Not Ideal

Quick one, I may in fact be offline for a couple of days, whilst I sort out some technical issues. Sit tight, hope to have this sorted out shortly, and hopefully we can chat again in a few days. Suffice to say, the R250 a Day Challenge is now dissolved until further notice. Boo.

Oakes signing off.

Not One Of Our Better Ones

And that’s it then. Let’s hope the next few days are better than this one which, to be frank, was pretty f**king shit.

That is all.

Oakes signing off.

Please?

A typical day in Cape Town.

Can there be anything quite as annoying as the wind we are currently experiencing in Cape Town? The gale force howling we have been hearing these last few days, is of course what locals refer to as the “Cape Doctor”, a fierce South Easterly wind which is meant to clean the city of any smog, fumes and other harmful toxins, blowing them all into the poorer suburbs of the Western Cape instead.

In theory it is supposed to clean Cape Town but all it seems to do is blow the city’s rubbish all over the streets before having it all settle, frustratingly enough, onto my car. I staggered out my flat this morning to find what appeared to be someone’s grocery shopping sprawled across my windshield. There were yoghurts, dried fruits and - more disturbingly - a brown sticky substance which I hope to God was some sort of chocolate mousse dessert.

They of course all managed to find their way around the dozens of other cars parked in the street, in between the two heroin addicts who sleep on the pavement, and under and over the various trees which line our property, before deciding to nestle nicely on my car.

I know I’ve written about the wind before, and I know I’m probably sounding like a stuck record now, but I really do detest it. Even as a young boy watching the hit cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, the Russian girl with the power of Wind always rubbed me up the wrong way, to the point where I secretly wished the Asian bird with the Water power would drown her during an alcohol-fuelled argument over one of the boys. Sadly, it being a kids television show, they never did have that drunken fight, but I have continued to be annoyed by both the kid, as well as the shitty element she controlled.

So much so, that I have even spent considerable time researching how to reduce the effects of the wind in the Cape Town city centre. Based on my findings, I’m fairly sure we can successfully divert it with approximately five strategically placed windmill constructions, which will catch the wind as it heads toward my bedroom window, and gently but firmly steer it towards Port Elizabeth instead.

Why Port Elizabeth? Well, the people who live there are fairly reserved and soft spoken and so would not kick up too much of a fuss. Also, I know of at least two people who I don’t get on with who currently reside there, and so this would also appeal to my sense of vengeance.

Seriously though, is there anything we can do to prevent getting blown over on a daily basis? I don’t care about blue light convoys getting banned in the Western Cape, I want Helen Zille to focus her efforts on making the Cape Town Gardens area a wind-free zone. This is becoming a huge problem now.

As my neighbor is fond of telling me, the only good thing about the wind is when you are breaking it. Just make sure to light a match straight after though.

Oakes signing off.

Hating That

If you avidly read this blog as much as I do (after I write something, I generally stare at it for hours thereafter) you would of course have noticed that this site went crashing last night.

It seems to be okay now, but the geeks at my hosting company seemed non-commital on whether this may happen again, so just be prepared if things come tumbling down this evening.

Just thought I’d let you know. Does this count as a daily post?

Maybe.

I’ll see how I feel later.

Oakes signing off.

Seriously

Cell Phones: Trendy and cool.

I remember proudly walking around with a brick-sized cell phone attached to my belt during the year 2000, a time where I completely fancied myself. Back then, brick-sized cell phones were all the rage, it was during the cell phone boom in South Africa, and you were considered to be un trendy and slightly pathetic if you did not own one.

A truly multi-purpose gadget, I remember using my Nokia 5110 to leave missed calls for my friends, hit people over the head when they annoyed me, and even used it to send an sms to cute girls I wanted to rub my winky on, but was too shy to speak to in person.

Back then, air time was ridiculously expensive, Vodacom and MTN were bending us over and giving everyone a hefty rogering, and you could easily end up paying the equivalent of a month’s rent on a hour long cell phone call. Being a traditionally stingy nation, South Africans proclaimed the sms as the desired communication tool of choice, as it worked out to about 99c to send a 90 character message. Unlike Twitter’s famous 140 characters though, 90 characters never really got you very far.

Usually, you would just about manage to describe the length and girth of your winky, before running out of characters and having to pay an extra 99c for the pleasure of sending a two unit message, which would then take up 10% of the recipient’s cell phone storage. (Hard to believe, but there was a time when cell phones only stored about 20 messages) Obviously this was a lose lose situation, and so people developed a short hand method of communicating via sms.

And so, “that” soon became “dat”, “before” evolved into “b4”, and just like magic, every man and his dog was soon “Lol”ing at anything mildly amusing, saving the “ROTFLMA”ing for the very special moments in life.

Although this was a horrible time for someone who insisted on speaking eloquently, I grudgingly accepted it, both in terms of the economic value in speaking like a retard, as well as the fact that it was quite an inconvenience typing out long words on a cell phone key board.

That was then though, and this is now. Today, I am completely underwhelmed by people who continue to persist in communicating in this manner, especially with the use of BlackBerry keyboards and predictive text. Don’t even get me started on people who use computers to update their Twitter or Facebook status.

Quite frankly, if you are using a fully fledged computer keyboard to update your Facebook status, and you still insist on using “dat” instead of “that”, I will make it my mission to track you down and kick you firmly in the throat. Come on, it’s one extra letter, type the damn thing out. You know how to spell, you are not a cretin.

There is nothing cute about writing like a six year old. Especially when you are a thirty seven year old. Keep this up and you will be needing a colonoscopy, specifically to identify the foreign object found up there, namely my foot. Lol. Or not.

Oakes signing off.

Theme - Famous Couples In History

Some Other Guy: Showing a bit of leg for a fancy dress party.

Actually this is not really a poll. I lied.

I need your help with something though. The Girlfriend and I are attending a fancy dress party with the theme of “Famous Couples In History”. I know, not your traditional easy “P” party theme, this one will require some thought.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony is taken, as is Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Tarzan and Jane was thrown around as a possible option, but I’m not too keen on prancing around in a loin cloth all evening, and besides, I still have some scars from the cricket the other day. The Girlfriend wants us to go as the Incredible Hulk and the chick that he fancies, but that means painting me green, and to be quite honest, green has never been my colour. King Kong and the chick that he fancies was another one mooted by The Girlfriend, but that requires me to dress in a warm gorilla suit, and I already have a major sweat problem as it is.

So, that’s where you come in. Any cool ideas for us to use? At the moment, I have as much creativity as a block of dry wood, and I’m flush out of ideas. If you have anything to go with though, please give me a shout. It’s this coming weekend, so we have a few days to think about it.

So please drop your ideas in the comments section, I’ll forever love you if you do.

Oakes signing off.

Old Spice That Is

Growing up, I hated getting Old Spice deodorants as gifts, as I thought they were for boring old men called Wally and Cecil who put Brylcream in their hair, and wore grey shoes. These days Old Spice seems like a pretty cool brand, as this latest advert shows.

Hey? I liked that.

Let’s chat again tomorrow. Have a few things I want to get off my chest.

Oakes signing off.

If One Can Call It That

Not much to say on this blustery Friday. Been like a busy bee today, but will make the effort of an obligatory blog post, thus maintaining my record, which was broken two weeks back by the sneaky Stephen Oakes - who it turns out - is actually related to me, and as such, is therefore not eligibile for the prize. Sorry Steve O.

Will probably have some interesting things to tell you in the next few days. Hitting Wafu this evening, and then Long Street thereafter. Pull through if you’re keen.

Oakes signing off.