Smoke On The Water

Fire In The Sky

Wow the symphony of fire was really HAWSOME.

We met my family (extended) at the power boat club at around 19:00 after fighting our way through unbelievable traffic and almost impossible parking. We had to act quickly as the tide was going out and the boat wouldn’t be able to get out of the harbor during the spring low. The problem was that my parents hadn’t quite arrived yet. It was touch and go for a few moments but eventually they arrived and we got under way.

The weather was really great, nice and warm and almost zero wind. We anchored our boat and started the drinking and snacking. Only problem was that nobody had brought any drinks. Through a comedy of errors everybody thought they were bringing the food and the others were bringing the drinks. The snacks were great by the way. We managed to barter some of our excellent snacks for a few cans of cool drink and I had brought four mini bottles of champagne so in the end we got sorted out. Then the pyro show started.

ZOMFG!!!!!

We couldn’t hear the music and out vantage point wasn’t the best (we were kinda looking at the side of the show so a lot of the effects were hidden behind others) but being out on the open water with loved ones made it all worth while. It was so cool

I took hundreds of pictures, but the long shutter speed required didn’t exactly sync well with the motion of the ocean and the overlapping of effects didn’t help either. Still, a couple of shots came out really nicely. I personally think that one of my best was when I used the flash which filled the foreground and still captured the fireworks in the background, the foreground was my cousin and her boyfriend sitting on the bow of the boat cuddling while watching the show. It was just perfect, my depth of field was just right and everything was in focus, I even managed to keep the camera still for the 40th of a second the shutter was up and the framing was decent too. The only problem is that my cousin’s damn thong is showing something mad and ruins an otherwise technically perfect shot. Total bummer (pun unintentional).

The show lasted for 30 min and got so loud at the end that my ears were ringing, I think we floated closer during the show, so close that the smell of explosives was overpowering. Afterwards we generally floated a bit and had a mini party.

The tide was still to low to take the boat out of the water but lucky my uncle had thought ahead and booked a berth at a fancy floating caravan park.

Here are some of the fancy floating caravans

I’m not joking, it’s just like a caravan park, there’s a place when you plug you floating caravan in and ablution blocks and everything. The only difference is that the ablution blocks have 2ply tp.

I had great fun and even as I sit and type this it feels like I’m swaying back and forth. It’s weird and making me feel kinda sick actually.

IN THE NEWS

The judge in JZ’s rape trial says that he can not kick the case out, he has stated that according to the evidence presented JZ will be found guilty if the defense does not put forward a convincing case. In light of the fact the the defense has played almost every card available to them this bodes not well for the exc-dep-prez.

This article reads more like a resume for bachelor number one than a description of the new director general of the NIA. It’s kinda weird that they think the fact that he like whiskey and golf are hard hitting news.

In a wild turnaround Cosatu has spoken out in support of Helen Zille’s halt on awarding contracts for the 2010 stadium. But Cosatu is famous for changing their minds, especially on the matter of their support for JZ. When you consider that the total bill for the 2010 event is going to be well over R250Bl or roughly half the entire countries governmental budget you’ve got to ask if we can really afford it.

I don’t normally quote whole news stories but this one I just have to.

Berlin – German police discovered a truant teenager at home in bed with her boyfriend after a neighbour spotted a man climbing into her window and reported a burglary, authorities said on Wednesday.

Thinking he had witnessed a break-in, the neighbour called police, who sped towards the would-be crime scene with their siren blaring.

When officers arrived, the girl’s mother told them the room belonged to her 15-year-old daughter who was at school.

Further investigation revealed the mother was wrong.

“She wasn’t looking at school books, she was in bed with her boyfriend and was presumably learning something else,” Frankfurt police said in a statement.

“Further investigation revealed the mother was wrong.” and “presumably learning something else” are just priceless lines.

WELL THAT’S ALL

You’ve had enough pictures and I haven’t seen any movies lately so all I’m going to do is remind you to vote for your favorite contest and the leave. Vote for your favorite, at the moment two of the contenders are exactly even with a rather significant portion of the votes, only you guys can change the outcome. Send me your votes.

schpat out.

Smoke On The Water

Fire In The Sky

Wow the symphony of fire was really HAWSOME.

We met my family (extended) at the power boat club at around 19:00 after fighting our way through unbelievable traffic and almost impossible parking. We had to act quickly as the tide was going out and the boat wouldn’t be able to get out of the harbor during the spring low. The problem was that my parents hadn’t quite arrived yet. It was touch and go for a few moments but eventually they arrived and we got under way.

The weather was really great, nice and warm and almost zero wind. We anchored our boat and started the drinking and snacking. Only problem was that nobody had brought any drinks. Through a comedy of errors everybody thought they were bringing the food and the others were bringing the drinks. The snacks were great by the way. We managed to barter some of our excellent snacks for a few cans of cool drink and I had brought four mini bottles of champagne so in the end we got sorted out. Then the pyro show started.

ZOMFG!!!!!

We couldn’t hear the music and out vantage point wasn’t the best (we were kinda looking at the side of the show so a lot of the effects were hidden behind others) but being out on the open water with loved ones made it all worth while. It was so cool

I took hundreds of pictures, but the long shutter speed required didn’t exactly sync well with the motion of the ocean and the overlapping of effects didn’t help either. Still, a couple of shots came out really nicely. I personally think that one of my best was when I used the flash which filled the foreground and still captured the fireworks in the background, the foreground was my cousin and her boyfriend sitting on the bow of the boat cuddling while watching the show. It was just perfect, my depth of field was just right and everything was in focus, I even managed to keep the camera still for the 40th of a second the shutter was up and the framing was decent too. The only problem is that my cousin’s damn thong is showing something mad and ruins an otherwise technically perfect shot. Total bummer (pun unintentional).

The show lasted for 30 min and got so loud at the end that my ears were ringing, I think we floated closer during the show, so close that the smell of explosives was overpowering. Afterwards we generally floated a bit and had a mini party.

The tide was still to low to take the boat out of the water but lucky my uncle had thought ahead and booked a berth at a fancy floating caravan park.

Here are some of the fancy floating caravans

I’m not joking, it’s just like a caravan park, there’s a place when you plug you floating caravan in and ablution blocks and everything. The only difference is that the ablution blocks have 2ply tp.

I had great fun and even as I sit and type this it feels like I’m swaying back and forth. It’s weird and making me feel kinda sick actually.

IN THE NEWS

The judge in JZ’s rape trial says that he can not kick the case out, he has stated that according to the evidence presented JZ will be found guilty if the defense does not put forward a convincing case. In light of the fact the the defense has played almost every card available to them this bodes not well for the exc-dep-prez.

This article reads more like a resume for bachelor number one than a description of the new director general of the NIA. It’s kinda weird that they think the fact that he like whiskey and golf are hard hitting news.

In a wild turnaround Cosatu has spoken out in support of Helen Zille’s halt on awarding contracts for the 2010 stadium. But Cosatu is famous for changing their minds, especially on the matter of their support for JZ. When you consider that the total bill for the 2010 event is going to be well over R250Bl or roughly half the entire countries governmental budget you’ve got to ask if we can really afford it.

I don’t normally quote whole news stories but this one I just have to.

Berlin – German police discovered a truant teenager at home in bed with her boyfriend after a neighbour spotted a man climbing into her window and reported a burglary, authorities said on Wednesday.

Thinking he had witnessed a break-in, the neighbour called police, who sped towards the would-be crime scene with their siren blaring.

When officers arrived, the girl’s mother told them the room belonged to her 15-year-old daughter who was at school.

Further investigation revealed the mother was wrong.

“She wasn’t looking at school books, she was in bed with her boyfriend and was presumably learning something else,” Frankfurt police said in a statement.

“Further investigation revealed the mother was wrong.” and “presumably learning something else” are just priceless lines.

WELL THAT’S ALL

You’ve had enough pictures and I haven’t seen any movies lately so all I’m going to do is remind you to vote for your favorite contest and the leave. Vote for your favorite, at the moment two of the contenders are exactly even with a rather significant portion of the votes, only you guys can change the outcome. Send me your votes.

schpat out.

Straight is the new Gay

Yep, I said it, you heard it here first, spread the word. Answers.com describes the Retrosexual as : “the antithesis of the metrosexual: a man with an undeveloped aesthetic sense who spends as little time and money as possible on his appearance and lifestyle”.

Men are sick and tired of having to worry about their hair and skin. They’re giving up learning to be sensitive and know when to cry in movies. Men are reclaiming their sexuality, John Wayne, Jack Palance and Telly Savalace would be proud. Chuck Norris started this thing and we’re gona ride the wave to the end.

IN THE NEWS

Is this the end of D-TV? ICASA has developed and released a set of codes to be used by broadcasting and telecommunication providers when providing services to disabled people.

There’s more controversy around Helen Zille placing a one week stop to the appointment of consultants for the Green Point Stadium Rebuild. Ebrahim Rasool is upset that she showed “no patience” on the issue, mmm her saying let’s wait a week until we see proper financial models, I wonder what that was. Remember that the price tag of R1Bil is the whole of the City’s budget for the year, the MayCo was told that the city would have to come up with “creative ways” to raise the cash. I’ve got a few ideas, and they all tie in with item B on the contest list.

If you want a story about a special kind of crazy, check this out. Johan Huibers is building himself an ark. Yes you read right, he’s building a full size, scale replica (I don’t get it either) of the biblical escape pod.

In their infinite wisdom the powers that be have declared that next time there is a storm in New Orleans shelters will not be provided. This is in a effort to make it “more attractive” for people to leave than it is to stay. I don’t know if this is going to work, there’s always the promise of looting.

They’ve done it again. In a continued attempt to get me to visit Las Vegas another attraction has been added. In addition to awesome shows, gambling, quick marriages and Pink(tm) strip clubs Now they have the largest buffet on earth, and it only costs $7.50 or about R 45. Powers failing, must resist.

In France a cosmetics factory was robbed of 10 000 jars of L’Oreak RevitaLift. The cops are on the look out for a well organised group of hardened criminals, with soft skin.

Ever doubted that there was a market for everything and anything? Well it’s true, apparently you can even buy truckloads of raw sewerage. Not in enough shit? Buy some of ours.

YOGA
In India

In Australia

TONIGHT’S FESTIVITIES

It’s been confirmed, I’m going to see the Symphony of Fire on my uncle’s boat tonight. It’s totally going to rock. Snacks, Alcohol and Pyrotechnics how could it get any better? So I gotta leave a little early today to prepare for that one. Coolies

schpat out

Straight is the new Gay

Yep, I said it, you heard it here first, spread the word. Answers.com describes the Retrosexual as : “the antithesis of the metrosexual: a man with an undeveloped aesthetic sense who spends as little time and money as possible on his appearance and lifestyle”.

Men are sick and tired of having to worry about their hair and skin. They’re giving up learning to be sensitive and know when to cry in movies. Men are reclaiming their sexuality, John Wayne, Jack Palance and Telly Savalace would be proud. Chuck Norris started this thing and we’re gona ride the wave to the end.

IN THE NEWS

Is this the end of D-TV? ICASA has developed and released a set of codes to be used by broadcasting and telecommunication providers when providing services to disabled people.

There’s more controversy around Helen Zille placing a one week stop to the appointment of consultants for the Green Point Stadium Rebuild. Ebrahim Rasool is upset that she showed “no patience” on the issue, mmm her saying let’s wait a week until we see proper financial models, I wonder what that was. Remember that the price tag of R1Bil is the whole of the City’s budget for the year, the MayCo was told that the city would have to come up with “creative ways” to raise the cash. I’ve got a few ideas, and they all tie in with item B on the contest list.

If you want a story about a special kind of crazy, check this out. Johan Huibers is building himself an ark. Yes you read right, he’s building a full size, scale replica (I don’t get it either) of the biblical escape pod.

In their infinite wisdom the powers that be have declared that next time there is a storm in New Orleans shelters will not be provided. This is in a effort to make it “more attractive” for people to leave than it is to stay. I don’t know if this is going to work, there’s always the promise of looting.

They’ve done it again. In a continued attempt to get me to visit Las Vegas another attraction has been added. In addition to awesome shows, gambling, quick marriages and Pink(tm) strip clubs Now they have the largest buffet on earth, and it only costs $7.50 or about R 45. Powers failing, must resist.

In France a cosmetics factory was robbed of 10 000 jars of L’Oreak RevitaLift. The cops are on the look out for a well organised group of hardened criminals, with soft skin.

Ever doubted that there was a market for everything and anything? Well it’s true, apparently you can even buy truckloads of raw sewerage. Not in enough shit? Buy some of ours.

YOGA
In India

In Australia

TONIGHT’S FESTIVITIES

It’s been confirmed, I’m going to see the Symphony of Fire on my uncle’s boat tonight. It’s totally going to rock. Snacks, Alcohol and Pyrotechnics how could it get any better? So I gotta leave a little early today to prepare for that one. Coolies

schpat out

Interesting Times

Tonight I’ve got my game which I’m really excited about, it’ll be really fun to actually get a session in tonight, I hope it happens. I found out that I may or may not be having an interesting evening tomorrow, but details are sketchy so I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Well I missed out on the news section last time to here’s a real bumper edition.

IN THE NEWS

Telkom promises us that even though 5000 of their workers will be on strike it will not effect their service in any way. Telkom spokesperson Charlotte Mokoena said that it was because “none of them did any work anyway”. She didn’t actually, but would have if she was being truthful.

Oh boo hoo. Red squirrels in the UK are dying out because North American Grey Squirrels are taking over in their habitat. Disaster! Let me inform my loyal readers of something, squirrels are just rats with good PR. Besides if one species of squirrel wipes out another isn’t that just natural selection in process? They are however suggesting that in order to stop the takeover you order a squirrel, that’s on a plate. Yes make grey squirrels the new national food of the UK and the reds will survive. What’s better, red or dead?

Well luck men living in London, Los Angeles and Las Vegas may be in for a treat. Hot-Rocker-Chick Pink apparently wants to open a string of strip joints that she may even dance in herself. Some reckon that she’s turning to stripping to make ends meet but a source close to her assures that it’s because she loves erotic dance. You go girl!

Well I don’t know if any of you rember Brett Kebble, he was a very rich mining magnate who was killed “execution style” in his car last September. Well guess what, it appears he had leant a metric fuckpile of his shareholder’s cash to the ANC. Of course he also “lent” millions to some individual ANC heavyweights much in the same way that Shabir Shiek “lent” JZ some cash. This comes to light after a forensic audit into his affairs.

Room with a view? Well in Brooklyn you could get the same thing, with additional bars. Developers have suggested tearing down an old prison and replacing it with a shopping centre and apartment block, and putting another prison on top of all that. Weird. And speaking of prisons, this one is more of a vacation camp.

Wow, the “Third Force” or “Mysterious Guy” argument is getting a lot of air play recently. First Koeberg and now the bugging of individuals and opposition parties. This is not the first time that the DA have been bugged either. I not sure which is scarier, the fact that the NIA was able to spy on people without the government’s knowledge or the fact that they may have been authorised.

Included as part of the above story is the whole hoax email saga. An interesting take on this story is that it provides instant “get out of jail free” cards for anybody in the government ever implicated to anything via email. It won’t be long till faxes and letter get the same treatment. If Alec Irwin get’s his way television footage will also be discredited. It looks like Billy Masetlha, who was head of the NIA until he was fired because of the debacle, is taking Thabo to court for unfair dismissal, should be fun.

Sleeping with the enemy. JZ has now hired some lawyers to battle against the media. He’s claiming that the media is part of a plot to prevent him from becoming the next president. His team is headed by an ex conservative party MP, the man who defended they guys that killed Chris Hani in the 90’s. I suppose situations like this can result in strange bed fellows. (just to be clear here, I’m not saying the JZ sexually assaulted his legal team, only that they got into bed together, in a figurative sense).

What do you get when you cross a pig and a round worm? No, not a porker can run a maze (see the SchpatDope), but a rather bacon that’s good for your heart. Yes that’s right, they’ve made pigs that produce omega fatty acids.

Even fine art is cashing in on movie tie-ins. A new exhibit if Leonardo Da Vinci’s work that will tour across Europe has been launched. do you think it’s coincidence that the movie “That Da Vinci Code” is to be released soon?

In a brave move new mayor Helen Zille has stopped further spending on the upgrade of Green Point Stadium until cost and funding issues can be sorted out. While I agree that the city doesn’t need a one Billion Rand soccer stadium I think a lot of voters won’t see it that way. It’s kind of ironic that it’s the same people who will benefit most from a billion rand spent on housing and service delivery that will complain the most about not getting a brand new soccer stadium.

What do you do when you crash the Ferrari you are test driving, of course you blame the pretty woman you were trying to impress. Duh.

If you read all this: Pass go, collect Two Hundred.

WHILE WE’RE NOT ON THE SUBJECT

Ok, so you all know by now that JZ’s Lawyers are trying to get the case of rape against him thrown out of court. There latest argument is that the victim didn’t say no… enough. They seem to have no problem admitting that she told JZ to leave her alone multiple time during the night, they have no problem admitting that she said no when he offered her a massage, but what they do have a problem with is that after he ignored her and performed the massage anyway she did not say no when he stripped her naked and had sex with her. My god people? Maybe she just realised that he was ignoring everything she was asking him to do.

Fuck, since when does a women have to say no multiple times before it actually becomes an answer in the negative? This dude is so obviously guilty that the defense, a highly regarded advocate, has nothing to work with and is simply grasping at straws. And to think that this man could have been our next President.

Unfuckingbelievable.

CONTEST

Votes are rolling in, rember that you only have until Monday morning to make your voice heard. Please show a little love for those that contributed and lets give them some votes.

JESUS KNOWS HOW TO HOLD ‘EM

Yes these poker chips actually exist, scary aint it?

WHAT A RIDE

Well I haven’t seen any movies lately so I’ll tell you about another spectacle I witnessed on Friday night. I had to leave work a little early to run an errand and on my way home, just before hospital bend, I was passed by a bus from the Glendale Home for the Jewish Handicapped. Now that’s not a home for gentiles or Judaisticly Challenged, but rather for handicapped Jewish folk, normally of the mentally challenged variety. Ok, I’m going to stop getting myself into trouble and pull myself out of the quagmire of political correctness by pointing you to their website here, and to think that this is all just background.

Anyway I was driving home and this bus full of mentally challenged individuals drove past and they all looked really happy and I thought “wow, that’s so cool that people are looking after them and that they are happy”, and I waved, and they smiled and waved back. It was really heartwarming and almost a life affirming type moment. It left me feeling quite good, like a movie starring Steve Martin would.

This would be a great story if it ended there, unfortunately it doesn’t. About a minute later I heard a almighty screeching of tires as the Glendale bus drove straight into the back of a slow moving vehicle so hard that the impacted car somehow ended up on two wheels driving across three lanes of traffic and back before finally coming to rest against the barrier. This all happened about a twenty meters in front of me and the traffic was moving way too fast for me to stop. I did see in passing that the people in the bus had instantly gone from waving and smiling to crying and sobbing. It made me feel bad in movie starring Adrian Brody kind of way. When I passed the car the driver was slumped over the wheel and not moving, I did all I could and called an ambulance.

Does it make me a bad person for wondering if they had let one of the handicapped drive the bus? No, but making a joke about it would. Shit. In mitigation of my horrible sense of humor I did phone the home and they told me than none of the passengers were injured.

on that downer I leave you

schpat out

Interesting Times

Tonight I’ve got my game which I’m really excited about, it’ll be really fun to actually get a session in tonight, I hope it happens. I found out that I may or may not be having an interesting evening tomorrow, but details are sketchy so I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Well I missed out on the news section last time to here’s a real bumper edition.

IN THE NEWS

Telkom promises us that even though 5000 of their workers will be on strike it will not effect their service in any way. Telkom spokesperson Charlotte Mokoena said that it was because “none of them did any work anyway”. She didn’t actually, but would have if she was being truthful.

Oh boo hoo. Red squirrels in the UK are dying out because North American Grey Squirrels are taking over in their habitat. Disaster! Let me inform my loyal readers of something, squirrels are just rats with good PR. Besides if one species of squirrel wipes out another isn’t that just natural selection in process? They are however suggesting that in order to stop the takeover you order a squirrel, that’s on a plate. Yes make grey squirrels the new national food of the UK and the reds will survive. What’s better, red or dead?

Well luck men living in London, Los Angeles and Las Vegas may be in for a treat. Hot-Rocker-Chick Pink apparently wants to open a string of strip joints that she may even dance in herself. Some reckon that she’s turning to stripping to make ends meet but a source close to her assures that it’s because she loves erotic dance. You go girl!

Well I don’t know if any of you rember Brett Kebble, he was a very rich mining magnate who was killed “execution style” in his car last September. Well guess what, it appears he had leant a metric fuckpile of his shareholder’s cash to the ANC. Of course he also “lent” millions to some individual ANC heavyweights much in the same way that Shabir Shiek “lent” JZ some cash. This comes to light after a forensic audit into his affairs.

Room with a view? Well in Brooklyn you could get the same thing, with additional bars. Developers have suggested tearing down an old prison and replacing it with a shopping centre and apartment block, and putting another prison on top of all that. Weird. And speaking of prisons, this one is more of a vacation camp.

Wow, the “Third Force” or “Mysterious Guy” argument is getting a lot of air play recently. First Koeberg and now the bugging of individuals and opposition parties. This is not the first time that the DA have been bugged either. I not sure which is scarier, the fact that the NIA was able to spy on people without the government’s knowledge or the fact that they may have been authorised.

Included as part of the above story is the whole hoax email saga. An interesting take on this story is that it provides instant “get out of jail free” cards for anybody in the government ever implicated to anything via email. It won’t be long till faxes and letter get the same treatment. If Alec Irwin get’s his way television footage will also be discredited. It looks like Billy Masetlha, who was head of the NIA until he was fired because of the debacle, is taking Thabo to court for unfair dismissal, should be fun.

Sleeping with the enemy. JZ has now hired some lawyers to battle against the media. He’s claiming that the media is part of a plot to prevent him from becoming the next president. His team is headed by an ex conservative party MP, the man who defended they guys that killed Chris Hani in the 90’s. I suppose situations like this can result in strange bed fellows. (just to be clear here, I’m not saying the JZ sexually assaulted his legal team, only that they got into bed together, in a figurative sense).

What do you get when you cross a pig and a round worm? No, not a porker can run a maze (see the SchpatDope), but a rather bacon that’s good for your heart. Yes that’s right, they’ve made pigs that produce omega fatty acids.

Even fine art is cashing in on movie tie-ins. A new exhibit if Leonardo Da Vinci’s work that will tour across Europe has been launched. do you think it’s coincidence that the movie “That Da Vinci Code” is to be released soon?

In a brave move new mayor Helen Zille has stopped further spending on the upgrade of Green Point Stadium until cost and funding issues can be sorted out. While I agree that the city doesn’t need a one Billion Rand soccer stadium I think a lot of voters won’t see it that way. It’s kind of ironic that it’s the same people who will benefit most from a billion rand spent on housing and service delivery that will complain the most about not getting a brand new soccer stadium.

What do you do when you crash the Ferrari you are test driving, of course you blame the pretty woman you were trying to impress. Duh.

If you read all this: Pass go, collect Two Hundred.

WHILE WE’RE NOT ON THE SUBJECT

Ok, so you all know by now that JZ’s Lawyers are trying to get the case of rape against him thrown out of court. There latest argument is that the victim didn’t say no… enough. They seem to have no problem admitting that she told JZ to leave her alone multiple time during the night, they have no problem admitting that she said no when he offered her a massage, but what they do have a problem with is that after he ignored her and performed the massage anyway she did not say no when he stripped her naked and had sex with her. My god people? Maybe she just realised that he was ignoring everything she was asking him to do.

Fuck, since when does a women have to say no multiple times before it actually becomes an answer in the negative? This dude is so obviously guilty that the defense, a highly regarded advocate, has nothing to work with and is simply grasping at straws. And to think that this man could have been our next President.

Unfuckingbelievable.

CONTEST

Votes are rolling in, rember that you only have until Monday morning to make your voice heard. Please show a little love for those that contributed and lets give them some votes.

JESUS KNOWS HOW TO HOLD ‘EM

Yes these poker chips actually exist, scary aint it?

WHAT A RIDE

Well I haven’t seen any movies lately so I’ll tell you about another spectacle I witnessed on Friday night. I had to leave work a little early to run an errand and on my way home, just before hospital bend, I was passed by a bus from the Glendale Home for the Jewish Handicapped. Now that’s not a home for gentiles or Judaisticly Challenged, but rather for handicapped Jewish folk, normally of the mentally challenged variety. Ok, I’m going to stop getting myself into trouble and pull myself out of the quagmire of political correctness by pointing you to their website here, and to think that this is all just background.

Anyway I was driving home and this bus full of mentally challenged individuals drove past and they all looked really happy and I thought “wow, that’s so cool that people are looking after them and that they are happy”, and I waved, and they smiled and waved back. It was really heartwarming and almost a life affirming type moment. It left me feeling quite good, like a movie starring Steve Martin would.

This would be a great story if it ended there, unfortunately it doesn’t. About a minute later I heard a almighty screeching of tires as the Glendale bus drove straight into the back of a slow moving vehicle so hard that the impacted car somehow ended up on two wheels driving across three lanes of traffic and back before finally coming to rest against the barrier. This all happened about a twenty meters in front of me and the traffic was moving way too fast for me to stop. I did see in passing that the people in the bus had instantly gone from waving and smiling to crying and sobbing. It made me feel bad in movie starring Adrian Brody kind of way. When I passed the car the driver was slumped over the wheel and not moving, I did all I could and called an ambulance.

Does it make me a bad person for wondering if they had let one of the handicapped drive the bus? No, but making a joke about it would. Shit. In mitigation of my horrible sense of humor I did phone the home and they told me than none of the passengers were injured.

on that downer I leave you

schpat out

Now with title

Well it’s been a really busy weekend. I’ve gotten up to so much stuff that I can’t remember everything. And today’s the big day so without any further ado, here is …..

CONTEST UPDATE

Finally, the day is here, I get to reveal all the entries that various people have submitted for the blog contest. It’s quite a long list with lots of really good ideas, I was very impressed by the quality of the ideas, and I’m really looking forward to the quality of the entries for the topic chosen, it doesn’t matter which one it is, they’re all ubercool. Here they are in no particular order.

A) Coolest photo contest where people need to send you the coolest photo of themselves doing something.

B) The most suitable / inventive punishment for badly behaved government officials.

C) People send you the coolest postcard they can find and the best one wins the prize.

D) best usage for cold pizza / burrito / coleslaw / cold coleslaw and burrito pizza.

E) Hawsome invention essay competition where people have to think up a really cool invention and write an essay on what it does, how it works, and what makes it totally hawsome.

F) Most entertaining verifiable personal story.

G) Coolest weblink competition. People have to find really interesting websites and send you the links. the best one wins.

H) Best translation from one of george w.’s speeches into “what george was thinking when he said this”

I) A BlemeSpread competition where people create their own bleme and spread it by pinging only 4 other blogers. Blogger with the biggest bleme wins.

J) Most ______ photo taken with a public monument (the blank is blank on purpose)

Wow there sure are a lot of entries. Ok folks, choose one and send your vote, by letter, to schpat (at) gmail (dot) com. By doing this you’ll be helping one of the contributors walk away with a gift certificate for R100, call it your charity work for the week. C’mon folks, show your love.

BROKEBACK BUSH

IN THE NEWS

No news is good news and I didn’t have time to gather anything interesting for you today, sorry. With any luck this service will resume shortly. In the mean time I present another amusing picture to keep you amused.

MOVIES

This weekend I was so busy I didn’t have any time to watch movies. I did start watching “Girl Interrupted” which looks very cool and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of it. Other than that I’ve not got much to say. I may play in a 45 player MTT on PokerStars tonight that I may or may not live blog for you folks to read. If I do play I’ll finally have earned enough Frequent Player Points to get myself a PokerStars cap, cool.

schpat out

ps: Oh, I almost forgot. My brother went to the Colab and apparently had a great time. He told me how he was in the front row and James Hatfield said his hair looked cool (bright red mohawk) and afterwards gave him his plectrum. r0>