Rather Late Than Never

So I finally got to see the movie Invictus.
Yes yes I know the whole world and their donkeys have seen it months and years ago, but things work a little slower in my neck of the woods. Time stands still here if you're not clock-watching. Just the other day some guy was at my door tellng me about this amazing thing called 'Broadband'. I told him if I wanted to see broadband, I go down to the local Spur on a Friday night and watch Oom Sarel with his fat bum play the banjo with the rest of his band. That's our Broadband, and we've been having it for years.
Wireless is when Oom Sarel screams instead of using the mic.
See, we not as backward as you can like to think we is.

Moving on before you file my blog under 'Retard Bloggers"......

There was a reason why I waited so long to watch this movie, and tonight I finally figured what that reason was.
I had to wait until the missus and kiddo were out of town, and I had the house to myself.
Yes I know there's no porn or nudity in the movie.... but Clint Eastwood managed to pull off what many Indian movies have been trying for years... He got me to cry during a movie. Not just a lump in the throat and a solitary tear running down the cheek. I'm talking big fat chunks of tears and loud wailing and enough snot running to grease the Gautrain for a year.

Now I don't cry easily during movies and it takes a really special kind of movie to get me to cry.
The last time I cried this much was during Rocky when Stallone came home and shouted "Adriaaaan". So obviously it takes a really classy, deep and intense movie to get me all emotional.

This post is dedicated to all those who haven't seen the movie yet. Yes, all 5 of you in the rest of the world. Go out there, hire it, arm yourself with two-ply tissues, and prepare to bawl your eyes out!

For All You Techies Out There

So is there anything Google Docs cant do?

Putting The 'Pro' In Procrastination

It's 5:45pm, and usually around this time I've just arrived home from my version of a hard days work, and I'm about to plonk myself on the sofa in anticipation of a hot meal from the missus. Sabreen would be running around me in a frenzy as she tries to dodge my kisses, and sometime before 7pm my phone would ring with the last client of the day wanting to ask something of absolutely no importance but just happy to hear my voice; because hearing my voice means that everything is ok and his project is in good hands. Also, it means that the world can continue spinning on it's axis and the Universe is safe for another day.

Did I just make myself sound like Superman?
Hahaha, sometimes I can be so vain and pompous.

So anyways, today was supposed to be a working day, but everybody knows Superman does what Superman wants to do. Notice that Superman now refers to himself in the third person. If you stick around long enough, Superman will begin speaking about himself in the fourth person! Not even Chuck Norris knows how to pull that off.
If you've been reading my blog for longer than a month, you will have noticed a certain bias toward content that is soul-searching, powerful, insightful and inciteful. (That last word was made up by myself. I know it cant be a real word because as I wrote it, spellcheck put a red line underneath it. Spellcheck also put a red line under 'Spellcheck', so in all honesty I'm doubting the integrity of Spellcheck.)

Here's what's been happening in the news this week.

Afriforum took Julius Malema to court for hateful speech.
I always thought Afriforum was a group of farmers producing apples. Turns out they are a group fighting social injustices wherever they may come across it. They're like the Superman for minorities. If you're a foreigner wondering who 'Julius Malema' is, just Google "Donkey from Shrek". I'm not sure who's going to win the lawsuit, but I just wish the people would stop Toyi-Toying outside court. It makes white people nervous, and when white people get nervous, the interest rate goes up and confidence in the country goes down. That's my observation anyways.

Wednesday is another public holiday. Freedom Day.
How many public holiday's does a country as small as ours need? Seriously, if the DA wins the elections and the ANC gets booted out of power, we're going to have public holidays like "Helen Zille's Botox Day", "Patricia De Lilles Ugly Dress Day" and "Tony Leons Day Of Thunder". We'll be permanently on holiday, and for an Indian Capitalist like myself, that's not a good thing. I think the powers that be were really daft when they decided on a date for Freedom Day.
Good Friday, then the weekend, then Easter Monday or whatever it's called, then a working day on Tuesday, and Freedom Day on Wednesday, followed by working days on Thursday and Friday! Seriously, how many people are going to be sober on Tuesday and Thursday? This will probably be the most unproductive week in the entire calendar.
That's the problem with this country. No planning. No think-tank sitting around a polished cherrywood boardroom table going "Whoa! Wait a minute. Lets apply our minds to this holiday date."
Which brings me to my next point.

SABC manager Ed Worster says they are striving to understand their audience.
Well Mr Worster, your audience is currently watching DSTV. They haven't watched your crappy national broadcasters 3 limping stations for a few years now. Those dwindling numbers you see belong to your inflated staff members who are exempt from paying TV Licences, and feel a sense of solidarity and loyalty to your stations. The truth though is that the SABC is going down like the Titanic, and you and your board members are like the band that keeps on playing. As a government mouthpiece, you have lost credibility and trust with your viewership long before Snuki Zikalala decided to turn the public broadcaster into his personal playpen.
As for solutions, you won't find any until you start listening to what the people want, and give it to them.
Fire everybody in that cesspool you call a corporation. Keep the cleaners because they seem to be the only lot who know how to keep crap out of the doors. Get competent people who are not aligned to political parties. Lastly, fire yourself for being a douchebag and then send an email to the ANC saying "Aish baas, this idea of running the country via peoples TV's is not working."
Failing that, people will continue to watch DSTV or simply resort to no TV at all, watching pirate DVD's passed around every citizen in the country like the common cold.
Also, this idea of TV Licence's is bollocks. Why should I pay a TV Licence if I don't watch anything you produce?
If I go to Spur and order a steak, they don't charge me for chicken also, simply because they sell chicken! I don't want chicken, therefore I don't pay for chicken. I want steak and I'll pay for steak dammit! That's why I'm paying for DSTV. That's my steak. Keep you chicken.

The Royal Wedding
Lets be honest here. After Princess Diana's wedding, nobody really gives a crap about another Royal Wedding. Prince William could marry one of the Hyenas from The Lion King and nobody would bat an eyelid. For crying out loud, his father already did and nobody cared!
I think Kate is a lovely girl, but these days everybody is just waiting for the sex-scandal tape to come out.
I remember Princess Diana's wedding as a youngster in school, watching it in class and thinking "Wow! Princess's do exist!"
Then I saw Charles and thought "Damn, when does that frog turn human?"
So I'm happy for Willy and Kate and I'm sure they're going to have beautiful kids and make the Queen mother proud, but I'll be playing golf on the day thank you very much.
What's the Queen Mother's role anyways? She looks like her sole job is to be a walking catalogue for JC Penny. And what's up with those hats? Is she bald underneath them?
I tweeted earlier about how awesome it would be if William was getting married to an Indian girl instead of Kate.

Here's my Top Ten Reasons Why William Marrying A Moodley Would Be Fun
1) Lady Parvati Moodley sounds a lot more interesting than Lady Kate
2) As soon as William announced the wedding date, his in-laws would have picked out his suit & turban.
3) The colour scheme for the wedding would be purple & silver.
4) The Royal Wedding Dish would be Lamb Biryani, with a side-dish of potato samoosas.
5) Williams in-laws would move into Buckingham Palace within a month of the wedding.
6) The rest of the Moodley clan from India & Durban would move in a few weeks later.
7) William and Parvati will holiday every year at the Moodleys holiday home in Tongaat.
8) The wedding song played at Westminster Abbey will be sung by Shah Rukh Khan
9) Within 3 weeks, Williams mother-in-law will have called the Queen Mother "a dirty gora"
10) Lastly, William will work with Parvati's father in his tailor-shop.


Well folks, there you have it.
Time for me to enjoy a hearty supper. Lets hope that idiot delivery guy from Mochachos doesn't get lost this time!

Boys Weekend

I have this Love-Hate relationship with Easter Weekend, and I've had it every year. Well every year since I could drive. It's mostly the idea of sitting in a car for 8 hours driving to a place which is usually just a 4 hour drive away that makes me hate the long weekend.

So usually I end up spending it at home, doing day trips to places like Haartebeespoort Dam or Sun City. This weekends slightly different though. Princess Sabreen and the missus are off to Durban for a week, which leaves me alone at home contemplating moulding my butt to the sofa all week, or maybe having a boys weekend.

My buddy Shafi recently moved down from Cape Town, and I'm hooking up with him tonight. The last time I had a boys weekend, there were cops and firefighters and even a magistrate, and those were just the guests!
I'm kicking this night off with a marathon session of Jerseylicious. I think I've already watched 5 episodes already. The pizza's have already been ordered and arrive at 8pm. I picked up a copy of Bad Boys 2 and Saw 4 to take us past midnight and into tomorrow.
Oh and popcorn. Salted!

Yep, this evening is going to be wild!

Of Demons & Dragons

I can sit through almost any kind of movie, no matter how boring or bad. I could sit through a Nicholas Cage movie, even a silent movie. I could sit through a movie starring Celine Dion & Gary Busey. I'm one of those people who can't watch a movie and stop halfway just because it's bad. I get a sense of not having accomplished. But there's one kind of movie that I can't watch, the only kind that makes me break out in a rash, with violent spasms and random singing of Justin Bieber songs. I'm talking about the demons and dragons genre. Harry Potter, The Sorcerers Apprentice, Lionheart. Doesn't do it for me.

So tonight was movie night. Well the Indian version of movie night anyways.
See in the non-Indian version, you meet up with friends, go for supper, go to a movie, then coffee afterward, and finally you pat each other on the back and say "We gotta do this again. It was amazing!"
In the Indian version of movie night, you go to your sisters house, she cooks a meal, then you sit on her new sofa and watch a pirate DVD movie not yet released in the cinema which her husband brought home from his Pakistani friend in Fordsburg, followed by Woolies malva pudding warmed in the microwave, and finally you hug each other and say "Next week at my house ok. I'm making Biryani and we getting this new movie which is 80% good copy."

See, when you tell an Indian about Piracy, he's picturing Somalians on a boat with machine-guns, not Pakistani's with a gym bag on a street corner.

Being Easter weekend, we tossed around the idea of going to the Rand Easter Show on Sunday. Is it still called the Rand Easter Show? I'm not sure.
I remember going there almost 10 years ago to check out the latest electronics and gadgets. Honestly though, today if I want to do that I just go to one of the bazillion Chinese malls within throwing distance of anywhere. I think that's possibly the one reason why the numbers at The Rand Easter Show are steadily dropping. Also, parking and entrance at the Chinese mall is free, unlike the Rand Easter Show, and the queue for the loo doesn't go around the block into the neighboring suburb.

Did I mention that when it rains, you don't have to claw through tsunami-grade mud or die a slow miserable death from the stench of pooping cows? Maybe this is just my recollection of the Rand Easter Show. Maybe thing's have changed since then and it's become really super-awesome. Maybe it's our version of Disneyworld. I don't know. But I bet you anything the pickpockets are still doing brisk trade, and the toilets still stink.

Ok I'm done ranting now.
PS: Did you notice I started not one but two sentences with 'but' ? My English teacher would be so proud of me :)

Sam Richards : A radical experiment in empathy

Wow!
Thanks to my friend Minnesh Ramdhany for sharing this video with me. Powerful, very powerful.

18 minutes of your time to radically change your thinking.

formspring.me

Hello... Is this thing on? http://formspring.me/kaloo5

10 Things You Didn't Know About Me

#1 : I hate Parmesan cheese. I don't mean dislike or detest, I mean hate! I can't have it placed on the table while I'm having my meal, or within a 3 meter radius. It smells like old-man fart, and my food is allowed to smell like old-man fart 2 days after I've consumed it, but never before I've even eaten it.

#2 : I don't drink Coke. Never have, never will. I cramp like a teenager going through her first menstrual pains if I have even just a glass of this vile brew. No idea why, but if my body say's it's not welcome, who am I to argue. All other fizzy drinks are fine, except Coke.

                                               
#3 : I don't drink coffee or any of it's variations either. Same reason as Coke. It has me rolling around the floor in pain. I think it's an allergic reaction to caffeine. No Tiramissu cake, no lattes,no espresso's, no anything that has coffee in it. My drink of choice would be Rooibos tea, or any other herbal tea. I don't like tea's with milk anyways.

#4 : I don't touch condiment's (salt, pepper, sauce bottles etc) at restaurants or public eating areas with my bare hands. I always hold them with a napkin. Yes, I'm finicky that way.

#5 : I'm able to make friends very quickly, but I'm able to walk away from friendships even quicker once my trust has been betrayed. That's probably why I don't subscribe to the Best Friend theory. Life's too short to have just one person you'd trust with your life. It's more fun having many people trusted with little bits, than one person trusted with all of it. That's my philosophy anyways.

#6 : When I was 18, an uncle I took as a father since my own dad passed away when I was 3, said to me "You'll never make it out in the world without me." I moved out of his home that same day, and his words have been my inspiration to make a success of my life ever since. A few years later, the same uncle came to my home asking for a loan. A few times.
I guess I did make it without him after all.

#7 : I was born a lefty. Left-handed, left-footed. Until my primary school teacher forced me to start writing with my right hand.So now I'm right-handed but left-footed.

#8 : I've already lived through my greatest fear.
I was too young to remember much about my Dad's drowning, but what I've been told by everybody who knew him is that his soccer team had gone to Club Shalimar to celebrate winning the league. They arrived early in the morning, and he loved the water and swimming so he dived into the rock-pool before his team mates even unpacked the vehicles. Not long after, they joined him at the pools, but he wasn't there. They found him at the bottom of the pool shortly afterward. Apparently he had a cramp as he dived in, and hit his head at the bottom of the pool.
Needless to say, I had an intense fear of water growing up. Ironically, or as fate would have it, my mom remarried and her new husband spent every chance he could on the water! He's an avid fisherman who owns a boat. It took a while, but my fear of water was finally confronted. Water and I became friends, but the kind of friends where you always knew the other could beat you up any chance they got. So I respected the oceans and the pools.
One year we went to St Lucia on holiday. Rustic, rough, bungalows, camping on the beach, no nets in the shark-infested waters, the kind of holiday where dry socks and a toothbrush is considered a luxury.
One day four of us decided to head out into the ocean for a swim. An hour later, we realized the current had carried us out to sea. One of the girls that had joined us on this trip, suddenly panicked and couldn't swim or keep her head above water.We were about 12 years old at the time.
In an instant, thoughts of my Dad's drowning incident came rushing back. I was totally gripped by fear, but I also had my younger sister swimming by my side, in the same predicament. I couldn't have my fear known to her. So I fought on and fought through it.... and we made it back to shore safely. I don't think I've ever confessed my fear on that day to anyone, ever. So now you know.

#9 : I ran away from home once. I guess I was a troubled teenager, the kind that believed nobody understands them. I stayed under a bridge for the night. My mom somehow blocked the whole thing out of her head and doesn't believe it happened. Sometimes troubled teenagers are the result of troubled parents.

#10 : There's an item on my Bucket List which I wrote about on a previous post that I want to do before I turn 40. Even if it's just for one night only, I'd like to do Stand-Up Comedy.

Well, there you have it. 10 things you may not have known about me.

Dear Chinese Advertisers

Seriously guys, WTF?!
Do you even look at the products you make before sending them out to market? I mean really look at the products? What in heavens name were you thinking when you designed this packaging? Was there like really nobody in that meeting that sat up and thought "Hey wait, why is there a burst geyser of blood shooting from that poor girls vajayjay?"

Here's an even more scary thought.
Some dodgy Chinese businessman looked at this and thought "Let's target it at kids, shall we?"

Here's a tip China : If you're planning on taking over the world, please outsource the marketing and advertising to someone else. Anyone else. Heck sign Sarah Palin if you have to, but please don't think you can do it yourself.

Here endeth the rant.

National Cleavage Day

National Cleavage Day.
The one day when it's totally acceptable to stare at boob's and give their owners compliments.I was listening to DJFresh on the 5FM  Fresh Drive and he was talking about how the average male lives 5 years longer if he stares at boob's on a daily basis.
I think we've found the fountain of youth ladies and gentleman. Well mostly gentleman.

So my post today is totally unrelated to all this cleavage splashed across the page.
I happened to be in the arse-end of the world this week, commonly referred to as Alberton and not to be confused with Australia. That place is so bad, if you stopped and asked anyone for directions to Alberton, they'd first laugh in your face,then call their friends over to laugh in your face, and finally they'd ask if they can have your picture so other's can also laugh in your face. Then they'd leave, without giving you directions.

My client, who always gives you his address as "Germiston" even though his business is in the heart of Alberton (obviously because he is just as embarrassed to be located in Alberton) advised me to tell my team to bring their own lunch when working on site as there are no food outlets nearby. That's how sucky Alberton is. Dead cows don't even want to end up as polony in that town.
Ok enough about Alberton.

So I was the dumb-ass that forgot to pack lunch today while visiting the site during lunch, and as appealing as it was to stand there and watch my labourers tuck in to their boiled cabbage, tripe and trotter curry with pap, I decided my stomach needed something a little more refined. Since there was no McDonalds in a 100km radius, I whipped out my new Blackberry Torch (do you see what I just did there? Awesome product placement Fareed, awesome!) and I Googled "Food Fit For Humans". An hour later I was seated at Panarottis Pizza and eagerly awaited my Alfreddo Pasta, No Ham, Extra Mushroom.
Of course they screwed up my order, but I gave them high praise for only screwing it up once.

While sitting there waiting for my "Alfreddo Pasta, No Ham, Extra Mushroom : Take Two!" to arrive, I realized that I have never done a blog post with the title "Things You Never Knew About Me". They're so popular nowadays, even the Pope is doing it. I read his list. #17 on his list was : I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Ok I'm just kidding, before I get lynched by crazy fundamentalists. It was actually #15 on the list.
I think I may have spelt 'fundamentalist' wrong.
Whats up with that word anyways?
There's absolutely nothing 'fun' about a crazy religious 'mentalist'. They don't even put the 'fun' in being 'mental'. There's crazy 'mental' people looking at these fundamentalists and going "Those guys are fucking crazy!"

Wait, I'm digressing.
Back to my list.
Yes. I need to do a list of maybe 20 things you didn't know about me. I'd do it now but my finger's are already sore because I type using only 2 fingers. Also, there's some crazy guy at my door with a pointy white hat and a burning cross. I wonder what he wants. Halloween is over, you nut job!

This pic made me throw up a little in my mouth, so I had to share it with you.
Only because I'm awesome like that.
#Winning

The Piers Morgan Files

If you follow me on Twitter ( @kaloo5 ) you will know that at least once a week I choose a celebrity or someone of any degree of fame to lampoon. This week however I made an exception and chose a total unknown, a knob of a human being who's only claim to fame is being brought to tears on national television by Amarosa on a series of The Apprentice. The person I refer to is none other than Piers Morgan, pictured above in his daily wear.

Rumour has it he was a judge on some or other talent show. I figure any talent show that has him as a judge is either taking the piss at itself, or is bent on not appreciating talent.

I did a Wikipedia search on our intrepid Dong Juan and found that he had a run-in with UK television personality Ian Hislop. Annoyed that he had been made fun of on a satirical show (wait, did someone say he was made fun of on a satirical show?) called Have I Got News For You , he duly instructed his team of henchmen at the the newspaper he worked at to dig up any dirt they could find on Ian Hislop.
Ironic than that just this week, he contacted Twitter to complain about being bullied by Rio Ferdinand from Manchester United because, as Rio quite rightly pointed out, Piers has manboobs. Rio got the topic      #PiersHasMoobs trending within minutes and Piers was taken back to a time he would rather have forgotten... a sad time for a young Piers when he was bullied in a kiddies playground; not by other kids, but by the dad's Piers was trying to hit on. This was about 3 years ago.

I know I'll move on to another victim (did I say victim?) of lampooning soon enough, but if the truth be told I always say you should be able to take it as well as you dish it out.
I have this really worn out pair of brown Aldo shoes in my closet. It's been in the closet longer than Piers Morgan has. It's time they both come out and end up on the rubbish heap.