True Dat

Renaissance Inspired

Right now we are laughing, pity we can't tell you why. Let's just say it's very funny if you knew the context you would be laughing too...

Other than that, here is something to think about. Two Toned Lips. Hmmm. Never thought of it before. Apparently this is how they did it in the renaissance. Apparently. Anyways, i guess it's worth a try.

Hippies.

Yes, sometimes people call us that. Or bohemian or whatever. A very flawed, but beautiful idea... As are most things in life. Like they used to say: 'Let's make love, not war.' Today Ryan gosling says: 'I wish we were magic, so we would not have to be so young and tragic.' We all want that freedom to break away from this world at times. Dreams, randomness and excitement. Sometimes too scared of the consequences of following our dreams. But then again, what's the worst that could happen?

Hooray For Public Holidays

It is Friday and also a public holiday! And my brother's birthday. And I am not even hung over. Finally it's the month of the Libra's. Sadly I only recently realized both myself and my brother are Libras... I never knew we had so much in common. Let the good times begin.

To kick off this month, here is a very long, very trippy tune... it sounds like what I imagine the next two weeks to feel like. Except it should not rain in Cape Town this time please...

Extreme dogs..?

Swearwords... Lots and Lots of Swearwords...

What do we have here? How about a series of unfortunate events. Some less unfortunate. Or maybe just an average month in a south african white female's life...

Scenario 1: Sitting and brainstorming with a colleague at your local hangout, a coffee shop (like advertising people do), coming up with ideas that will change the world as you know it and so forth. But for now, lets be modest and say 'sitting there minding your own business.' All of a sudden a well-dressed Mozambican man walks up to you and asks for money. Nothing strange, people ask you for money every day. And then *BOOM* he shows you his arm, the bone sticking out and blood running down his hand (gag reflex). We have all been scammed before into giving people money, but there is no way a man can fake an arm like that. (Apparently he was mugged and beaten with a stick in town and the hospital can't help him cause he's not a citizen and he has no money). You help the man. He is so overwhelmed, he almost starts crying. (That sight will haunt you for years... like that cat you killed by accident when you were little... still, good deed: CHECK)

Scenario 2: Being interrogated by a russian woman. While out doing research for a new fashion label, the woman pounce on you and demands to know how much experience you have, as obviously you look like you just finished school. After which you walk into a modeling casting by accident, turn around in your tracks, walk out and buy some Starbucks coffee that isn't great, while the people at the restaurant laugh at you. You check to see if there is something on your head or if maybe you have a big hole in your stockings, but alas no. It's just you. FACT: If you ever want to lose some confidence, go to small upperclass Sandton centres in a normal outfit without perfect hair. Needless to say, that night you go for a haircut, decide to start power dressing and consider going on a diet.

Scenario 3, 4 and 5: Cannot be explained in detail due to the nature of it's contents. Let's just say, you are looking at your life. Again.

Scenario 6: Your baby sister is having a baby. Ok, she is almost 23, but you still find that very young. It took you 7months to process the idea, but finally you are very excited. You saw sonograms, felt an arm or leg or something and can see te child sitting there inside her stomach. In about 2 months you will be an aunt. You will have someone to buy those little shoes for... or a bear suit... or make bows for. Who thought that would ever be so exciting...

Scenario 7: Breaking into your own office at 6 in the morning. Stupid tag thing not working, Security company coming out to check why the alarm went off. Colleague using the 'blindly looking for the button on the wall with a broomstick' technique, which eventually works, leaving you with very little time to finish an urgent presentation.

Scenario 8: Being punked. Being set up on a 'blind date', actually knowing who the guy is, trying to humour the situation, but sheesh... huh-uh. Yes, it's is that bad.

Scenario 9: Your landlord taking away your tv (which actually belongs to him - but giving someone who is used to crappy tv DSTV for a month and then taking it away, can make them very sad). Now you'll never know what happened in Apprentice or whether the Wife Swop between the body builder family and the 'little people' family was funny or not.

Scenario 10: The universe trying everything in it's power to stop you from doing something stupid, but you know you are going to do it anyway. Oh well... :)

Scenario 11: Realizing you are a much better person on paper than in reality. Then telling your parents jokingly you want to be James Bond when you grow up so you can drive an Aston Martin and drink Vodka Martinis the whole day, and them being so excited you want to change your career that they encourage you to go for it... hmmm...

Scenario 12: Going through your playlist and listening to songs by ex boys and friends. So many good memories.

Scenario 12: Going to Cape Town this weekend! And again the next weekend! And maybe staying there for a while... you have not booked a ticked back yet... Hello Holiday.

"Hands On The Wheel...

huh-uh... fuck that. Everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold". Thanks Kid Cudi. That pretty much sums up how i feel after this roller-coaster of a week. Not sure how this is going to turn out, but who cares... it's weekend!

I couldn't decide which one to post, the original or the cover... So here's both.

I Challenge the Infant to a Game of Checkers to the Death

The man says it all in the first picture. How funny? I would like to meet this man, we will laugh for hours... See more here.

Morbid Monday Thoughts

Today was actually a really good day. But these pictures are more fun than happy thoughts. Just saying.

Dave Meinert, Enough Said.

Dave. Director, friend, leader of the Cape Town division of the wolf pack, poet, maker of statistics amongst women and a man with no shame. He is a legend, amongst many other things. And next week we will work with him again in Cape Town. What better way to warm up for the Loeries. Enough said.

Here is a video he made a while ago before a visit to Joburg.

Dressing up dogs

It's fun when you are a child. Or when you are drunk. Or at halloween. Who cares, as long as they don't look like this permanently. Now that would just be weird.

This (the dog pics) is a range by fashion photographer Torkil Gudnason.

And then, of course, someone would have to make cats look silly too. It's just fair. And the prize goes to... Noah Sheldon. Bravo. (You can tell by their faces that these cats know how stupid they look. Shame.)

Interactive Web And So Forth...

If you have not seen this yet, I can assure you this will blow your mind... Technology. It happens so fast. If only we had proper bandwidth. *sigh*

This is the new Arcade Fire interactive video - prepare for some reminiscing. One day we will look back and laugh at how crappy this is done, but for now we shall drool and stare in amazement at the possibilities of html5 and how Google is changing our lives.

Then there is this fun piece of advertising. Try it out here. Wow, lets all jump onto the interactive web bandwagon. It's like a party bus. Where all the fun is at.

What can be more fun than all this? Let's see. How about cramming bands into small boxes and putting them where you can't help but watch them? Now, that's unexpected. Don't you think? Advertising. It's everywhere. And you have to admit, it's actually quite cool... (One day we will have the budgets to do stuff like this. Lets hope.)

Why We Hate Spiders

Nou Ja Toe, Grootseun.

I found this on the back of an old Afrikaans comic of sorts (it's like a soapie with Afrikaans actors and speech bubbles) at my parents house. Seems like it was quite a hit. My dad's cousin even 'acted' in it... anyways. If you don't understand Afrikaans, sorry for you. I can't even begin to explain how funny this is...

There's A Million Miles To Go To Where Happiness Lives

Once upon a time, in a famous coastal city, a girl named Adrian* was born. She had an older sister, unfortunately I cannot remember her name. This is because they were separated, from their parents and each other, by no fault of their own. An evil villain called Alcoholism had taken control of their parents and left the two young girls scared and alone. It wasn't that they didn't love them, she told me, they just loved alcohol more. When the authorities found them eventually, they put them in an orphanage. It was not great, but it was better than dying. And at least then they still had each other.

Fortunately for Adrian, less so for her sister, she was the better looking one and this orphanage was part of a charity project of a very well known, well-off school in this here coastal town (my primary school at the time). It was here that a childless middle aged couple saw her and decided that the charitable thing would be to adopt a child. Seeing as all their friends have children and all their social activities revolved around school functions and charities, this was a great opportunity for networking and name dropping. With the political climate at the time, close to 1994, adopting a black child would still be a bit too controversial and slightly frowned upon. But an orphan, now that is noble. Don't you think?

All the other children from the orphanage were in the special needs class, they just did not fit in socially for some reason and struggled to adapt and find motivation to achieve. But not her, she was somewhere in between. Normal maybe. Adopted by the very wealthy couple, she had everything a child could want at that age. All the opportunity her sister would never have. Yet they would see each other everyday in passing, slowly becoming strangers.

One day she invited me to the theater with her and her parents. A day I will never forget. It was then I learned to be very grateful or my own parents and the way they were raising me. My heart was bleeding for her, each time they would talk to her and treat her like the orphan she was, or the biggest mistake they ever made. They treated me better than their own child. I could not sleep that night. In the morning I called my parents to come fetch me. How can a child understand a situation like that?

We were not good friends, but I tried to give what I could. But as you do when you move away and cellphones are not yet invented, we lost contact. About 7 years later she tried to reconnect. I did not have time. About a year later we found each other on Facebook. We said hi. there was not much more to say. She was still in the coastal town, became a paramedic and seemed to enjoy it. She looked lonely but happy. Today I saw it's her birthday on Facebook, go to her page and start typing happy birthday... then I notice all the other messages are apologies and regrets, followed by a message from her cousin that she had just passed away. Wow. Pull yourself towards yourself! Cause of death: unknown. Date: 7 months ago... If you know anything about her death, please contact Detective Nortje...

Seriously, how did I miss this? Have we become so detached from reality, that we don't even realize when someone dies, unless it's broadcast in a way we will notice it, like a group on Facebook or a fan page for a person who passed away. Status updates. Stuff like that...

I am so sorry. You deserved much more.

R.I.P. friend.

(This story may or may not be true. Either way, I will fuck you up if you ever treat a child like that. The end.)

How to hi-jack a plane, protect your hobo hands whilst arriving alive and becoming the next Tiger Woods and going to McD's. Just the way you are.

How to Not Lose Weight.

Here is a little something for all the health fanatics out there. A little jem I found through sumbleupon. This made me laugh. The fact that this is on the internet, must mean that this kind of thing is quite in demand. Especially now in summer time... Not that it's going to stop a person from eating something delicious. It will just make you feel bad. Then you'll probably add another one of those delicious things to your plate to make up for the guilt. What? No! Who would even use this? Not us for sure... Seriously, girls are weird like that. Just in case you were wondering...

Test it out here. If you're into that.

More Wise Words

Massimo Vignelli and his wife are at least in the top ten of my favourite design teams. It's so intimidating listening to a talk by people like them, where all the work they show you are what you have been measuring your own work against. It seems like they have a lot of fun though.

Speaking of fun, my friend Aadil had a few very wise words himself the other day...








This would be my general state of mind... (strange how our brains can't distinguish between dreams and reality - maybe that's why everything in reality is becoming more dream-like)























And, uhm, yes, that's all I have for now. It's too warm to concentrate. Brain says that's it for today... some vegging on the couch is in order.

It's okay to wear black on Spring Day

One of the great things about not having a full-time job slash not having a job at all is that you can go for brisk little walks around the neighbourhood whenever the craving hits, or when you can't find your car keys and you're on your last two cigarettes and you know you're going to give up smoking in ten days and you're like "Carpe Diem! I need to smoke at least another five smokes before I go to bed, because the fun will come to an end very soon". So, you decide to hit 'burbs when, en-route, a friendly pensioner stops you in your tracks and asks you this very irrelevant, but when given some thought, relevant question.

Friendly pensioner: Excuse me little miss, why, it's such a lovely and special day today. Why are you dressed in black?

Me: Umm...my sneakers are white?

Friendly pensioner: And look, even your nails are black...

Me: They are. Yes...

Friendly pensioner: Promise me that when I see you next time you'll wear something cheerful and bright?

So I nodded and smiled and wished the friendly pensioner a happy Pensioners' Wednesday (another perk of not having a full-time job is knowing when the pensioners will be hitting the Pick 'n Pay. In case you didn't know, it's Wednesdays. Now you know) and immediately tried to figure out what the deeper meaning of this little conversation was. I've created the following reasons:

Deeper meaning #1: He probably thinks I'm from a different town or planet all together and wanted to make me feel welcome like only a Linden resident can. We just recently moved into our new house and we might have mentioned this before, but this place is seriously a Twilight Zone. It's awesome. For some weird reason, Linden is covered in pensioners and high school kids and small to medium sized dogs. Also a lot of home industry type granny's kitchen type eateries. We once spent one Saturday morning walking around Linden and I swear to you, now that I think about it, I haven't partied ever since. Instead I've spent my time baking muffins and buying amongst others, chilly and ginger(?!) jams and swooning over how cute my Andy cat is. And I'm okay with it.

Deeper meaning #2: I reminded him of his granddaughter, who, (before she got married earlier this year to that nice Afrikaans boerseun), went off the rails slightly, decided to only wear black and gray for the rest of her life, travelled the country, ended up in Lichtenburg and found the love of her life while trying to hi-jack a Jon Deere tractor. I don't know why anyone would hi-jack a tractor, but I can't think of ANYTHING remotely interesting going down in Lichtenburg. Point is, the kind pensioner knows, deep in his heart, that my road to salvation is just a marriage proposal away. Bless.

Deeper meaning #3: It's Spring Day you ignorant, self-absorbed little girl. The end.

Embarrassingly, it took me a while to put two and two together. I mean, when most of your Facebook friends' status updates are along the lines of, and I quote: "loooove the weather" and "lekker blommetjie dag" or "Happy Spring Day everybody. Summer is here" surely you should realise that you've either missed the memo, or perhaps you should go outside, smell the hayfever and wear something less black.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, HAPPY SPRING DAY! Personally, Spring has not yet sprung for me, but given some time and some fresh air and smoke-free lungs and mojito's and an answer as to why I have such a hard time locating my car keys, I might just hit the Linden streets in something colourful, even floral (?!). Yup, I'm seeing the metaphorical sun through the metaphorical trees already.

We Heart Spring

At last! Spring is here. And it's about time... The sun is shining, the birds are singing and there is only one thing on my mind. Cape Town. Holiday. Ok, that's two things. Anyways, why is it so far away still?

Now all I need to do is (a) rob a bank (b) not go out for a month or (c) find some alternative ways of saving and making money. I vote for (c). Hello Loeries, hello 15 on Orange, hello ocean, hello old friends, hello don'tgiveashitforaweekorso. Spring is apparently the season for new possibilities, new beginnings and all that jazz. The time where we start realizing it's almost summer and try to cram a year's exercise and health schedule into 2 months. It's time to start using that holiday skin lotion, so we won't be the single whitest person on the beach. Not that we are big on tanning, being so white and all... but still the idea is there.

I suddenly regret not appreciating those student holidays enough. Oh, how I miss them. Two months of nothingness. Wow. I think I want to be a student again.

Here is a song to kick start the holiday party mood, or maybe just to put you in a trance so the next few months will go quicker. Whichever works better. Thank you Fuck Buttons, we will start spring by solar surfing in our minds.