Wednesday, June 30, 2010
A Frenchman, an Italian and an Englishman walk into an airport...
| From my favourite satirical news website. If you're not following www.hayibo.com , you're not on the internet! June 2010 | Issue 5 |
 We were going to start this with a World Cup joke but there are just so many to choose from: France, Italy, England... Meanwhile Rear Admiral Field Marshal Bheki Cele says the fan who wandered into the England dressing room was in cahoots with a British journalist hell-bent on embarrassing South Africa. We at Hayibo are taking Cele's story very serious because when it comes to embarrassing South Africa, he's an expert. Besides, we're also not that into journalists this week after our awesome FEEFA 2.010 WHIRLED CUP t-shirt got rave reviews in an article on News24 and The Sunday Times. Our best publicity ever! Instant riches! Just a pity the journalist forgot to mention Hayibo or our shop. The final count? Two million people read about our t-shirt, one person bought it. We promise not to spend the cash all in one place... The good news is that there are still a few left over for you to snap up before the end of the World Cup next week. Of course, life goes on beyond the World Cup. Or not, if you're off to become a man at an initiation school. Good luck, boys, you're going to need it. And Doctor, remember to hold the blade away from you. No, away from you, Doctor. No, that's towards you, just...No, Doctor, that's a butter knife. And no, Doctor, Klipdrift is not an anaesthetic. Oh, I see it's for you... But now let's bid the losers bonjour, ciao and cheers, salute the General as he goose-steps into Cloudcuckooland, and reach for our cleanest scalpels as we do what we do best: breaking the news – and Euro-weenie hearts – into lots of little pieces.  |
 |
First up, Wazza is drying his tears. |
 Happy Rooney arrives home just in time for new season of Top GearA fatigued and disillusioned Wayne Rooney was granted a small amount of solace yesterday when he returned to his home in Cheshire to discover that his wife, Coleen Rooney, had remembered to tape last Sunday’s broadcast of popular motoring magazine show, Top Gear. |
| Read more... |
Meanwhile, in 15th Century Switzerland... |
 FIFA rejects goal-line technology, warns of soul-capturing devicesFIFA has once again refused to discuss goal-line technology, describing cameras and video replays as the work of the devil. “You say camera, we say soul-capturing device,” said a spokesman this morning, explaining that any technology not based on cuckoo-clocks or fermenting Swiss cheese was “diabolical”. |
| Read more... |
Sepp has fessed up, but then we always suspected this, didn't we? |
 Blatter admits his balls are misshapen, makes scoring difficultFIFA chief Sepp Blatter has admitted that his balls are misshapen, which makes scoring extremely difficult. “It’s embarrassing, especially when your misshapen balls are being viewed by a global audience,” said Blatter. He added that FIFA had handled the balls of dozens of manufacturers before the tournament, and all had felt absolutely normal. |
| Read more... |
Get busy livin' or get busy begging for parole... |
 No black friends for Hani killer means no Shawshank RedemptionChris Hani killer, Clive Derby-Lewis, looks set to spend the rest of his life in jail after SACP Secretary General Blade Nzimande attended his parole hearing on Wednesday to give reasons why it should be denied. Parole was Derby-Lewis’ final hope of seeing the outside of a cell after earlier plans to tunnel out were scuppered by the conservative’s fear of being mistaken for a miner. |
| Read more... |
Zut alors! You call zis an hairliner? |
 French team’s flight home “a disgrace”The French football team’s flight back to Paris yesterday was marked by “several incidents of insubordination and a shocking lack of professionalism,” insiders on the coaching staff reported, adding: “that’s the last time we fly SAA economy”. Coach Raymond Domenech, meanwhile, spent the flight sulking in the toilet after refusing to sit next to a passenger who he claimed had called his momma fat back in 1983. |
The Week That Was - June 30
Wow!
Its been so long since I last posted on my blog its almost like i'm starting all over again.
It's been a rather eventful week, so without further ado i'll get right into it.
Telkom had their copper cables stolen in our suburb last week, hence my absence from the interweb.
Eight calls later, the last one bordering on a hysterical rant, and they finally sent over a technician to inspect the problem. It took them four days before before he arrived, but once i'd gotten over the fact that they were actually at my place I then had to get over the fact that the technician was somewhere between 70 years old and death!
I keep my main telephone line and modem upstairs in my office.
Madala as he called himself seemed like he was in no condition to climb out of a paper-bag, let alone climb up a flight of stairs! An hour later and he had me back online... !
I wonder what Telkom's pension plan is like?
Moving on.
So today I arrived at a clients building where I needed to inspect some structural issues. I hadn't scheduled a meeting since the client owns numerous buildings in the city, and most of the security and maintenance personnel know me. The odd few who don't know me usually get to know me pretty well within an hour or so, and this is how most of my working relationships start.
Alisha seemed destined to test my patience and end up on the wrong side of a smooth working relationship from the outset. As the building manager to this particular high-rise, she immediately came across as being obnoxious and a first-class bitch. I could tell from the outset that her admin and security team were partly afraid of her and partly annoyed by her.
I introduced myself and proceeded to inform her that I needed to inspect the building.
She cut me short and told me that I needed a security pass, and since the admin lady who issued these passes had already left for the day, I would have to come back another time.
Trying a different but equally polite tact, I informed her that i've never needed a security pass for any of the buildings i've ever been to for my regular clients.
That's when she got all bitchy and said it was possible the other buildings were lax in doing their jobs, and that any further discussion was going to be a waste of her time.
What?!!
Did she just diss me?
Ok so I hardly ever pull rank because I really do believe it's cruel and crass, but sometimes the situation calls for cruel and crass.
I looked her dead in the eye, whipped out my mobile, called the owner of the building who just happened to be a golfing buddy as well, and proceeded to tell him about the attitude I was getting from this junior rent-a-cop.
I handed the phone over to her, and watched her face go from anger, to shock, to remorse, and finally she broke down and started crying.
I half expected her team, who had all stood by watching the scene unfold, to break into song and dance when her sobs started. I even got a few smiles from them.
I'm guessing I wont be needing a security pass on my next visit. Just a hunch.
My last meeting was 2 blocks down the road from rent-a-cops playground.
My meeting was scheduled for 4pm with a very charming north-african lady named Fynans.
I got to the building which happened to be owned by Standard Bank. There's no actual bank within the building, but it seems as though much admin and offshore banking related matters take place on the premises, if the floor demarcations at reception were anything to go by.
I went up to the lady at the reception desk, introduced myself and said I was from Sikama Contracting (that's the name of my company). She asked what the company did and I said we were a construction and consulting company. She asked who I needed to speak to and I said I was there to meet Fynans.
I was told to take a seat and somebody would be down to see me shortly.
This is a true story!
Ten minutes later there was a suit who introduced himself to me as David, and asked me to follow him.
We went 6 floors up, and proceeded into a rather posh boardroom.
Inside were 3 more suits.
They offered me tea and coffee and introduced themselves as well.
By this point I suspected something was seriously amiss.
My meetings with suits only ever take place at my own bank, and only after I had scheduled them.
Why would I be called in to a boardroom meeting to meet these guys who I clearly did not know?
So I stopped them halfway into what seemed like a mini-presentation, and told them I suspected there was a misunderstanding.
I said I was there to meet with Fynans, who was definitely a lady last I spoke to her.
They looked at each other, then at the suit who had brought me up from ground floor, and burst out laughing.
It seems the lady at reception had misunderstood.
She thought I owned a construction company and had come to them for finance. Since they specialised in offshore, they assumed I did offshore construction and required high-level financing!
Fynans, however, was simply the buildings manager!
How desperate are these banks for business that they would mistake ME for a high roller?
The weeks hardly over and already i've had more excitement come my way than most people have in a year.
Having said that, these things have a knack of following me wherever I go.
Watch this space!
Its been so long since I last posted on my blog its almost like i'm starting all over again.
It's been a rather eventful week, so without further ado i'll get right into it.
Telkom had their copper cables stolen in our suburb last week, hence my absence from the interweb.
Eight calls later, the last one bordering on a hysterical rant, and they finally sent over a technician to inspect the problem. It took them four days before before he arrived, but once i'd gotten over the fact that they were actually at my place I then had to get over the fact that the technician was somewhere between 70 years old and death!
I keep my main telephone line and modem upstairs in my office.
Madala as he called himself seemed like he was in no condition to climb out of a paper-bag, let alone climb up a flight of stairs! An hour later and he had me back online... !
I wonder what Telkom's pension plan is like?
Moving on.
So today I arrived at a clients building where I needed to inspect some structural issues. I hadn't scheduled a meeting since the client owns numerous buildings in the city, and most of the security and maintenance personnel know me. The odd few who don't know me usually get to know me pretty well within an hour or so, and this is how most of my working relationships start.
Alisha seemed destined to test my patience and end up on the wrong side of a smooth working relationship from the outset. As the building manager to this particular high-rise, she immediately came across as being obnoxious and a first-class bitch. I could tell from the outset that her admin and security team were partly afraid of her and partly annoyed by her.
I introduced myself and proceeded to inform her that I needed to inspect the building.
She cut me short and told me that I needed a security pass, and since the admin lady who issued these passes had already left for the day, I would have to come back another time.
Trying a different but equally polite tact, I informed her that i've never needed a security pass for any of the buildings i've ever been to for my regular clients.
That's when she got all bitchy and said it was possible the other buildings were lax in doing their jobs, and that any further discussion was going to be a waste of her time.
What?!!
Did she just diss me?
Ok so I hardly ever pull rank because I really do believe it's cruel and crass, but sometimes the situation calls for cruel and crass.
I looked her dead in the eye, whipped out my mobile, called the owner of the building who just happened to be a golfing buddy as well, and proceeded to tell him about the attitude I was getting from this junior rent-a-cop.
I handed the phone over to her, and watched her face go from anger, to shock, to remorse, and finally she broke down and started crying.
I half expected her team, who had all stood by watching the scene unfold, to break into song and dance when her sobs started. I even got a few smiles from them.
I'm guessing I wont be needing a security pass on my next visit. Just a hunch.
My last meeting was 2 blocks down the road from rent-a-cops playground.
My meeting was scheduled for 4pm with a very charming north-african lady named Fynans.
I got to the building which happened to be owned by Standard Bank. There's no actual bank within the building, but it seems as though much admin and offshore banking related matters take place on the premises, if the floor demarcations at reception were anything to go by.
I went up to the lady at the reception desk, introduced myself and said I was from Sikama Contracting (that's the name of my company). She asked what the company did and I said we were a construction and consulting company. She asked who I needed to speak to and I said I was there to meet Fynans.
I was told to take a seat and somebody would be down to see me shortly.
This is a true story!
Ten minutes later there was a suit who introduced himself to me as David, and asked me to follow him.
We went 6 floors up, and proceeded into a rather posh boardroom.
Inside were 3 more suits.
They offered me tea and coffee and introduced themselves as well.
By this point I suspected something was seriously amiss.
My meetings with suits only ever take place at my own bank, and only after I had scheduled them.
Why would I be called in to a boardroom meeting to meet these guys who I clearly did not know?
So I stopped them halfway into what seemed like a mini-presentation, and told them I suspected there was a misunderstanding.
I said I was there to meet with Fynans, who was definitely a lady last I spoke to her.
They looked at each other, then at the suit who had brought me up from ground floor, and burst out laughing.
It seems the lady at reception had misunderstood.
She thought I owned a construction company and had come to them for finance. Since they specialised in offshore, they assumed I did offshore construction and required high-level financing!
Fynans, however, was simply the buildings manager!
How desperate are these banks for business that they would mistake ME for a high roller?
The weeks hardly over and already i've had more excitement come my way than most people have in a year.
Having said that, these things have a knack of following me wherever I go.
Watch this space!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Kids Today Are Spoilt!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were.
When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....Uphill... Barefoot....BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they ' ve got it!
When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning....Uphill... Barefoot....BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they ' ve got it!
But now that Im over the ripe old age of thirty, I can ' t help but look around and notice the youth of today.
I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don ' t know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves,in the card catalog!!
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!
Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10cents!
Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass!
Nowhere was safe! There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and the tape would come undone. Cause - that's how we rolled, dig?
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!
If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!
It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!!
You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!
We had the Atari 2600! With games like ' Space Invaders' and ' Asteroids ' .
Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was
just one screen... Forever!
And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!
Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!;
You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!
NO REMOTES!!!
There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.
Do you hear what I'm saying?
We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!
And we didn't have microwaves.
If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!
Imagine that!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.
You're spoiled.
You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!
Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
Sent from my Apple iPad® wireless device
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Wimbledon Record!
John Isner (AP)
London - Play was suspended on Wednesday in the longest tennis match ever played as France's Nicolas Mahut and John Isner of the United States came off court at 59-59 in the final set at Wimbledon.
France's Mahut and Isner of the United States made tennis history as they set a new record for the longest Grand Slam singles match ever.
France's Mahut and Isner of the United States made tennis history as they set a new record for the longest Grand Slam singles match ever.
They surpassed the previous time of six hours and 33 minutes set at the 2004 French Open, when Fabrice Santoro beat fellow Frenchman Arnaud Clement 6-4, 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 16-14.
The record number of aces served in a match at Wimbledon also fell.
Croatian Ivo Karlovic previously held that record, having served 51 aces in a defeat to Italian Daniele Bracciali in 2005.
But both had surpassed that mark in the clash between 23rd seed Isner and grass-court specialist Mahut, who were still contesting the final set of a match carried over from Tuesday.
The previous record for the longest match at Wimbledon was six hours and nine minutes, set in the 2006 men's doubles quarter-finals.
In the men's singles here, it was five hours and 28 minutes, set in 1989 in a match between Holmes and Witsken of the United States.
The previous record longest set at Wimbledon was 62 games, set in a men's doubles match in 1968.
Back then, Olmedo of Peru and Segura of Ecuador beat Forbes and Segal of South Africa 32-30, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, in the days before tie-breaks were introduced for all but the final set.
Mahut and Isner were still tussling at 59-59 in the final set on Court 18 when play was suspended.
Scoreboard: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 59-59 and still counting...
Scoreboard: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 59-59 and still counting...
The VIP Boys Club
It was 10am and I was contemplating another dreary day on the work front, much like the entire week has been already. My business goes through phases of immense excitement and supreme dullness, albeit the latter phase is few and far in-between.
My brother-in-law Ayub called me just after 10am to find out what I was up to. We chat often throughout the day partly because we're in the same field of business, but mostly because we're married to two sisters and this leaves us much to talk about.
Little did I know that my day was about to take a turn toward the surrealistically exciting!
It turns out Ayub had managed to get tickets to todays Soccer World Cup game, Algeria vs USA.
Now the teams may not be the most exciting to watch, but the prospect of watching the game in the VIP Box suite was something I was not going to think twice about, not in this lifetime nor any other!
We got to the stadium just after 2pm and immediately realised that this day was going to go down in the books as a totally memorable one.
Escorted to the VIP Suite by the concierge, we were treated to a fine buffet lunch and array of desserts that would have made Martha Stewart jealous.
My favourite moment came when the dedicated table waitress thought we were Algerian and proceeded to teach us some Xhosa!
Unfortunately the Secret Service and local security detail didn't allow pics to be taken of some of the dignitaries, who included Bill Clinton. I kid you not!
Ayub and I
The concierge and I.
On Sunday we travel to Soccer City to watch Argentina vs Mexico.
I could get used to this :)
My brother-in-law Ayub called me just after 10am to find out what I was up to. We chat often throughout the day partly because we're in the same field of business, but mostly because we're married to two sisters and this leaves us much to talk about.
Little did I know that my day was about to take a turn toward the surrealistically exciting!
It turns out Ayub had managed to get tickets to todays Soccer World Cup game, Algeria vs USA.
Now the teams may not be the most exciting to watch, but the prospect of watching the game in the VIP Box suite was something I was not going to think twice about, not in this lifetime nor any other!
We got to the stadium just after 2pm and immediately realised that this day was going to go down in the books as a totally memorable one.
Escorted to the VIP Suite by the concierge, we were treated to a fine buffet lunch and array of desserts that would have made Martha Stewart jealous.
My favourite moment came when the dedicated table waitress thought we were Algerian and proceeded to teach us some Xhosa!
Unfortunately the Secret Service and local security detail didn't allow pics to be taken of some of the dignitaries, who included Bill Clinton. I kid you not!
Ayub and I
On Sunday we travel to Soccer City to watch Argentina vs Mexico.
I could get used to this :)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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