"What goes on tour goes on Facebook"

I consider the time I spend under water, in the pool in the mornings at 5h30am, probably the most philosophical moments of my routine day. As I was gliding from one side to the other this morning, I thought about the inquisitive nature of the human being. I recently came to the realization that certain people would actually go to arms length to scrutinize the lives of others to gather as much information as possible.  The motive for these actions differ vastly and with some I can easily live with. 

Example, if the police are investigating your every move they probably have a good reason and have a responsibility towards society to monitor you in order to manage potential risk. If my mother wants to know where I am, and if I arrived home safely it is because she cares and are concerned about my well being. 

On the other hand if my colleagues at work knows who I see for lunch, where I hang out over weekends, who I see in my spare time without me sharing any of that information, I start to get slightly worried. I never imagined that buying a convertible would be like adding rocket fuel to a Sunday afternoon braai the way the gossip flared up when I drove the new two-seater into the basement. 

I always considered a gym as a place of exercise and maybe a bit of socialization, ….not anymore. People whom you don’t know become your facebook friends in order to get a heads up on a bet to find out as much as they can. If a total stranger asks you in the sauna how your infected eye is holding up these days, I want to call Mr Bolhuis for protection. How did he know that and what value does the information have for him? If three people follow you to your car I consider buying a gun…ok maybe just pepper spray guns are a bit extreme. 

Then there are the people you would like to show interest in your life but just doesn’t give a hoot, those are usually the nice ones I came to realize but I think that’s a topic for a Sunday afternoon. Then you get individuals pretending not to be interested and then spying on you behind fake internet identities. These are the ones slightly messing with my brain. 

I saw a T-shirt saying: “:What goes on tour goes on Facebook”…very true! 

To set the record straight on a couple of things which might save some people some effort: I do not take money underneath the table from suppliers, I just don’t have children, timeshare or a drug habit to fund therefore can afford a Z4. If I didn’t tell you in person I am buying a new car it’s not a personal vendetta. If I spend a lot of time with someone it doesn’t necessarily mean I have relations with that person. 

And then I got out of the pool. . . 

Marley & Please Not Me

I realized not all Labradors are the sweet and well tempered dogs that you always see accompanying people with dark glasses and white sticks. If they don’t finish school they can actually destroy an apartment and even a marriage as well. All of this was evident in the kind of sad predictable movie called Marley & Me.    

I must compliment the director for his selection of the cast, who can portray a whining frustrated housewife better than Jennifer Aniston. If you thought Ross in Friends had it bad, you should watch poor Owen Wilson suffer in this 2 hour drama. Who can blame him for directing his feelings towards his best friend (Marley the ill mannered pooch that eats fax machines!). Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I think the movie was bad, in fact it was probably a very accurate portrayal of so many married couples lives, sad but true. 

After watching this movie I watch one of the worst movies ever produced, I’m not even going to elaborate on this as it is a complete waste of time. The words Ben Stiller should be considered warning signs as a rule.   

A New Chapter

Since the previous post, we entered a new year, a year filled with many challenges, opportunities and of course intricacies that kept the first quarter of the year anything but dull. My own personal life was no exception. I turned 29 in January which was in a way nostalgic as it is the last year before being an old man, or at least that was my perception until now that I tiptoe closer to the big three zero myself.

I have always considered myself as being slightly more mature than my peers, as arrogant as it might sound it is proven by the fact that I am going through a midlife crises at age 29. Whether it means I will only reach age 58, or it is just my impatient  nature that made me decide I cannot wait until my middle age to drive a convertible, therefore I went out and down graded my car to a little two seater  beast  with,  of course a soft top.

You have to agree that the whole idea of wind through your hair makes so much more sense while you still have hair to gust in the wind, and in fact sunburn on a bold head could be quite dangerous unless you have a proper comb-over cemented down by brilcream.

I turned right into 2009 out of 2008 which seems to be a good neighbourhood never before travelled, 2008 was a well looked after suburb, but as they say “bo blink en onder stink” I was almost hi-jacked on the corner of 11^th and 2008, luckily I escaped unharmed, or at least no visible scars. (for the blonde readers – this was figurative speech, so if you don’t understand ....don’t worry about it )