Farting around

LabRat pointed me at fukung.net. This is a horrible waste of time. And not safe for work, which means it’s your own time you’re wasting.

But this one made me laugh:

Giovanni came to South Africa some 45 years ago [1]. He was one of the first people to cut my hair, at Salon Etna, on Thibault Square in Cape Town (my grandmother worked next door, in the Medical Centre).

Over the years Giovanni became a Cape Town landmark, to the point of briefly appearing in a Vodacom advertisement (13 seconds in).

Well, I went there this morning, and Giovanni is now called Eleanor… he retired in May, sold the place to her. She tells me he still checks in every week, and that one of the two barber’s chairs is on loan from him (he imported four chairs from Japan, waybackwhen, and vowed to give one chair to each of his sons and to keep one chair to himself [2], leaving Eleanor with a solitary chair — she will have to make a plan sometime).

Anyway, I shall toast the memories of his haircuts at sundowners tomorrow.

[1] My father can tell the story in the comments if he feels like it [3].

[2] Pieter can tell the story in the comments if he feels like it.

[3] Pieter can help my father figure out how to :-)

His name is James and he’s been building satellites  in Surrey for more than a decade.

And he’s not really my brother, people just mistook him for that at my (first) wedding, which is pretty much when I saw him last.

Anywayz, sounds like he might be coming back to SA, but that would still put him 1500km north of me… at least I’ll see him slightly more often :-) Also, he can collect the six huge boxes of crap he stored at my place before he left.

The TDi Golf I drive has been giving starting hassles. The auto-electrician gave it a clean bill of health, and the agents changed a fuel filter and said it was fine. Still, it doesn’t always start in the mornings. After charging the battery for half an hour everything’s fine, so I suspect an intermittent charging system.

Meanwhile, last week Friday, Tanya phoned to say her car (Opel Astra Classic) won’t start. Jumped it off the Golf and it started easily. Made a note that I need to take the car for a new battery next week Monday (being, today).

So this morning Tanya says I’d better check that all the cars start. Opel, dead. Golf, dead.

So the trusty Rand-Lover gets started up. Hmmm, cables won’t reach. Reverse out the front gate, turn around, reverse in, wire up Opel, get that started.

OK, now the Golf is on the front lawn. And it’s too heavy for Tanya & me to push. Land-Rover out the front gate, around and in the other gate, bit of back-and-forth, get the Golf started.

I proceed to bugger off to work with the Opel, except around the first circle I realise that my work keys are still in the Golf. So I turn around, and the Opel dies. It has an electrical power steering pump, see, and the sharp turn with the engine cold and idling slowly was just too much for the system.

So I call Tanya to bring the Golf, jump start the Opel…

We don’t get thunderstorms all that often in Cape Town. This morning was the exception. Lots and lots of thunder and lightning, catching all the weather predictions off guard.

And the sunrise was amazing.

You know what the worst thing is about the internet? It gives you concrete proof that your fellow citizens are as ignorant as you’ve secretly suspected they were all along…

— Tamara.

For those of you who don’t know, we just had an election here in South Africa. The ruling party won again, no surprises there, they did however not do as well as they might have liked to.

The following from a thread on myADSL, a local forum:

DigitalSoldier:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i…5915540C929292

Quote:

With the date for the swearing-in of premiers rapidly approaching, the ANC’s new rules for appointing them are threatening to cause rifts between the ruling party and its alliance partners.

One Zuma to unite them all

timgaul:

One Zuma to rule them all, One Zuma to find them. One Zuma to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Africa where shadows lie.

The world is changed. I feel it in my wallet. I feel it in my job interviews. I smell it in the air in Vanderbijlpark. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember the Freedom Charter. It began with the forging of the Tripartheid Alliance.

Three votes were given to the ANC; [previously] immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to COSATU, great gold miners and craftsmen of the townships. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the SACP, who above all else desire power. For within these votes was bound the strength and the will to govern South Africa. But they were all of them deceived, for a new alliance was made.

In the land of Kwazulu-Natal, in the cheque books of Shabir Shaik, the Dark Lord Zuma forged in secret, a master vote, to veto all others. And into this veto he poured all his corruption, his immortality and his will to dominate all women. One vote to rule them all.

One by one, the free peoples of South Africa fell to the power of the vote. But there were some who resisted. A last Democratic Alliance of men and women voted against the government of Zuma, and on the very slopes of Table Mountain, they fought for the freedom of the Western Cape.

OK, this is probably lost on most of y’all, but I think it’s FSCK funny :)