Ons het loop doop

I went down to Nelspruit again this past weekend. For a change we didn’t suffer from heat exhaustion as winter also arrived on that side of the world. My little nephew, ja the one born just the other day, was christened on Sunday, so of course it was the duty of the royal family to attend.

For those readers coming from a traditional Afrikaans family will know that an event like this goes hand-in-hand with stuffing your face until you can’t stand up straight anymore …..and then desert is served just to take you over the final edge so that your eyes just want to fall close before you take on a 350km drive home with a full stomach! Saying goodbye takes half an hour because as you walk to your car every extended family member wants to know when you are getting married and wants to pack a few pieces of cake and leftovers for later that evening when you get a second breath . .

Hot Fuzz

Whenever you are in the mood to watch a downright silly slapstick comedy the British way, make some time to go and watch Hot Fuzz. I did exactly that last week Friday and was pleasantly surprised.

The movie started off on a bit of a boring note with almost a sad undertone where a police sergeant was transferred from London to this small town in the country where nothing basically happens or that’s what he thought until some residents were mysteriously murdered. About halfway through the movie it took a sudden twist and became outrageously funny when the sergeant discovered who were behind the murders and took some action. I won’t spoil the movie for those who are still interested to watch it.

Hot Fuzz scores an 8, this score could be influenced by my own sense of humor and might not be funny to anyone else.

Cricket World Cup - Go Proteas........just go away!

So today we mourn the events that happened on the cricket pitch in the West Indies last night. If I’m not mistaken it is now the second World Cup in a row that our national cricket team managed to screw up in a spectacular way.

The question regarding match fixing came up in my mind last night, call it sour grapes if you want, but I’m sure it is not all that far fetched that the match could have been bought considering the sage around the late Hansie Cronje and now also the rumors surrounding the murder of Bob Wolmer.

Maybe we should start directing more money towards cricket like we do with soccer. I mean if the national soccer coach can earn over a mil a month, I’m sure we can afford to buy a Cricket World Cup……

From East to South

Hi people! Luckily Monday has come and gone and considering that this is a 4 day week, things are looking better by the day. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my reader base has grown considerable since I went on holiday, which does make me slightly unconvertible as I will have to watch my mouth in future……

I promise not to drag this on again, ek klink seker al soos ‘n plaat wat spring, but things at Mooikloof Ridge are just going south even though we are located in the East of Pretoria. By the way the water problem persists even though we were promised that it would have been resolved mid April, but our security system is now fully functional. The estate is now so secure that the residents can’t get out! It took some of my neighbors 35 minutes this morning to leave the gates of the estate. A nice start to one’s peak hour traffic in the morning don’t you think!

It was also brought to my attention (by a new reader Celeste) that the residents of the neighboring estate, the people living in the self-assembled-iron-bush-villas are now not only burning the landscape and decorating the place with our national flower (the plastic bag), but also helping themselves to the personal belongings of drivers stopping at some of the traffic lights in Garsfontein Rd by demolishing car windows. So people pack away those fancy cell phones, laptops and jewelry as there are some villains doing some sidewalk shopping in the area, and if you are driving a BMW like myself whom apparently are the favorites to be taken from its rightful owners , keep it in Sport Mode you never know when you might need to turn Garsfontein Rd into the starting grid of the Pretoria East Grand Prix.

Back in town

And so do all good things come to an end. I’m back in Gauteng after a splendid holiday in the Mother City. As they say time flies when you’re having fun, but I must admit that being home doesn’t feel al that bad.

As you can see I’m sharing some of the footage from the trip with you, but I thought that sharing everything might be a bit of an overkill. Freaky got a new camera and got trigger happy at some stages which resulted in the 2 GB of pictures I have from the past week, so what you’re seeing is just a few of the highlights.

Speaking of highlights, I had the opportunity this past weekend to experience what it must have felt like to be an 1980s millionaire with enough cash stashed away to last a lifetime. As you might have guessed I’m talking about my long awaited classic convertible SL Mercedes that I rented for the weekend.

I cruised the streets of Cape Town like Bobby Ewing did through downtown Dallas on his way to Southforke Range. With the wind through my hair on a sunny day I could hear the roar of the straight six engine like angles singing a love song as we went for sundowners in Camps Bay, Clifton, Green Point, Blouberg. . . . . Other drivers can’t resist to challenge you on every straight piece of road, which is very difficult to resist as it’s an experience and a half to feel the nose rise as you step down on the excellerator followed by an unmistakable growl that can only come from a blue blooded three pointed star. (In Mauritius’s words, dis befok!)

It was with great sadness that I returned the car yesterday morning to it’s owners, but I am considering to acquire something very similar someday.

We (me, Freaky, Heinrich and Mauritius) ended the trip on a high note (followed by a very low note), as we got stuck in some (a few dozen) shooters on Saturday night. This was after our club hopping with the Benz. I promised not to reveal too much detail about the night on here, but not to worry guys some portions I have difficulty remembering in any case. Just some advice, ending an evening after a few gallons of shooters with the ultimate flaming Lamborgini when you have to catch a flight the next morning (turbulence….air pressure!!!) is not a very good idea. For the rest as they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and if any of you want a reminder, I do have some uncensored footage I discovered on my camera that can be viewed on request.

Ok I have to do my time sheets now!!!

Signal Hill

Me and Dawie cocktails in Camps Bay

Marais, Heinrich & Mauritius

Wine farms

My masterpiece

Table Mountain

The babe magnet

Sundowners in Camps Bay

Sundowners in Camps Bay

Sundowners in Camps Bay

House hunting in Clifton

Cocktails in Green Point

Cocktails in Blouberg . .

Die Kaap is nog Hollands

I came to another conclusion just now, and that is that I might qualify as a work-aholic. I had trouble sleeping so I got up at 2am and started working on some inventory management reports for one of my clients. Just keep in mind that I am on holiday. But I must say, working on the reports quickly helped for the sleeplessness as I quickly became bored and started yawning.

Cape Town is an absolute jol. I realized on Wednesday that I am still afraid of heights when we went up Table Mountain in the cable car, but the view from the top is worth the agony of the ride up and down.

On Tuesday we took a tour through the whole process of making wine at Landskroon estate, and we also tasted some wine extracted from the barrels in the cellar. The device used to extract the wine looks like if it can also be used to fertilize larger mammals, which put a slight aftertaste in the port we were tasting.

Yesterday we visited the aquarium at the V&A Waterfront. For R70 you can watch two sharks swim by and see 40 replicas of Nemo. I built a sand castle all by myself, because Freaky was too lazy to help.

We got lost again when Freaky drove the Yaris, I’m starting to see a trend here, today I’m taking the wheel to Stellenbosch, otherwise we might end up on the flats…..

Tot later….. I will upload some of my 1.5 GB photos soon... internet in Cape Town is not that accessible...

Car Talk

Good morning every one. Long time no speak! I am still alive if anyone was wondering…. I did come close to death last night though, or at least that was what I would imagine it would feel like to spend your last few moments on earth in a high speed car chase through Table View with a turbo charged Volvo with an aspiring race driver behind the wheel who just had to show an orange Ford waar Dawid die wortels gegrawe het. I was impressed with both the car and the driver’s abilities, I took the car for a spin (literally) myself and enjoyed the ride, but I sustained minor injuries when Freaky took the wheel (not used to an automatic) and send both me and Heinrich through the windscreen when he mistook the brake for the non-existing clutch, he later also detoured over a sidewalk, I think I have blue marks over my chest from the seatbelt.

While I’m waiting in anticipation to collect my convertible Mercedes (this afternoon for the weekend) we are driving a Toyota Yaris….. Ja I know it’s probably the ultimate chick car, and I know someone that are a proud driver of one of these little lunch boxes, I must say the car has got guts, but too much guts and no glory can be dangerous as I almost discovered on Wednesday night on my way to Camps Bay…. poor Dawie was glad to arrive alive at the City Lodge….nevertheless 160km/h for a 1.3 liter with four guys aboard is not too shabby I suppose, just don’t attempt to change direction. Space wise, apart from the 17 glove compartments (and I include the boot as one of them as you can’t call it a boot) you also have 5 cup holders. At the end of the day nothing revs like a rental so we are enjoying the car, we will be taking it off road tomorrow in Stellenbosch…..

Lekker by die see

Greetings from the Mother City. My long awaited Cape Town break finally arrived. We flew down on Friday night, but only arrived on Saturday morning due to unforeseen delays at the OR Thambo International Airport. I can’t remember this to be the case in the old days when it was still called Jan Smuts but lets not go there, I’m on holiday and we are here at last.

I wish you all a very productive week ahead, I will try my very best to have as much fun as possible without being irresponsible. Just as proof that I am really here, and not sitting at home in front of the TV, see picture below.

I'm leaving on a jet plane......

Good afternoon my devoted readers. Hope this friday the 13th was not too unlucky. I will be leaving Gauteng in a few hours, next time you hear from me will be from the mother city.

Koebaai

Ok.... ek het geskrik vir koue pampoen

This morning when I left my home at 4:55am I got the fright of my life! With my hands full of stuff, laptop over the one shoulder, gym bag over the other I walked to my garage. Of course it is still dark as it is almost winter. As I walked up to a dark corner of one of the neighboring garages I suddenly saw a dark figure moving towards me! I nearly shat myself! For a moment my life flashed before my eyes…..I was still in the process of deciding to either run, or to start defending myself… when I heard the voice ….”Good morning sir!”…. It happened to be one of the armed security guards on night shift wearing a balaclava to protect him from the cold! This could have turned out ugly if I had a loose hand……..

A midnight blog

It is now 2am Monday morning, I can’t sleep as I had a cup of strong caffeinated coffee next door at 8 last night, and I’m tired of staring at the ceiling so I decided to use my time wisely by writing a blog.

It has almost been a week since my last blog, hope you all had a blessed and peaceful Easter weekend. I managed to catch up on some lost sleep from January as I booked myself into Gwen’s B&B just around the corner from my home for the long weekend. This is also the same hotel/restaurant I visit almost every night for supper, and pickup my laundry once/twice a week. I realized once again that being woken up with the smell of fresh coffee and biscuits in bed, is maybe one of the reasons why I only managed to move out of my mother’s house at age 26.

My weekend consisted mainly out of vegetating on the couch watching TV series on my PC, shopping, eating out, shopping, vegetating, eating out, shopping, vegetating, vegetating, eating out, gym, shopping, jogging, vegetating, washing my car, eating out and now blogging.

Luckily we are facing only a four day week, in which a whole lot of miracles need to happen at Barlow Optimus before I can jump on that plane to Cape Town on Friday night for a well deserved holiday. So you can expect some news from the mother city from next week as I’ll be blogging from the beach, . . . or a wine farm, . . . or a mountain, or a . . . . .

Ok alle grappies op ‘n stokkie, I was rather disappointed that Hendrik returned last night all the way from De La Rayville (not the song) without ANY homemade cookies (Hertzoggies, koeksusters, konfyt tertjies, anything) whatsoever, I think someone needs to have a word with someone. . . . no wonder the coffee keeps me awake!

If this blog didn’t make much sense please keep in mind the time of day it was written.

Happily Never After

My polish buddy (Andrzej) and I had the misfortune of watching the animation motion picture called Happily Never After last week Thursday night. Neither of us was impressed with anything in the movie, and we decided to walk out after about 30 minutes into the show, and rather went for a drink at Rhapsody’s.

This picture comes from the same producers as the very successful Shrek movies, which of course made us buy the tickets. To me it is a complete waste of money to produce a movie like this with no substantial story line, no intelligent use of humor, and animation that would look bad against the likes of The Masters of The Universe produced in the early 80s.

Happily Never After failed to score, thus 0 out of 10.

Running from your problems

I never thought I would live to see the day that an IT guy physically run away from me in order not to face the reality of him being completely useless and have been avoiding me for quite some time. I just happened to walk past the IT office (at one of my psycho clients) yesterday when the door opened behind me. As I turned around to see who exited the door I could see from the corner of my eye someone running around the corner. That someone looked very much like my “mate” from AutoMate whom I’ve been bugging, begging and threatening since January for certain requested deliverables. Who says you can’t run away from your problems!

So unfortunately I had to transform into a bastard again and sent out yet another email asking for my files and in the process copied the whole of Gauteng in the mail…….I’m still waiting for a response……. I’m running out of ideas!

A picture tells a thousand words

Once again I have writers blog this morning so I don’t have much to say. As they say a picture tells a thousand words so here is a thousand words:

Fliek Vlooi

I went to see the long awaited 300 this past Saturday. Like the rest of South Africa I was quite eager to see the movie. I don’t know why everyone was so excited about the movie, but I concluded that it might have something to do with the general state of mind of the average South African who carry around an internal frustration and couldn’t wait to see how a bunch of grown men bliksem the crap out of each other on the big screen. The bloodier the better!

I found the photography to be very moving, and the special effects were very well done. The director managed to transform an otherwise monotonous war story into a somewhat forbidding weird genre by the use of colors and special effects. On the other side the script failed to support the artistic creations and therefore was disappointing and at some stages boring. The way the movie came to an end failed to impress.

300 scores a 6

Monday morning blues

This Monday morning seems to have a definite blue shade to it. All the excitement of the weekend is starting to catch up with me as I struggle to get inspiration for the week.

Friday night I had a delightful experience which I haven’t had in a while. I hanged out with my long lost friend Mitesh, and he took me to a place called Frankie & Bananaz in Midrand to become cultivated. Apparently this place compares very well to the surroundings of Chatsworth in KZN.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many swooped-up cars in one location, I got flash backs from Newcastle! I must say my car looked rather dull at the time. Nevertheless I had a very good time and met new people and maybe even made new friends. Despite being one of the few white people in the club, I almost got bliksem’d as well, by white dudes, because this particular oke’s slutty chick (supporting national cleavage day) fancied me. This was the perfect time to make like a tree, because I prefer my face the way it is.

Getting up on Saturday morning to attend a family breakfast was quite challenging as I got home at 2 am that same morning. I don’t know who caught the most fish at the breakfast table, me or Josua (my little nephew).

Saturday night me and Freaky took to the streets again, first he completely demolished me in the bowling alley in a game that lasted like 5 minutes. I concluded that bowling is not really for me, and by the way wearing those funny unfashionable shoes doesn’t contribute positively to my image in any case. We later watched 300, but more feedback regarding that in my movie review.

I went to bed at 2am again, and got up in time for church to listen to some visiting preacher who blessed us with a performance of note, his high pitched voice were like blades on my bruised ears when he shouted at the top of his voice! They had to fasten his microphone 7 times which fell off because of his aerobic movements on stage. At least this woke me up completely!

After church I went to the bank (today, tomorrow together!! need I say more!), shopped till I dropped for 6 hours, went to gym, watched 4 episodes of Lost on my PC, chatted to Heinrich on the phone for 1.5 hours and then went to bed late again to get up at 4:45am which explains my current state of existence!