Music while you work?

Although I tend to work in silence most of the time, there comes a time when I need an extra push to get me through a vast mountain of work when the tiredness is strong within me. At a time like that, I start playing all my favourites on YouTube which has always served me well, but – here is something new and wonderful – to me at any rate. So am delighted to share it with other humble hedonists who love to enjoy life and its many delights without paying the earth for them…

Go to 8tracks.com and find whatever mood you need. Lots of playlists compiled by various delightful people. Very very happy to have found this. Thanks to a newsletter from DanielleLaPorte.com. Regular mindbaths will be yours. 😀

Time for the annual thought.

Reboot, refresh, replenish…. here I am again, and there have been many many times when I communicated with you dear Reader, but the words remained in my head. Thousands upon thousands of thoughts, words, pictures that flashed by unrecorded. And perhaps that’s just as well? But since my short term memory has never been good (my mother was well aware of it by the time I was 12) it would be A Good Thing to one day go back and wade through these times. Since we last spoke, I’ve moved house twice and got married once. Many other interesting things also happened.

Currently, am doing a photography course I’ve wanted to do for years – that of Erika van Breda who runs courses as CapeClick from the Creative Hub, corner of Palmer and Atlantic Road in Muizenberg. I’d highly recommend it… here are a few of my efforts so far. Don’t be put off by the lack of expertise. That’s not Erika’s fault – gradually I am learning how to use fill-in flash, how to focus, how to hold the camera steady and how to use all those mysterious buttons on my camera. Each homework session is also a learning experience in itself so I’m not too fazed about the focus being in the wrong place etc… great fun.

woodo soccerball Time packet mouse_plant

I return. With a little help…

My one and only subscriber has encouraged me to return to this blog and say my say when such a say needs to be said.

Here is his contribution to break the ice. (Thanks Ant!)

Have you ever done these, thought these? I’ve thought most of them but didn’t think a little further, and that is to write them down so we can all enjoy our common humanity. This person (thank you, whoever you are!) did.

1 Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font. (actually there kind of is.http://sartalics.com/ The great thing is that because it is CSS based you can use it on any font. Including Comic Sans.)

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind-of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection… again.

13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Mirrabooka” routing option.

17. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

18. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or understand a word they said?

19. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

20. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

21. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

Kalk Bay does beauty, beautifully.

When you build something in Kalk Bay, it’s not allowed to be ugly. By law. Otherwise the Aesthetix Police will come and blow your ass sky-high. The Majestic development only looks the way it does because some brave locals stood up to previous attempts to mess it up and finally after giving the successful developer a lot of hell, we have something that fits. It’s all on top of each other (developers are always, well… developers) but at least it’s beautiful. And in Kalk Bay, most people are on top of each other, residentially speaking. No secrets there.

Back to matters beautiful: regard, for instance, what started out as the Sewerage Pumping Works and is now the Community Centre, where I have spent happy hours doing yoga and watching the splendid offerings of the Kalk Bay Film Circle. (From whom I’ve heard very little in the last while. Am I off their mailing list? :O Or did they just get lazy?)

Gotta love Kalk Bay. It also has people like Katherine Glenday in it… a major contributor to beauty in the world. I will do my best to draw your attention to other such splendidities over the next few weeks and months. Eating from Katherine’s porcelain bowls is the best way to start the day. Even oats porridge, can soar from humble to hedonistic when it’s destined for one of these exquisite little bowls. It has to dress for the occasion with a diced apple, a few slivers of ginger, some pounded Brazil nuts and almonds, and a good dose of cinnamon. Then a good shot of soya milk makes the joy complete. Nirvana, dudes.

By the way – speaking of one thing covering another – how’s that pretentious word ‘enrobed’? It offends me so much if I find some Woolies snack ‘enrobed’ in chocolate that I’ll skip it and go for its brother that’s only covered in chocolate. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… In my head, that word evokes a very high personage of the Catholic persuasion, covered in shit.

David Thornton rocks II

Look fortunately this guy’s stuff just appears intermittently (not many dare to take him on… in fact many stray into that field by mistake and soon find themselves in quicksand)… so my blog isn’t going to consist of miles of David Thornton, but really – I can’t bear to think of you being deprived of such genius. So – here’s the latest one. And now I’ll stop. For a while.