Passing 17 mins

Well here I am, I've accomplished my goals for the morning before lunch and I flat out refuse to start my afternoon work till after lunch. This gives me 17 minutes to fill up with some mindless activity.

Enter Blogging.

:)

I have nothing much to say so I'm just winging this post. bear with me...

Everyone around me seems to be bitching and moaning about the cold (except Sarah who is in Japan...she's B and M'ing about the heat wave there. which is kind of the same theme in any case...). I'm handling the weather quite well actually. It just so happens that my mom buys me a hat for my collection every time she goes overseas. Two years ago she went to Prague and got me this thing (see pic below).I don't know what it's called and I don't really care. It's OH SO COZY! Keeps my head, neck, ears and hands (yes there is space to shove them them in there too) warm.

I recommend that all my complaining friends get one of these russian hat thingies too (except Sarah who needs one of those solar powered caps with a fan on or something). It's great as long as you don't mind looking like an oddball. When things warm up a bit you can even fold the ear and neck flaps up! It's totally awesome!

Well my 17 minute post time limit has nearly expired.

dooodeedooodeedoooo

doom doom DOOM....Doomy doomy DOOm doom...doom DOOOOOOOoooooooom!
(it's the doom song!)

EEbEE watches a diet show

(Please note I have no issues with people that are over-weight. I happen to be very attached to my own chubb (it’s warm in winter and soft to land on…so there). Don’t take any offense if I come across as a bit blunt or insensitive, I don’t know any other way to be honest)

THE POST~

I Ebrahim Ally, sat down and watched a whole episode of some weight loss program on BBC lifestyle (I can’t remember the title). Before anyone starts jumping to conclusions, I must state that it was the weekend, I was in couch potatoe mode and there was absolutely NOTHING else to watch on DSTV.

Now that I have defended my decision let me post about my experience (or at least as well as I can remember it).

*click*

“Welcome to BBC lifestyle, next up, Sandy and Kim help overweight women loose the pounds in ________”

Although a more accurate announcement of the program would have been…

“Welcome to BBC lifestyle, next up, some fat lady is reminded about how ugly she looks and that she is going to die a horrible painful death by two thin ladies that are under the impression that they are increasing her self esteem while simultaneously starving her and prodding her in front of a camera”

Be honest, you’d rather watch the second one right… we all have evil tendencies, just fess up and you’ll feel better.

So let me get back to the program.

It starts off with these two skinny ladies staring in disbelief at another lady (‘fat one’ from here on) that weighs 20 stone or something (however much that is… Ohh I worked it out 1 stone = 6.35 kg therefore 127 kg). In any case the fat one is asked a series of questions to find out about her history, eating habits, exercise levels…. So anyways one of the questions they asked her was.

‘How often do you take a dump?’

To which fat one replied in a quite voice

‘twice a month.’

Followed by awkward silence from Kim and Sandy (and probably all the viewers…I know I was pretty amazed). In any case the skinny ladies decided to make a little model to illustrate what not pooping in two weeks does to your insides. She gets a pigs GIT, fills it up with food and keeps stuffing more and more in there without letting any come out. This thing is left for two weeks and then they go back to see what happened. One of the skinny ones starts pulling this crap out of the pigs rectum with her bare hands and waves it at the fat one saying

“See! See what happens when you don’t take a dump in two weeks! This is the same thing that’s happening inside you right now!”

To which the fat one replies

“!!!”

I mean seriously! If she did that with a regular persons crap it would have had the same effect. Any hysterical woman waving lumps of faecal matter in your face with her bare hands would illicit a shocked response (for all the wrong reasons of course…).

So I braved it out to see what else these ‘diet guru’s’ had in store for the fat one. They spent like 90% of the show talking about poo and bowel action. How the hell can someone speak so long about butt cigars! They went on and on…
The other 10% of the show basically involved the skinny ones prodding the fat one in the stomach and telling her to run more.
At the end of the show the skinny ones return to the fat one a month later to see how the recommended lifestyle changes have altered her …life (and bowel action) for the better. The fat one grins and says with sincerity

“Thank you Sandy and Kim, I sometimes go for a crap twice a day now after following your advice!”

Which was followed by applause, tears and hugging… or was it tears, hugging then applause? Whatever...

I just found it ridiculous and funny for some reason. Is this normal behaviour for women? I knew they tended to be more sensitive then men, guess I’m a bit confused because guys would never become emotional and start crying about something like bowel action.

I think I will avoid programs of this nature in the future. They undermine people that are different. I personally think every adult has got the brains to know exactly why they are what they are. The people on these shows were probably already comfortable and happy before the crazy nutter came along and waved crap in their faces to make them feel awkward and want to change into something they are not…. So some people are fat, who says you can’t be fat and happy at the same time? Sure you’ll live a shorter life but as I recall, Dennis Leary once said re smoking

“the last ten year of an old persons life are crap in any case, die before you have to return to diapers” or something along those lines.

The lowest form of advertising

How low can you go?

I was going through a computer shop brochure to look for specials the other day and I noticed something that annoyed me a tad. You know that your local computer store is taking advantage of ignorant consumers when they are offering…

Wait for it…

… “FREE Downgrades on all systems”

What the hell! What do these people think of us? Even someone that knows nothing about computers should gather that a downgrade is something you should not go for as a free option. I guess there are a number of consumers that see ‘FREE’ and just blank out and ask for the free bits as a reflex when they spend their hard earned cash.

Who's to blame here? I don't know... I mean, if someone is stupid enough to fall for their ploy does this person deserve to get ripped off for being such an idiot? Or should we be more critical of the shop owners that see it fit to allow people to effectively pay them for non-services?

What happened to people conducting their businesses with honour and integrity? The veggie man that picks out the best fruit from the basket with his own hands to keep his customer satisfied? The door to door salesman that uses his own product? The broom lady that actually makes her own brooms as opposed to just buying them from the chinashoppe?

In general, where are the people that used to do a job to achive something greater than money and material wealth. They were providing a service to humanity (however big or small). The job perks were smiles and satisfaction from clients and the cash was just a byproduct, a neccesary evil.

All...

Gone...

?

No. A glimmer of hope.

'Come to Panarotti's where family fun and values are our priority, even grandma won't complain after she has tasted our fab Pizzas!'

'Tonights special Seafood Pizza R49.99 each....with a FREE
downgrade to
margarita'

The tool of questionable use

I don't mean to brag but...my fingers are sooo smart. They made an amazing invention while I was reading pdfs the other day. I didn’t even realize till I had finished off the last pdf. I exited the article and looked in my hands to find this amazingly intricate piece of equipment.

It is a piece of plastic straw about 70 mm long with a tiny angled hole at the base about 10 mm up. A paperclip has been expertly guilded to fit the inside of the straw without slipping out. The top 30mm of the paperclip protrude from the straw and angle at 90 degrees to form a sort of pointy bit… On closer inspection one notices a staple wrapped around the base of the protruding end of the paperclip with yet another pointy bit facing the opposite direction to the first… pointy bit.

You may be asking yourself ‘What does it do…?’ about now yes? Well, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t a clue. I’m trying to figure it out and so far it’s quite handy for pressing the reset button on my calculator and Mp3 player. It’s also pretty good at unjamming my fishtank filter after it gets clogged and if I cover the one end whilst blowing down the other it’s a high pitched whistle. I’m not really happy with any of these functions though, it looks like it this thing has some higher purpose on this planet. Hopefully someone will come across my blog, see the picture and description and say ‘THAT’S IT! I’VE FINALLY FOUND THE PERFECT xxxINATOR…!!!’ then I become a famous inventor and retire to a mountain village surrounded by peaceful monks.

In the mean time, I’ll stash it somewhere inconspicuous.

Before you say ‘It probably does nothing.’ or ‘EEbEE has invented something that won’t work’ just look the idea of a helicopter that wouldn’t work, below. As I recall, it made its inventor quite famous… (amazing paintings aside…).

What a great idea!

It's always fun to point out the obvious flaws and backward thinking displayed by the intellectuals of yesteryear. A few amazingly daft ideas somehow make it through the complicated systems, paperwork and fail safes and end up hitting the production lines with disasterous effect.

Thomas Midgley Jr. for instance, almost single-handedly spelled disaster for the human race by getting two of his inventive ideas mass produced. The first, CFCs in refrigerators and aerosol cans and secondly Lead based lubricants for fuel (leaded petrol). Not only was this man responsible for nearly destroying the Ozone layer but also succeeded in raising levels of the accumulative poison (lead) to toxic levels worldwide! Instead of beheading Midgley publically for crimes against humanity, society saw it fit to award him some medals for his outstanding contribution to science! AAARGH!

One of my favs was the Hindenburg. German scientists at the top of their game designed and buit this zeppelin for use with safe inert Helium gas. Pressure from sponsors and lack of availability of relatively expensive Helium however, resulted in a last minute change of mind which ended in the thermite (explosively reactive compound!!!) lined balloon being filled with cheap Hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is also more boyant and the resulting Hindenburg could now carry more wealthy cigar smoking, mink coat wearing passengers. The picture below illustrates the consequenses of using Hydrogen instead of Helium quite well I think...

It took around 30 seconds for the 250m long Hindenburg to vapourise. I tip my hat to the cameraman for snapping off this shot before peeing himself and running quickly in the opposite direction.

I'd love to say that humans learn from their mistakes and that nowadays we think things through thouroughly before going ahead with potentially fatal 'great ideas'. Unfortunately all I see today are fat people having endless meetings followed by even longer meetings and then finally dates being set... for the next meeting. We don't do things anymore! We have moved from one end of the scale to the other.
Previously all you needed was some impulsive individual with fizzeled eyebrows to say 'this will work' to get approval. Now you need a worldwide thumbs up and the the popes blessing before proceeding with a plan of action that is logical and scientifically proven to be the right one. The bottom line is we have reached something of a stale mate as long as countries like China, North Korea and America (or at least pre-Obama America) fail to recognise that they will need to play ball if we are to succeed in transforming the Earth for the better (or at least prevent transforming the Earth into a giant rectum).

Theres a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
Theres a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

Theres a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And its whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If theres a bustle in your hedgerow
Dont be alarmed now,
Its just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
Theres still time to change the road youre on.
And it makes me wonder.

Exerpt from 'Stairway to heaven' Led Zeppelin

Something different... a by chance meeting

The nice thing about having a blog with 'arbitrary' as a title component is that I really have freedom to speak my mind and thoughts. Usually it's just random crap but occasionally something serious comes along and as much as I like my posts to amuse people, it's necessary for me to avoid doing so too often or I might end up having a themed blog (something I fear I have been drifting slowly towards).

So back to the post that will dismiss any thoughts of logical structured themes and predictable posting.

Last night I had a dream. It was a strange one (strange that I remember it so clearly for one…). I dreamt that I was hanging out with my old friend from school, Merron or Mave for those who knew him. For those who don’t, Mave was a great guy and something of a role model for the people that take things as they come, chilled out and morally outstanding. I refer to him in the past tense because Mave lost his life in a helicopter crash. To be honest, he survived the actual crash; it was his heroic efforts to save the helicopter pilot that ended in tragedy.

So back to my dream…

It was one of those realistic ones that you can’t tell apart from reality till something very odd happens. In any case it starts with me doing some fieldwork and all of a sudden I bump into Mave out in the middle of nowhere. I turned around and there he was just standing there in front of a yellow-brown 4x4 with this massive grin on his face.

‘Mave!? is that you!!! Holy crap dude’.

I run over and give him a hug to see if he is real. Mave invites me to come for a drive with him. I agree and we take this very leisurely drive along a dirt road to nowhere. Deep in conversation all the while we chat about the old school days, what he has been doing and a bunch of stuff that I can’t recall as well. Eventually we reach a small house alone in a valley. This is where he has been all this time, just hiding out and living a simple life, a life away from all the hassles and stress associated with average human life. I’m just beginning to understand why he had chosen to leave in the first place when he takes me inside to meet his girlfriend.

To be more precise, his girlfriend Katey Perry… and that’s the moment I realised it was a dream and woke up…

Sigh! It was just a dream… Yet Mave’s personality was captured so perfectly (apart from his taste in girls). It was so real up to that point. Did I really chat to my long lost friend. Was that his soul I had conversed with? Call me a silly, superstitious, so and so but I’d like to think that it was.

I had met my friend and shared words with him. We had a nice time catching up. He was happy and I was happy that I had found him. I looked into his eyes and saw no deception, only a friendly and honest guy, a guy I used to know once upon a time.

It was good

Cheerio Mave! Hope you are well where ever you are.

PS. Stay away from that Katey Perry chick, she is nasty and annoying ;)