for one Man!!!!!!
Impressive hey?

now i must admit, i'm not a big fan of President Bush (actually i'm not a fan at all!), but that stat never seizes to amaze me.

60 million...let that figure mull over in your head for a while - and while you're doing that, here are some Bushisms for your reading pleasure:

1. The Majority of our imports come from outside the country. (ummm, say Mr B, doesnt ALL your imports come from outside the country - thats why they call it imports.)

2. One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures. (ok, moving on...)

3. It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it. (yip, that sounds very budget-like)

4. You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. (i worry about American Education)

5. There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee...that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again. (enough said)

Choosing the right email account

2005-12-15T09:01:00.001+02:00

the thing about being is South Africa is that the majority of people that make use of the internet still make use of an ordinary dial-up (no Satellite, ISDN, DSL, Broadband, Cable, etc) - so things that take the "First-Worlders" a minute to download takes me 20min to download.

Obviously things are changing fast in this country and we have access to broadband - but at a price. i reckon it'll probably be another here before it becomes truly feasible to make use of these ultra-fast connections in the home context.

So because dial-up is sooooo slow- if you're using an online email account (like myself and so many others) than its important to choose the right account - choosing a service that is very busy will take ages to open.

So i've been considering making the great journey from a hotmail account to a gmail account - 2 gr8 advantages of the gmail account is that u have One Gig of storage space and 2, its simple (google philosophy) so its quick.

Any comments on what the other email accounts are available out there that are quick and user-friendly? What service do u make use of?

Silly Joke # 3

2005-12-15T00:12:00.000+02:00

So it seems this silly joke thing is catching on - apparently there is huge improvement in our sense of humour

Heres another :

Q: WHAT DO U CALL POSTMAN PAT AFTER HIS BEEN FIRED??

A: Pat

Beautiful South Africa

2005-12-13T18:13:00.000+02:00

Dont let the Bed Bugs bite

2005-12-13T00:27:00.000+02:00

We had wedding in the family yesterday and as is required, we all worked our butts off over the past few weeks to ensure that everything ran smoothly.

Man, being a ‘wedding planner’ is tough! Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been suffering from sleep deprivation – so it felt really great to wake up late today – and even better cause it was a week day!....dont u just miss the days when u could wake up at say 930-10am on a weekday? I miss it.

But still got lots of ‘post-wedding’ work to finish – clearing up, tying up all the loose ends, etc. And we have to do all this while trying to fight the ever increasing symptoms of lethargy that seem to be creeping up on us.

Whilst I slept in late today, I had to move beds at around 7am because my bed was being invaded by ants! (yes, u heard right – ANTS – I’m currently in a small town remember????).

Here’s how it happened:

Because our whole family (we’re quite a BIG family) converged onto our little town, I was continuously being moved from room to room looking for a place to sleep and by Sunday night, I had no room, and no bed. So I grabbed an old mattress that we’ve had in our house since I can remember and dragged it into a tiny room that wasn’t occupied (it’s not really that tiny, but I’m trying to be dramatic).

Anyway there I am, in this tiny room with this really old mattress, staring at the ceiling with a million thoughts going through my head, trying to figure out where on earth that cold draft was coming in from, how to get rid of that annoying mosquito buzzing above me and all the while thinking – ‘hey this could be worse – u may not have had clean bed sheets!’

Somewhere along the line I fell asleep, only to be woken up at 7am with a few (say 3-4 ants) crawling up my right arm, towards my shoulder (apparently they had some work there). I flicked them off and lay in bed, on my side, eyes open, thinking, in that half-awake state I was in, that this was the first time I woke up with ants on me! At that moment, I see 2 more ants crawling on my mattress towards my pillow (apparently there was some work to be done there as well) – without hesitation, I flicked them off the mattress.

At this point, I suddenly come out of that half-asleep state I was in, realize what was happening, jump up, scan my bed for further evidence of ants but find none. I look on the sides of my bed – nothing, at the back of my bed – nothing. I look under my sheets – nothing.

I ask myself, “where did those ants come from? – u don’t just get 5 ants chilling all by themselves!”. So I scan the room for more signs of life – nothing. I flop back onto my pillow, still quite puzzled by the incident (think about it – wouldn’t u be puzzled to wake up with a few ants on your bed). Whilst I lay there thinking, I catch another ant through the corner of my eye, crawling on my mattress also headed in the direction of my pillow.

I get up, watch the ant go under my pillow…yip, they were there alright, under the pillow. I lifted the pillow only to find a whole construction crew of worker ants setting up for the day! – there must have been about 30-50 ants under my pillow!

Now, few things u should know – I’m from a small town that has always had to deal with an ant problem. I’ve grown up seeing hundreds and hundreds of ants either trying to invade our gardens or our houses but never on my bed, so seeing the ants on my bed wasn’t scary/freaky – it jut pissed me off cause I knew I had to go find another place to sleep!!!

Ended up sleeping on the couch.

PS: for u “First-Worlder’s” – no, u shouldn’t expect something like this just cause its Africa! This is something that just happens in the small towns:)

Will soon post some pics of Beautiful S.Africa for u. :)

Quotes on Life from the Movies

2005-12-09T01:06:00.000+02:00

" Life moves pretty fast. If u dont stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it"
From the Movie 'Ferris Buellers Day Off' - Now if you remember that movie, than i should point out that it says a lot about your AGE!!!!!! (oh yes it does) - the movie hit the box office in 1986 (if i'm not mistaken) - thats TWO DECADES ago!!!!....crap i remember the movie as well.

"Dont take life too seriously - you'll never get out alive"
From the Movie 'Van Wilder - Party Liason' - Now if you remember that movie, than i should point out that it also says a lot about your age as well (box office - 2002) - yes this one as well cause it prob means you're still a toddler...

But if u know both shows than give yourself a pat on the back and know that you're old, but youthful!!!!

Doesnt sound like a compliment, but hey lets take what we can get!

ciao

A Happy Festive Season to All

2005-12-09T00:23:00.000+02:00

Hi all

i'm so excited i cant sleep! My vacation starts tom. i'm going to be spending 3 weeks Down Under, so by tom afternoon i'll be hoping on to a plane headed East!

If all goes according to plan, ill be spending Christmas Eve in Sydney. i've never been a real 'Christmas Cheer' kinda Gal - was a holiday just like any other.

This year however, feels different - i'm actually looking forward to it...no wait! - i'm actually excited and cant wait for it! :)

I hope everyone has a very happy christmas and makes the most of it with family and friends.

cheers,

Sammy

Attempt Number Two

2005-12-07T00:18:00.000+02:00

And the negative comments on my silly joke still keep rolling in - phone calls, comments on the blog, emails, u name it - i've been getting some serious reaction to my SJ! :)

Only one lone voice has stuck with me (no doubt, finding himself in short supply of friends thereafter) Thanx ZM!

But on the more interesting side - i've got more reaction to that post than any of the previous posts - what do u think is the reason?????

So as said previously, in an effort to cure the world of its seriousness, i've found another spectacular one!

Q: Whats Yellow and Dangerous?

A: A Canary with a Machine Gun.

Get it!?

Brilliant right?

My Weekend

2005-12-06T00:24:00.000+02:00

This weekend saw me do a little over a 1000km of road travel (approx 620 miles). I wish I could say it was a result of that soul searching vacation I was talking about, but unfortunately I was on the road because I had to attend this formal function in the ‘city’.

I left Saturday morning from my quiet, little hometown and got to my destination – the ‘city’ about 4 hours later. Our discussions on the journey were focused on the politics of the day, centering around the Rape Allegations against our ex-Deputy President (although still the Deputy President of the Leading Party) and George Galloway’s address (a British Parliamentarian) to the US Senate. Both very debatable and hot topics at the moment.

Got to Johannesburg around 4pm, showered, dressed and off too the function we went. The venue was impressive – had it been white, I would have thought I was standing on the lawns of the White House! Function was pleasant and the next afternoon we returned home.

On our return trip we stopped at a Petrol Filling Station to fill up and take a break. At this filling station there were 2 sets of bathrooms – one labeled “TOILETS” and the other “CLEAN TOILETS”….hmmm, now which one would u use???????

Got back home at around 7ish and attended a late night supper at family around 9ish.

Before going to bed, checked my blog, only to find that nobody seems to like the silly joke that I posted – which led me to conclude that what the world lacks is a sense of humor.

So in an effort to help cultivate this humorous dimension in our lives, I’ve decided to look for more silly jokes (forthcoming attractions, so look out for them!) – Comments on them will be most appreciated, so I can judge the mental progression of the world!

Ciao

Silly Joke

2005-12-03T08:40:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i received this joke via email which i thought was absolutely hillarious! i retold it to my sisters and i ended up staring at 2 very very blank faces. One of them finally said - ' but thats not funny at all!'...nevertheless i thought it was really funny!

So at the risk of losing my Entire Readership (yes, ALL three of you), i've decided to post it - i think it is definately blogworthy:

A pig strikes up a conversation with a cow. The Pig asks the Cow: "Whats the story with this Mad Cow Disease? Is it really as Bad as they say it is? Is there no cure?"
The cow replies: "Why should i care, i'm a helicopter" :)

Now come on, that is funny!

Home is where the heart is

2005-12-01T23:58:00.000+02:00

So Monday I arrived in my Hometown – small, quiet and sleepy. What I always find really amazing is that the only time it really sinks in that I’m back, is the next morning in the shower when I’m forced to bum off my mum’s/sis’s shampoo (seeing that I always forget mine). There’s something about that shampoo fragrance that just wakes me up, drags me out of that half awake state that I’ve been in and in a way gives me a huge “Hello, you’re home again!” kind of a greeting.

And when I finally get out of that shower, the world seems so different – and yet I go through this nostalgic feeling every time I come back home. All my senses are heightened – I can hear the birds chirping in the tree just outside my room, the doves on the rooftops of neighbours singing away just as they did when I was at school – it seems as if they’re the very same doves that used to wake me up in the morning. I open the curtains and notice the way the sun’s rays falls on the back wall of our house (the way it always did), I open the windows and feel the slight cool breeze in the air – and it sends me yet further down memory lane – so many memories, so much history.

And all the while I’m thinking – “I think I could live here again”. But after a week or so, I start getting restless, I begin to miss the hustle and bustle of the city, I miss the noise, the people, the atmosphere, the rush, the pace, the excitement, the traffic, the life.

But recently I’ve grown weary of the city – I hate the traffic, I despise the noise and I can’t stand the unfriendly pedestrian.

I wonder what this means? Is this feeling temporary or something more permanent? Can this weariness of mine be cured simply by taking a vacation or does it simply mean what it says – I’m tired of city living?

Guess ill probably only know once I’ve taken that vacation!

A Wise Old Man

2005-11-30T20:05:00.000+02:00

One evening an old man told his son about a battle that goes on inside ppl.

He said: "Son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is evil - it is anger, jealousy, sorrow, regret, guilt, lies and ego. The other wolf is good - its is joy, peace, love, serenity, humilty, kindness, faith, compassion, truth and hope."

The son pondered over this for a short while and than asked his Father...."Which Wolf wins?"

The Father replied, "The one you feed".

Carpe diem!

2005-11-27T21:35:00.000+02:00

When you’re on campus, there’s nothing like visiting the Dean’s office to get you to seriously reassess your life.

One year I found myself in such a situation. After my finals, and after receiving my results, I found myself at the Dean’s office applying for a supplementary paper to re-write an exam which I had come down in (nice way of saying I failed it).

It is here, in the waiting room of the Dean’s office that you meet the most interesting of people. There was the guy who was continuously pacing up and down the room (obviously in Big Trouble), there was the girl who sat in one corner of the room, crying away, looking every now and then at what looked like a computer printout (no doubt - her results) and there was the guy who together with a SRC (Students Representatives Council) member was venting his frustration about the blatant racist behaviour of Campus Security (He most probably had a valid case).

But the guy that intrigued me the most was the guy that sat next to me in that waiting room. He sat patiently and quietly, staring at a piece of crumpled up paper. Eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I struck up a conversation with him (cant remember his name though), with one objective in mind – to find out what was on that little piece of paper that he treated like gold.

It so happened that this guy had failed his entire year (not a course, not a semester, but the entire year), so you can try to imagine the level of introspection he was going through. Spent some time speaking to the guy and eventually learnt that on that piece of paper was a “To Do List” of sorts – the Top 20 things he’d like to do the most before he dies.

As I scanned through it I couldn’t helped but be impressed with his selection. There was ‘flying a fighter plane’, ‘seeing a volcano erupt’, ‘camping in the Amazon’, ‘wrestling a crocodile’ and others that I cant remember. Getting a degree however, wasn’t in his Top 20 list. The irony of it all! - A guy waiting to see the Dean to try and get back into varsity, just so he could quit and go on an exploration mission to accomplish the things he really wanted to do!

Thinking back about it now, I wonder if he ever did follow through with his plans of completing his ‘To Do List”? Did he get accepted back into varsity only to quit the next day and join the Air force just to fly an F16? Did he join the Discovery Channel to see a Volcano Erupt, the Travel Channel to camp in the Amazon or Reality TV to wrestle a crocodile?

Who knows…I hope he did though – It would be a shame to look back and have regret. After all we only live twice.

Oxycute em!

2005-11-25T09:16:00.000+02:00

The problem with advertising today is that very little mention is made of the ethics that should govern advertisements. Sure we have a Broadcasting Complaints Commission and an Advertising Standards Authority and sure we have ‘some’ understanding of what is not acceptable viewing for kids but somehow we always tend to limit our concerns to acts of violence, discrimination, racism and the extent of sexual connotations in the ad’s.

But what about the emotional content of the Ad’s? – more specifically the ethics surrounding the Advertisers ‘play’ on the emotions of the recipient of such Ad’s?

As a point in example, lets take the ‘Oxy 10’ Adverts (You know – the “Oxycute ‘em” Ad’s). ‘Oxy 10’ as everyone knows is an acne cream (call it a pimple/zit cream if you like). The company’s target market for this ‘acne oxycutioner’ is, by the looks of it, the 15-25yr age gap with its main focus on the teenie market.

The primary strategy of selling this product is to prey on the emotional stability of the potential buyer (the teenager who’s got an acne problem). A few days back I heard one of their ad’s on the radio – in short it was about 2 guys poking fun at a guy with an acne problem. In my opinion this is irresponsible advertising.

All it does is add more pressure on a teenager who is already trying to cope with the burdens of peer pressure. I’ve been lucky enough not to have had an acne problem (actually I cant ever remember using an acne cream) but that doesn’t mean that I cant understand what a kid is going through during the peer pressure years.

The problem with these ad’s is that they portray certain things, in this case, acne, as socially unacceptable (wrongfully I might add). After hearing it a number of times, an Ad like this, will eventually have an effect on a kids state of mind (at least on the subconscious level).

Lets try not to destroy self confidence at such a young age.

ZNet Blog

2005-11-23T18:54:00.000+02:00

i've just added a link to ZNet Blog (look to your right). have a look at it - the authors of the Blog are Political and Social Heavyweights including Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert. worth having a look at.

The story of a dog and a coyote

2005-11-21T23:43:00.000+02:00

Lol, ok I admit that I may have compared myself to a cross between Courage the Cowardly Dog and Wile E Coyote.

Most ppl find these sort of questions rather silly ( the ‘compare yourself to a cartoon character’ questions) but I think they are absolutely phenomenal! :)

Cartoon Characters are created with exaggerated physical/emotional characteristics. If a person is strong - than a cartoon is super-strong (as in Superman), if a person is intelligent - than a cartoon will be super-intelligent (Jimmy Neutron), if a person is clumsy, than a cartoon will be super clumsy (Goofy) and so on.

So by looking at ones choice of a cartoon character, it could give u glimpse into that person’s state of mind at a specific point in time.

Wile E Coyote is famous for one reason – he will never, no matter what he does, attain his goal - catching the roadrunner. Call it fate, destiny, bad luck or the fact that Stephen King is not the script writer! – Wile E is in a rut, period. I felt like that for some time in my life (who knows maybe I still feel like that), that no matter what I do or try, I would (will) never achieve my goal/goals. Scary thought, but it is something I felt once upon a time in my life, so I’m not going to deny it.

But contrary to popular belief, the coyote is the true hero in the story because no matter how much bad luck befalls him, he always gets up, dusts himself off and tries again. The coyote in my opinion is, as far as cartoon characters go, one of the best role models a person can have!

Courage the Cowardly Dog is also another interesting character. Two things stand out about Courage. One, his name and Two, his behaviour under testy, scary situations.
Lets look at the second one first – his behaviour. Under abnormal circumstances, Courage will first try and avoid the situation, then he’ll try to call for help and if that doesn’t work he tries and resolves the matter all by his lonesome (not something he really wants to do but rather something he has to do)

Now at first it looks like he doesn’t have any courage, but the very fact that he always inevitably solves the problem means that he does have courage, but may lack the self-esteem to believe in himself to continuously do it. That says a lot.

His name is also interesting – was he named Courage because of this hidden courage he has or was he named Courage to represent the irony of his character – the same as when a big, hefty guy is nicknamed Tiny.

Either way its some food for thought – admittedly I can relate to Courage .

Hope that explains my choice of characters.

As a final note – I’ll always cheer the coyote on, hoping that the next time, he will actually get the roadrunner and his ultimate goal.

Ciao4now

zee

Cartoon Characters

2005-11-21T01:58:00.000+02:00

Some time back I sent out an email to my mailing list with 2 questions –

What Cartoon Character would you most like to be and
What Cartoon Character would you say matches your personality currently?

All the answers were more or less expected, with all the usual sort of characters. Well except for one guy (we all know who that is!) His reply to Question 1 was – “any evil character” and the answer to Question 2 was “a cross between Courage the Cowardly Dog and the Coyote”.

Now I’m not to sure if that’s still the answers he would give today but I always wanted to know why he chose those characters but never got down to asking him. What was the reason behind it if any?

Are there any others out there who have different from the norm answers to those questions and also the reason behind it.

cheers,

sammy