Verbal Diarrhoea

Sit down, sit down on the prow to wave back
There might not be another stop further on the line
Look out, look out at each town that glides by
And there’s another crowd to drown in crying eyes

Lost Coastlines – Okkervil River

Not entirely sure where in Costa Rica this photograph was taken.

Can you imagine surfing in warm water? Can you imagine getting into without a wetsuit?

Blue Frog

The following photographs stolen from Lonely Planet’s website. Thanks to Dizzy* for sending me the link.

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On Saturday, 25th of September 2010, Fahiema, Cougar and I will be going shark cage diving. Woohoo! There will be pictures, there will be stories and there will be lots of freaking out.

Thanks to Cougar for making this happen.

Whenever I have a nightmare (which is often enough) and I want to tell someone about it, I’m reminded of the following quote in Sue Townsend’s latest novel, Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years.

Adrian Mole’s wife to him, “When we first married, we made a promise that we would never talk about our dreams. I expect you to honour that agreement.”

Anyway, I was planning to on writing a book review on the novel but realised that I have nothing to say other than, “I loved this book. You should buy it. These are my favourite lines from the book.” What? I’m just not that great at heaping praise on things I love. I’m way better at finding and articulating what I think are imperfections.

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And in other things that made me smile:

• Barry’s recent gchat status: Twilight – The story of a young woman’s choice to practice either bestiality or necrophilia.
• In a wonderful effort to mock Rupert Murdoch’s claim that he owns the “Sky” in “Skype”, Kulula came up with this brilliant advertising campaign.  

The daily journey to work should have taken me no longer than ten minutes. But I’d left the house late and now I found myself sitting in traffic.

Sitting there, hands clenching the steering wheel, lips chapped and attempting to sing along to The Postal Service, I noticed her running by. And instantly I hated her. I hated her and everything she represented. I hated her freedom. I hated the fact that it was nearly 8 in the morning and she wasn’t rushing off to an office with fluorescent lighting. Her fingers would not be gliding effortlessly across a keyboard, in an effort to update the latest database. I hated the fact that she had the luxury of spending her mornings exercising, her legs pounding away rhythmically. I imagined experiencing the exertion of my lungs, the cold air on my face and I hated her. I hated her pert ass and blonde ponytail swinging to and fro.

And as sat there thinking up a list of imaginary wrongs incurred by the young woman, I had what others would refer to as an “epiphany”. I realized that a few months ago my opinion of the woman would have been different. I would have looked at her in complete and utter awe. I would have admired her willpower. The discipline that it took to wake up at the crack of dawn and run anything further than a block, was beyond my comprehension. And this feeling of awe would soon be followed by one of dejection. I’d never be capable of any of this.

And now … Now all those things I’ve admired in other runners; all those things that I always I assumed I was incapable of doing, are easy. I’ve finally reached a place where I can run 8km comfortably. I’ve finally reached a place where running is actually enjoyable. I’ve finally reached the point where I can bite down and tell myself, “You’re not done yet. Dig deep. Find your inner strength.”

And as this realization hit me, I couldn’t help but smile.

As if there isn’t enough embarassing information of me out there on the interwebs, I bring you photos.

Ignore the fact that I’m wearing takkies to a party and that my fat stomach is showing. The bigger question is what am I doing and why? And if you thought THIS is bad, you should see me at En-dee!’s wedding.

This chick in front, with the grey T-shirt, is one of the coolest chick ever. How can I not love a girl who tries to embody the spirit of Britney Spears on the dancefloor?

Watching soccer.

EDIT: Just got the following gchat message from Dizzy.

Dizzy*: Your blog post today … I laughed so hard and it reminded me of the following pic …

I only want sympathy
in the form of you
crawling into bed with me
Dance, dance – Fall out Boy (Lindberg Palace Remix)

A few days ago I was telling Juan how much I enjoy listening to the song above. Everytime I hear it I can’t help but start dancing and it’s not sexy dancing. “When I hear this song I don’t dance like I’m trying to entice a guy. This is happy dancing – dancing that will earn me more than a few weird stares and giggles.”

Juan: So what? Do you normally dance to entice a guy?

Me: Nooooo … But the men sure are enticed!

*

At the moment I’m totally enjoying Gold Motel’s Stealing the Moonlight. The song makes me yearn for summer and short little dresses. (It’s raining right now. I can’t say I’m surprised. It is winter IN Cape Town. In Cape Town, in Winter, rain is all you can expect for days on. It’s so depressing.)  

Yesterday I went to bed at around 5:30 and didn’t wake up until 6:45 this morning. That’s more than 12 hours sleep. Hell, I didn’t even get to eat supper. I got home, ate a handful of Cheerios and then went to bed.

Anyway, by now you’ve probably all heard that Paris Hilton was arrested for allegedly smoking pot in Port Elizabeth. Not to left an opportunity to mock a celebrity go by, Nandos came up with THIS brilliant ad:

And in other awesome things I’ve discovered:

• THIS blog allows readers to freely download mixed tapes created by the blogger himself and his friend, Liz. Some of the songs on offer are Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks, Cap Cod Kwassa Kwassa by Vampire Weekend and Lasso by Phoenix.
• And then there’s Peter Callesen, a Danish contemporary artists. Peter has this amazing talent of turning boring, flat pieces of A4 paper into stunning 3D installations. Here’s an example of some of his work.

This is called “In the Shadow of an Orchid”, 2005.

Found anything interesting on the web lately?

The following photographs taken by Gottography are currently doing the email rounds. These photpgraphs are of Cape Town’s very own version of the “London Eye”. The Big Wheel is situated at the V&A Waterfront and is open to the public on Wednesday, 09 June 2010. Prices for the a ticket are R70. To find out more on the big wheel, click here.

I don’t feel like entertaining the masses today so I thought I’d participate in Where in the World Wednesday. What’s that? It’s not Wednesday? Yeah, well I’m uploading pictures of Venice either way, so suck it up Sherlock.

To participate in WITWW all you need to do is upload some pics, upload the WITWW button and post a comment on Classy in Philadelphia stating that you’ve decided to participate.   

I loved the look and feel of the old buildings.

I was completely amazed at the size of the seafood in Venice. Click on photo to enlarge.

Sitting on the banks of the river (?) I watched the sun set. Personally I think Venice has Paris beat when it comes to being the most romantic city.

I actually met the funniest Canadian chicks while sitting on the river banks. We just sat there talking and laughing for hours. The one taught be about Indian history and the war for independence and the other talked about her Irish grandmother. It was one of my all time favourite moments in Italy.   

Play ground – so different to the ones I see in Cape Town everyday.

Me: My subconscious is fucking with me. I had a dream that the MFH emailed me to ask me out on a date. And all I thought was, “THAT only took me four years.”

Dizzy*: I think your subconscious wants you to make a move already.

Me: He has a girlfriend. Do you think my subconscious wants me to get rid of her?

Dizzy*: I think your subconscious wants you to find out if he’s REALLY happy …. I’m kidding! Don’t do anything to hasten the poor girl’s demise.

Me: Soooo … you won’t be my alibi then?

I woke up this morning to find that I DID indeed have an email from the MFH. Unfortunately it was all innocent and work related and no matter how hard I tried, there was absolutely no way that I could delude myself into believing that the words “I can programme a script that will validate all the links within a website” actually translates into “I want to do things to you that would make Jenna Jameson blush”.*

*I don’t actually want him to say that. It just sounded funnier than “I can’t stop thinking about your brown skin and pert ass. I should totally dump my girlfriend and do whatever it takes to make you mine”.

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Oh, did you know that when using predictive text and you start typing the word “dream”, your phone will automatically assume that you wanted to type the word “erection”. Unless of course that’s just my phone …