Eish!

…and take them on a tour of the facilities. It’s the WAB [1] equivalent of ambling around with a clipboard to look important.

This reminds me of a  meta-study performed on various public surveys where people on the street had to fill in personal details on a clipboard. It turned out that a higher percentage of individuals than expected are CEOs of their own blue-chip companies, several participants where named after K. Kong and the average earning potential left a gap in the GDP so large that the revenue service died of boredom and got reincarnated as “cash only” showgirl.

These are great times. Great Times.

—-

[1] Work Avoidance Behaviour

As a tax-payer I’m one of the few and the proud.

Which in turn, appears to make me fewer and consequently more proud. With all this pride going round, it is surprising that I have not, as of yet, sprouted a golden mane and growl a lot. Yes friends, like a rubber hose the tax season is brought down upon us and as I grind my head through the SARS schedule mincer, I cannot help thinking that if only I knew how to file my tax properly I’d probably not get audited every year. [1]

Tax money is a useful thing for an aspiring government. Least of all, it pays for a better quality of finger-foods but occasionally a road gets built, a child gets schooled and a man who hits his thumb with a hammer can get a plaster and a little white pill. These are the things governments provide. Wonderful isn’t it?

Yet I can’t help thinking that I’m being taxed twice over.

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Occupational Health and Safety is, ironically, designed to melt the brain.

It is a difficult matter to work on a mine and to stay safe. For one you have to stay sober at all times. Why one would want to stay sober in the dust that is Polokwane or the yellow fog that is Secunda, I have no want for knowing. Hence the elevated risk I guess. The last OHS induction I attended had a 3 minute stint on how to detonate entire hillsides in a safe, efficient and responsible manner followed by a 3 hour diatribe on how not to spend your weekend behind the Spaza gawking at the girls with two heads through the bottom of a home brewed beer bottle. The contrast was noted.

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Can vegetarianism be trusted?

There is an old adage that instructs us to not make decisions on an empty stomach. Wise words and ones which I try not to take too lightly. It is therefore that I am watchful of what I eat, lest I make a wrong decision based on my protein intake and end up razing Kosovo with a gardening trowel.

The last thing I want is to be grumpy from ignoring my Atkins impulse to consume large quantities of red meat, feeling sorry for myself and having to self-console in ice-cream or movies with teenage girls on ponies or ice-skates.

Those ponies would start to look quite delicious.

You are what you eat, we are told and for this exact reason I am dubious of vegetarianism. For obvious reasons. So consider yourselves warned against rampant and totalitarian Vegetarianism. The nitrogen cycle shudders in its very wake. Consequences are hazardous and potentially dire:

• sheep shall multiply exponentially, with no natural predators, to start an ovine pandemic
• cows will walk the streets, blocking traffic whilst looking for China shops
• we will all be plunged into a green hell where we fight for foraging rights with the very species that we once displayed domain over
• our egos will quake from neglect and our hands will shiver from malnutrition
• our children will scream in the night hungry for a piece of chicken.

Then again, maybe not. We can still eat cake.

As long as it fell naturally from the tree.

It is unwise to criticise the youth.

Specifically if you’re criticising their music. It shows how old you are.

I recall how my own parental units turned up noses and plugged up ears (and unplugged radios) at my music when I lived under their roof. And I was listening to such innocence as Duran Duran, OMD, Big Country and Gerry Rafferty. OK, admittedly I interspersed it with bouts of Halloween, Quiet Riot, G’nR and vintage Metallica but normally when I was hiding at Gerald’s house. The days we’re long, the summers warm, my t-shirts torn and my neck whip-lashed stiff.

I kind of wish someone had criticised me properly, intelligently (with force if necessary) and shown me the Path. I mean, honestly, Big Country? Was that just a phase or did Gerry Rafferty lead me to harder drugs like the Waterboys?

Either way, it’s not wise to criticise the music of the youth for fear of ridicule if nothing else. Unless of course they are listening to utter shite. This is altruistically acceptable. I can name a few:

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Today I prepare myself mentally…

…having prepared myself physically for the arduous challenge of tackling the Fish River Canyon starting this Sunday. A wild five day jaunt without a tent or a paddle.

Training has been rigorous and the regime is largely based on:

• waking up early
• forgoing (or is it forsaking) coffee-first-thing for tea-second-thing
• finding a slow fat dog to walk with
• preferably around a dam or (better yet) a puddle to “get in the mood”
• wearing a hat

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I like a good rant as much as the next guy.

This is no exception. The flu has kicked in, the drugs aren’t cheap and they just make it worse[1]. However, before I rant away merrily and stew in my own melancholic torpor, take this disclaimer and memorise it well children:

Disclaimer: Eish! has no delusions of grandeur. It receives 43 spam comments a day and has a readership of 12 accidental hits a week, none of them from my mother (incidentally, even she doesn’t know about it). 3 of those hits are by me refreshing the page in different browsers to up the ante, 3 of them are stalkers and the rest are by your mother Googling for boot polish so get over it. I know I have.

The 2009 SA Blog Awards have left me with a somewhat stupefied expression on my face. It is the same expression you would have seen me wear when Bush beat Gore at the Polls, Zuma beat the NPA on the street and when I walked in on an erstwhile housemate beating it on the couch.

The cause of my stupour is easily surmised, though, by the Blog Awards website itself:

Quote: If you’re a winner or a runner up in any of the categories, please contact us and we will forward you your winner/runner up badge for you to put on your blog. Thank you.

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Vengeful Viognier

If the morning-after doesn’t leave you feeling blinded, extremely sorry or at least mildly green and furry then you need to switch your habit to Vengeful Viognier. Packed with essential polyphenols, antioxidants, flavonoids, anti-depressants, antiseptic and anesthetics – it’s practically a health food.

This wine typically goes well with dishes that are best served cold, such as revenge, malevolence, retaliation, spitefulness, retribution, vengeance, and green salads.

I suspect I’m a little colour blind.

They say that, in life, there are two kinds of people: those who believe the world can be divided into two kinds of people and those who don’t.

The latest meme to hit our follicles in the endless quest to dissect humanity into its constituent parts is the colour[1] coding of menial tasks. Pink jobs for girls and blue jobs for boys. Say that last one fast ten times and you’ll see why I’m not feigning my interest in this dialogue[2].

A Blue Job is supposed to be something that boys are good at: mowing lawns, changing light bulbs, lying about Ukrainian strippers, opening jam jars and keeping remote control buttons from siezing.

A Pink Job is supposed to be something that girls are good at: erm, cooking? cleaning? bending credit-cards? running out of motor oil? Why am I drawing blank on this one?

I confess I am judging this by the calibre of my ex-girlfriends, all master-chefs and/or fastidious house-cleaners (with the exception of one who claimed she was the 3rd member of a touring girl-band. I did her laundry.)  No, I am not trying to marry my mother.

The Nice Dog Lady, however, is not so easy to break down into constituent parts in any way. If you did manage it, you would probably find two parts gin and one part vermouth. I’ve seen her mow the lawn, mount an outside light, open jars and use a remote. I’m just waiting for her to lie about Ukrainian strippers and then I’m going to dig into her past to see if she wasn’t at one stage, indeed, the Nice Dog Lad.

Disclaimer: I fell deeply in love with the Nice Dog Lady when I went over to visit one Sunday and found her in the back yard wearing leather gloves and feeding branches into her own personal wood-chipper. It is an image that shall stay with me always.

—-

[1] for our American audience, that’s color with a ewe

[2] gosh, all these ewes, what will the Republicans think?

Monkey-Boy Merlot

Get Naked! Start the Revolution!

This wine means Business. Monkey Business.

Straw not included in sale price. If you enjoyed this wine, then why not wipe the drool with our handy wet-wipes?