Die Gelofte

"Ek slaan my oë op na die berge: waar sal my hulp vandaan kom? My hulp is van die Here wat hemel en aarde gemaak het. Hy kan jou voet nie laat wankel nie; jou Bewaarder kan nie sluimer nie. Kyk, die Bewaarder van Israel sluimer of slaap nie. Die Here is jou Bewaarder; die Here is jou skaduwee aan jou regterhand. Die son sal jou bedags nie steek nie, die maan ook nie by nag nie. Die Here sal jou bewaar vir elke onheil; jou siel sal Hy bewaar. Die Here sal jou uitgang en jou ingang bewaar, van nou af tot in ewigheid." - Psalm 121

In 1838, nadat hy Piet Retief en sy manne by uMgungundlovu verraai en vermoor het, was die koning van die Zoeloes, Dingaan, vasbeslote om al die Trekkers in sy omgewing uit te wis. Hy het 'n mag van 10 000 Zoeloe krygers uitgestuur om die om-en-by 600 Trekkers onder leiding van Andries Pretorius uit te roei. Op die 9de Desember het Sarel Cilliers, onder leiding van Pretorius, 'n gelofte afgelê, een wat elke aand tot en met die Slag van Bloedrivier herhaal is:

Hier staan ons voor die Heilige God van Hemel en aarde om ʼn gelofte aan Hom te doen, dat, as Hy ons sal beskerm en ons vyand in ons hand sal gee, ons die dag en datum elke jaar as ʼn dankdag soos ʼn Sabbat sal deurbring; en dat ons ʼn huis tot Sy eer sal oprig waar dit Hom behaag, en dat ons ook aan ons kinders sal sê dat hulle met ons daarin moet deel tot nagedagtenis ook vir die opkomende geslagte. Want die eer van Sy naam sal verheerlik word deur die roem en die eer van oorwinning aan Hom te gee.

Op die 15de Desember het die verkenners aan Pretorius gerapporteer dat 'n groot Zoeloe-mag na hulle oppad was. 'n Laer is getrek en almal is voorberei vir die aankomende aanval. Daardie aand het 'n digte mis op die area neergesak en het die volgende oggend eers met dagbreek gelig. Net na sonop het die Zoeloes met hulle aanval begin. Keer op keer het hulle regiment na regiment ingestuur maar kon nooit binne 40 meter van die waens kom nie. Toe Pretorius agterkom dat die Zoeloes hulle moed begin verloor het hy met 160 ruiters uitgery om die Zoeloes verder aan te vat. Die ruiters het eers teruggekeer nadat al hulle ammunisie gebruik was. In totaal het 3 000 Zoeloe krygers gesneuwel terwyl daar aan die Trekkers se kant net 3 beserings was. Die res van die Zoeloe-mag het op die vlug geslaan. Daardie aand, Sondag die 16de Desember 1838, was 'n dankdiens gehou om eer aan die Here te bring omdat Hy hulle gebed verhoor het.

Laat ons as Afrikaner nooit hierdie ongelooflike getuienis vergeet nie, en laat ons as mens nooit vergeet waar ons hulp vandaan kom nie!

An Ode to Women

There is a saying that goes "You don't know how strong you are until strong is all you can be". And let's be honest, when it comes to strong, women are the hands-down champions. Women can run a household efficiently, manage the kids/dogs/pets/neighbours etc and stay abreast on the latest celeb news and what is happening on their favourite soapie, both when in good health and when sick, whereas a sick man is lying on the couch groaning every now and then just to show he is still, barely, alive. A running joke is that a woman that gives birth without an epidural can almost, but not quite, understand the pain a man with a cold feels.

Let's face it guys, we are lightweights compared to the ladies. A woman has to contend with bleeding and intense discomfort for 7 days out of a month, every month. When pregnant she has to carry an ever-growing child inside of her, getting her internal organs squished and her bladder jumped on for 9 months and then has to push something the size of a watermelon out of her private parts. And not shortly after going through all that would willingly go through it again. Women are fiercely loyal, intensely devoted and incredibly special.

So ladies, this is my ode to you. Wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, women everywhere. May you realise your strength, may you embrace your beauty, may you be appreciated for exactly how special you are. Never let anyone get you down. When they try just lift your head, adjust your crown and be the queen that you are. I will leave you with these quotes:

"The question isn't who is going to let me, it is who is going to stop me." - Ayn Rand

"A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong it is until it is in hot water." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"You educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a generation." - Brigham Young

"What would men be without women? Scarce Sir......mighty scarce." - Mark Twain

"There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain." - Audrey Hepburn

"I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe

"The fastest way to change society is to mobilise all the women of the world." - Charles Malik

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consist primarily of dealing with men." - Joseph Conrad

"If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher

Here's to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.

Shower Thoughts - Disney Edition

So this morning while showering, I start thinking about the old Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. One reason I started thinking about it is that I have had the song "Gaston" stuck in my head for days. While not a bad song it can get a bit tiresome if your brain's MP3 player has it stuck on repeat. But while trying to shuffle through my mental music list, another part of my brain started thinking about the movie itself. And I came up with a few interesting observations. So herewith Shower Thoughts: The Disney Edition.

1. If I told you about a movie that features bestiality, Stockholm Syndrome, angry mobs, dark sorcery and slave labor, you would never believe that I am describing a kid's film. But that is exactly what Beauty and the Beast is.

2. In Beauty and the Beast all the servants in the castle are turned into furniture. This makes one wonder, where was the existing furniture? Did the servants get merged with the existing furniture? And if so, who was the poor sap that got turned into the toilet? Obviously once the curse was lifted everyone turned back into people, so that would mean that the plot for Beauty and the Beast 2 would just be one and a half hours of Belle and the prince shopping for new furniture and appliances.

3. Beauty and the Beast is set in France, so why is Lumiere the only one with a french accent?

4. Moving on from Beauty and the Beast to Cinderella. The prince met Cinderella at a ball and fell in love with her. So much so that he searched the entire kingdom for her. What they didn't show is that Cinderella's dress must have shown some awesome cleavage because the prince couldn't remember what she looked like. All he had to go on was one lost slipper.

5. Speaking of which, Cinderella must have had some seriously weird feet for the slipper that she wore not to fit anyone else in the kingdom.

6. Aladdin is the classic rags-to-riches tale of an orphan who becomes a prince. But in the beginning of the movie, his only friends are a flying carpet, a smoking lamp and a monkey that he communicates with. Technically he was off of his mind on drugs for most of the movie.

7. Aladdin only has three wishes and he uses his last wish to free the genie. But Jasmine knew about the genie and the lamp, so Aladdin could have just handed her the lamp and she would have been able to get three wishes as well before setting the genie free.

8. At the very beginning of Aladdin, the movie is narrated by a peddler that tells you the story of the lamp. So in essence the entire film is one big sales pitch for a dusty, and now useless, lamp.

9. Disney's Mulan is based on the Chinese legend of General Mulan, a great warrior that helped save China from the Huns. She disguised the fact that she was a woman (women were not considered warriors in her time) and fought bravely to free China. She is still considered a great hero. But her deception hinged entirely on the fact that she had small boobs. If she was a cup size or two bigger, we wouldn't have known about her. The movie also ruined me slightly. Now every time someone says "let's get down to business" all I want to do is defeat the Huns.

10. In Disney's The Lion King there are no traces of any human civilization, so chances are the film is set way back in the past.

11. The very catchy song Hakuna Matata was taught to Simba by the meerkat Timon and the warthog Pumbaa. It signifies a life without any worries or strive, but in reality they probably taught him the song and how to survive off of eating grubs, insects and worms so that he wouldn't eat them.

12. Without realising it, Simba actually sings about his father's death with the song "I Just Can't Wait to be King." The only way to ascend the throne is by the king dying and the son taking his place.

13. In The Little Mermaid, it is probably a given that Ariel would have crapped herself at least once on the day she was turned human.

14. The story of Snow White is about a young girl so beautiful that she will grow up to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, which greatly upsets the current queen. But it raises a few questions. If the queen had the power to transform herself into a hag, surely she had the power to transform herself into someone even more beautiful than Snow White. Also, if you think about it, when the prince discovers Snow White (who had died and was laid to rest) he kisses her. So basically he kissed the corpse of a minor he just discovered. That is bordering on very creepy!

15. In pretty much most Disney films the main villain is the evil queen. So that must mean that most Disney princesses are actually closet psychopaths.

Lassie: The Fall of Timmy

As the winter winds down here in South Africa the fates decided that I should be graced with a final cold before the wintery weather subsides completely. After the onset of the usual suspects, the sore throat, fatigue and muscle pains, I took some medication in order to battle this last minute bout of the plague. So on Sunday night I decided to medicate and crawl into bed. As my beloved was not tired yet, she stayed up to watch some movies. At some point I recall half waking up and hearing the far-off sounds of the movie she was watching. It featured what sounded like explosions, gunfire and.....um.....a dog barking. Because my brain works in mysterious ways, I started automatically turning what I was hearing into this very blog post by wondering what it would be like if Michael Bay, director of films like Bad Boys, Transformers and lover of explosions, made a Lassie movie. Now some of my younger readers might not know who Lassie is. Google exists, look it up! So without further ado......

(Please read the below in your most epic movie announcer voice)

"In a small farming community somewhere in the United States of America, the Martins live a peaceful life. Little do they know that the war on terror is about to find them. After a suicide bomber blows up the town's only post office after mistaking it for something more important, the town is thrown into anarchy. In the midst of this chaos, an unlikely canine hero will arise. From Michael Bay, the award winning director who brought you Bad Boys and the travesty that was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, comes this summer blockbuster. Lassie, the brave collie that is more intelligent than anyone in the town, will have to save her masters from terrorists, bombs, the well that Timmy constantly falls into and aliens. Illegal aliens. Get ready for action, intrigue, explosions, comedy, terror, explosions, romance, thrills and more explosions! Lassie: The Fall of Timmy - the war on terror and goofy rednecks has a new hero. Rated R for Really big explosions!"

Unbelievable

I am a massive fan of expanding my general knowledge. From the most well-known facts to the most obscure ones, I love learning new and unusual things. So it should come as no surprise that I regularly scour the internet for things that I do not know yet. And very recently I came across an article that lists some true facts that are so baffling that they should be false, and yet they aren't. I thought I would share it with you.

WW2 Rockets
More people died making V2 rockets than were killed by them. Germany was facing a large issue with rocket fuel shortages during the project because people kept drinking it. The fuel was made from 70% ethyl alcohol and 30% water, distilled from potatoes. It was the most economically viable fuel at the time, since they were already very low on other fuels. To stop workers from drinking it, they denatured the alcohol (essentially poisoning it) but people kept drinking it anyways and getting extremely ill. This simply caused people to start leaving the V2 program and costing Germany massive losses in production. This also means that any alcohol over 70% is stronger than actual WW2 rocket fuel.

Syphilis
Before the medicinal cure for syphilis was found, people who had the disease were infected with malaria in order to cure them. The extremely high fever caused by malaria killed the syphilis bacteria and the patients were then cured of their malaria using quinine.

Bill Gates
Starting now, if you earned one US dollar every second, it would take 2921 years to have more money than Bill Gates.

Aircraft
There were more planes destroyed during World War 2 than there are intact planes in the world today.

Headless Chicken
On the 10th of September 1945 a farmer was beheading chickens to sell at the local market when he realised that one was not dying like the others. It was still running around and trying to peck at the ground. He caught it and put it in a box overnight, but the next morning it was still alive. And so Mike the Headless chicken became famous. He was fed with liquid food squirted directly into his oesophagus and had to have mucus cleared out using a syringe. He lived for 18 months and finally died when he started choking on mucus and his owners couldn't find the syringe in time.

Spider's Web
The silk from a black widow spider's web has 10 times the tensile strength of steel.

Orange
The colour orange was actually named after the fruit. Before then the colour was described as red. Which is why people with orange hair are called red-heads.

Attractive
If 99% of the Earth's population found you unattractive, that means that 76 million people would still think you are good looking.

Dinosaurs
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 and the first dinosaur fossil was officially discovered in 1819. So that means that Abraham Lincoln was born before the existence of dinosaurs became known to the general population.

The Sun
If sound could travel through space, the roar of the sun would be unbearable on Earth, even though it is 93 million miles away.

GPS
Global Positioning Satellites have to compensate for time dilation, because time runs at a different rate in orbit.

Printer Cartridges
A toner cartridge is more expensive by weight than a B2 Stealth Bomber which costs $2 billion US dollars.

Tigers
There are more tigers in private collections in Texas than there are anywhere else in the world, wild or otherwise.

David
The statue of David by Michelangelo was made from a block of very low grade marble that no-one wanted to use for sculptures but was too expensive to discard.

Children
The record of most children born to a single woman is 69. Valentina Vassilyev, a peasant woman from Shuya in Russia, gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets during her lifetime.

Gravity
The gravity of a black hole is so great that it literally bends light around the black hole. This means that if you could somehow stand close enough to a black hole and look straight ahead, you would actually see the back of your own head.

Temperature Changes
The city of Spearfish in South Dakota holds the world record for the fastest recorded temperature change. On January 22, 1943, at about 7:30 a.m. MST, the temperature in Spearfish was −20°C. The Chinook wind (a local wind that blows through the mountains) picked up speed rapidly, and two minutes later (7:32 a.m.) the temperature was +7 °C above zero. The 27 °C rise in two minutes set a world record that still stands today. By 9:00 a.m., the temperature had risen to 12 °C. Suddenly, the wind died down and the temperature tumbled back to  −20 °C. The 32.2 °C drop took only 27 minutes.

Photos
Every two minutes we take more photographs than all of humanity took during the 1800s.

Ejaculation
The average speed of semen being ejaculated out of the male body during orgasm is 45km/h. This can be increased with Kegel exercises.

Sparrows
One day Mao Zedong, otherwise known as Chairman Mao, saw a sparrow eating grain. Thinking that the sparrows were hurting China's grain supply, he and the Communist Party launched the Four Pests Campaign. The Chinese military and population killed every sparrow they could find. Embassies didn't allow the Chinese to kill sparrows on their property, so the Chinese banged pots and pans outside the embassies 24/7 until the sparrows died of exhaustion. Unfortunately for the Chinese, sparrows mainly eat insects, not grain. The locust population exploded and 43 million people starved to death.

Nose
Your nose is always in your line of sight, your brain just ignores it.

In Space, No-one Can Hear You.....Um.....Pee

I read a rather interesting article recently, one that deals with one of the most fundamental human acts; weeing. But not just weeing in general, weeing when in zero gravity environments. Since us humans are quite a curious bunch, it was inevitable that at some point we would gaze beyond the distant horizon and then decide to travel there, just because we were bored. So we figured out how to get a man into space but, and I wish I were making this up, didn't know if his various organs, including his bladder and the ability to swallow, would actually function there. The theory was that, on Earth, we have gravity to help us with our various bodily functions but no-one knew if the same would be true in space. So in accordance with pretty much all human decisions throughout history we thought "Well, there is only one way to find out" and then sent someone up and asked him to have a wee while he was up there.

Unfortunately for the unlucky man, they hadn't actually given much thought as to how he would do this, so he just went in his space suit. First man ever to go to space and he wet himself because they hadn't really thought it through. Eventually someone did spare a brain cell or two and developed a condom-like sheath that they could wear which would funnel urine into a special container. But every time nature called, the sheath would blow off and they'd end up with pee in their suits anyway. The reason for this? The male ego. The sheaths came in small, medium and large and all the astronauts claimed they needed the large one. They didn't.

Another quite delicate bodily function was that of pooping. Because early on space toilets hadn't been invented yet, astronauts had to tape a special bag to their backsides in order to have a poop. This failed quite spectacularly for various reasons, chief among which is the fact that, without gravity, poop doesn't break off as it exits the body, so they had to use special gloves in order to help the process along.

These days the space toilets are a lot more functional and efficient but their have been reports of these breaking at times and then you have a large globe of pee exiting the toilet and floating about. And because of special chemicals to essentially keep it sterile, it is bright purple and highly acidic. This is also a very good reason not to eat any milk duds you find floating around!

Before I end, just a few more fun facts:
Firstly, farts do not propel you in space, astronauts have tried. So no matter how rich in baked beans your meal was, the human body just doesn't create enough pressure during farting to actually propel you anywhere.

Secondly, never burp in space. Gravity normally keeps food in your stomach, so in a zero gravity environment burps almost always tend to be accompanied by solid matter.

Thirdly, gravity is usually required for your body to realise that you have to go, so astronauts don't always realise that nature is banging at the door. This means they need bathroom schedules so as not to wet/poop themselves.

And lastly, in the early days of the international space station, a water purifying unit that worked absolutely flawlessly on earth kept getting clogged up in space. The reason? The astronauts were losing bone density in the zero gravity environment and were peeing out the calcium in their bones, thus clogging the system. And here we always thought being an astronaut was glamorous!

Glamping

My beloved and I recently went away for the long weekend. As it was her idea the details were left firmly in her court and she decided to introduce me to a much-loved holiday destination. We went to a resort that offers traditional tent and caravan camping, log cabins, safari tents and mountain tents. Her first preference was the mountain tents, set higher up than the rest of the accommodation and thus closer to nature, but alas, they were already fully booked. So we settled for a safari tent. This was my first ever experience of glamping, so basically living in a tent but one that is already fully equipped with beds, a kitchen and a full bathroom attached at the rear. So imagine that a tent and a log cabin fell madly in love and had one torrid night of steaming romance and the result is a canvas tent/log cabin hybrid.

As I haven't gone camping in quite a while, and my last camping experience involved a traditional tent where you still have to go and use the ablution blocks with everyone else, this was a welcome surprise. No standing in line at the showers, no sitting in a cold bathroom stall listening to a variety of farts, burps, coughs and the occasional splash of a butt bomb hitting water. You actually have privacy. And it was wonderful!

Unfortunately, because it was a long weekend and thus the ideal time for EVERYONE to go on a mid-year break, the place was extremely busy. The tent next to ours had a group of people in their mid-twenties whose sole responsibility, in their minds, was to provide music to the entire resort. Thankfully they did adhere to the 23:00 noise curfew, mostly because they were completely sloshed and thus passed out at that point.

Apart from the interesting neighbors, the rest of the resort was amazing. There were hiking trails, canoeing, fishing, game drives, mountain biking, swimming (they had a hot pool), zip-lining, obstacle courses and a plethora of other activities to choose from. My beloved and I decided to go for a hike the one day and managed to get quite a distance before we realised that we were slightly too unfit for a walk of this magnitude and thus headed back to camp. While standing in reception waiting to chat to someone behind the information counter, a sign caught our eye. It stated that, before heading off for a romantic hike in the bush, reception had to be informed. This was because they had leopard, hyena, honey badger and a wide variety of other toothy critters roaming freely on the property. So we decided to rather hire mountain bikes and follow the rules of informing reception of our plans. Unfortunately most of their trails are all uphill from the camp and we also didn't get tremendously far on the bikes before fatigue, sore buttocks and, in my case at least, mashed man-bits made us turn around and rather go and have a cold beer instead.

I admitted to my beloved afterwards that I absolutely loved glamping. Sitting outside under the stars, grilling meat on the fire and generally enjoying nature (and the occasional good song from our music loving neighbors) makes the experience worthwhile. And then, when all is quiet in the dead of night, you can hear the cries of baboons and leopard and you feel like you really are one with nature. Even though you are in a mutant tent with a comfy bed. I would definitely recommend it!

It's Time to Play

I enjoy gaming. I've always enjoyed it. Immersing yourself in another world and just forgetting about the worries and cares of daily living for a while. It is like reading, just with visuals! I recently purchased Mortal Kombat XL. I've been a fan of the franchise from the very beginning, so it was a no-brainer to obtain the latest (at that point) installment. Especially because this one comes with fun extra characters like the xenomorph from Aliens (read about that cuddly character here), Jason from the Friday the 13th movies, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Predator from, well, the Predator movies. My beloved is also into gaming and we decided to give it a go together, mainly because MK XL is the only two player game I own at this point.

I was a little concerned that the extreme violence and brutality of the game would be a little bit off-putting and that we would play about two rounds before she would go sit somewhere quiet with a glass of wine and ponder her life choices. But no, she took to it like the proverbial duck to water! I decided to go easy on her at first while she was getting used to the controls but I soon realised that she is a natural. And once she got into it, boy did it get intense!

It is getting to the point where, when we play, we are pretty evenly matched. I would win some rounds, she would win others. I have come to dread the times where she picks Sub-Zero (a ninja character with cryogenic powers) or the above mentioned xenomorph. I just know that in those rounds I will either barely beat her or get thoroughly brutalised. But it is all in good fun, and it is the most effective way to get rid of the day's frustrations (well, while wearing clothes that is). But there are times where I fear I may have created a monster!

Shower Thoughts - Part 2

A while back I created a post in which I shared some "shower thoughts" from around the world (which can be found here). For those who haven't read it and have no idea what shower thoughts are, they are not deep philosophical thoughts about getting wet and washing yourself, but rather the random thoughts that you have while performing the act of cleaning yourself. I recently discovered some more, which I will share with you....

"Knowing you have the next day off is actually more relieving than having the next day off."

"If centaurs were real, the bottom half would start walking around immediately after birth while the top half would be all floppy for the first 2 years."

"Both concrete and glass are made of sand, which means skyscrapers are actually just really tall sandcastles."

"The spiders that live in Buckingham Palace now are probably descended from the spiders that lived there during Victorian times. It's like a whole parallel royal family, but with spiders."

"The internet almost killed off the postal service with email and then made it more needed than ever with online shopping."

"Pixar is the version of Disney that just wants to tell the story without someone bursting into spontaneous song every 10 minutes."

"Talent shows like Britain's Got Talent get much more disturbing when you realise that it consists of 4 rich people dangling money in front of poor people to get them to perform for their entertainment."

"Telling a dangerously overweight person not to lose weight because they're beautiful is like telling an alcoholic not to stop drinking because they are more fun when they are drunk."

"'So easy a caveman could do it' completely ignores the fact that cavemen were able to start fires without matches and could hunt and kill animals several times their size with nothing but rudimentary weaponry."

"The main child actors in the Harry Potter films were tutored on set, so theoretically they all went to school at Hogwarts."

"The Nordic people went from being the most feared and hardcore raiders in history to being the most polite and friendly people in Europe."

"Condoms are made by automated assembly lines, meaning robots are literally helping to prevent human reproduction."

"The sentence 'Don't objectify women' has 'women' as the object of the sentence."

"A college class is like an episode of Dora the Explorer. The professor asks a question, stares blankly at the class for a few seconds and then answers his own question."

"Having kids is like having broke little best friends who think you are rich."

"When you choke on water you have failed at both breathing and drinking, the two most important activities in your life."

"No-one has ever been inside an empty room."

"'Do not touch' must be one of the scariest things to read in Braille."

"The person who proofread Hitler's speeches was a grammar Nazi."

"When a pregnant woman swims, she is a human submarine."

"When you are criticized for being short, they are really just saying that the worst thing about you is that there isn't more of you."

Random Acts of Weirdness

So the other day I was reading an article about the weird things that people do but never really talk about. For example, have you ever wanted to go to the bathroom at a public function and someone you know sits down next to you and you keep sitting there internally drowning in your own urine just because you don't want to get up immediately and hurt their feelings? (I truly and sincerely hope I'm not the only one doing that!) But I decided to share a few examples of the strange things we all do, but will rarely admit to.

Passwords
Have you ever tried entering a password but the PC/site keeps telling you that it is incorrect? And when you decide to reset the password and it tells you that your new password can't be the same as your old one? And you set your PC on fire and move to a different country?

Word
Have you ever inserted an image in Microsoft Word, decided the spacing is not quite right so you move it 1mm to the left and it creates 4 new pages, all your text and images move all over the place, volcanoes erupt, aliens invade and a meteor obliterates some remote village in India?

Names
Have you ever asked someone what their name is and then not listened when they tell you or only heard it partially and then realise that you will never be able to mention them by name for the rest of time?

Time
Have you ever noticed how a minute speeds by when you are having fun but stretches out into 2 and a half years when you are exercising?

Medicine
Have you ever read the label on medicine and it says to not take it and operate heavy machinery and assumed they meant forklifts or bulldozers instead of cars?

Tardiness
Have you ever been late for an appointment because it was early and you spent the first 45 minutes after waking just sitting on the edge of your bed staring at the wall?

Alarm
Have you ever woken up and glanced at your phone to see how much time you have left to sleep and found that it is 1 minute before your alarm is set to go off so you roll over and cry a little while waiting for the inevitable?

Clock
Have you ever taken out your phone to check the time, put it back in your pocket and realised that you didn't actually check the time when you were holding the phone?

Lyrics
Have you ever Googled the lyrics to a song and realised you've had it all wrong for years?

Queue
Have you ever stood in a short queue at the supermarket and then realised that the much longer queue next to you is moving much faster?

Voice
Have you ever heard a recording of your own voice, realised it sounded completely different and then stood staring out a window at the pouring rain and questioned who you really are?

Screensaver
Have you ever sat somewhere and zoned out, and then realised you are zoned out but was too lazy to zone back in again?

Expressions
Have you ever caught yourself making a facial expression and then thought "Woah, I didn't mean to make that face out loud?!" and hoped no-one saw you?

Browsing
Have you ever pretended to be looking at other products in the supermarket when someone is blocking access to the product you need and you are waiting for them to leave?

Potholes
Have you ever hit a pothole so hard that you apologised to your car out loud?

Phone Call
Have you ever been on your phone and had someone call you but you don't want to talk to them so you just stare at your phone until it stops ringing and you can go back to playing Candy Crush?

Radio
Have you ever sat in your car after you have parked and waited for a song to finish before turning the car off and getting out?

Minty Fresh
Have you ever chewed peppermint chewing gum and then had some really cold water and felt like you just had liquid nitrogen poured down your throat?

TV Dinner
Have you ever sat down for dinner in front of the TV and then had it go cold because you couldn't find a show you liked?

The Big Secret

I recently read an article called "Secrets Men Wish Women Knew". And that got me thinking. All the girly mags like Cosmo (or whatever other girly mags are out there, I'm not really clued up on them) always mention weight loss secrets, or how to look good naked or how to make a really healthy but still delicious fat free cucumber, moss, twig and barley smoothie that will instantly melt away your body fat, give you more energy than a cheetah on Red Bull and make your hair glossy, shiny and free from ticks and flees. Wait, I might have gone slightly off topic there. But then the thought occurred to me, no-one actually talks about what secrets men have. I'm not talking about that time you accidentally clicked on a link and an advert for a holiday resort featuring a scantily clad woman popped up just as your wife walked in and you had to explain yourself for three hours. No, I'm talking about the things men think of or experience every day. So I thought I would break the Man Code a bit and share some of our secrets. Only some though, I don't want to get my Man Card revoked!

WARNING: SERIOUS TRUTHS ABOUT TO BE REVEALED. NOT SUITABLE FOR SENSITIVE READERS

Men Can't Take Hints
Saying something like "I almost broke my neck falling over the hosepipe in the driveway" doesn't translate as "Oh dear, I'd better go out and pick it up". We will take it as a helpful heads-up from your side and take care not to fall over it ourselves. Rather be straightforward or you'll be frustrated a lot!

Pee as a Tool
We will sometimes use our stream of pee to try and clean a dirty spot in the toilet bowl while we are taking a tinkle. Or try and wee on the fly/mosquito/bug that happened to be in the bowl at the time and see if we can knock it into the water.

Nothing
When you ask us what we are thinking about and we answer with "nothing", don't get upset. Chances are we really aren't thinking of anything. Never underestimate a guy's ability to have no coherent thought in his mind whatsoever at any given point.

We Stick to It
If someone tells us we have a nice haircut or outfit, that shall be it for the next few years. We will always get our hair cut in that way or wear that outfit (or something similar) until the next person compliments us on something else.

Gentlemen
Sometimes we are not flirting, we are simply being nice. If we compliment a lady on her outfit, hair, nails etc that doesn't automatically mean we want to engage in intimate relations, it just means we appreciate the effort that the lady has put into her appearance and we want to be nice. So put down the pepper spray and say thank you!

Shower Time
Just because we sometimes spend upward of 20 minutes in the shower it doesn't mean we are jerking off or doing anything lewd and questionable. Men like hot showers too!

Erections
The spontaneous erection is the bane of men everywhere. An erection doesn't automatically mean arousal. This cannot be stressed enough! We get erections every two hours while sleeping because it is the body's way of ensuring enough blood flow to our manly bits. The timing also means that sometimes we wake up with one. It could also sometimes happen all on its own during the day (usually to teenage boys). All we can really do is look down and go "What is it boy? Did Timmy fall into the well again?"

Morning Wood
Speaking of which, we really struggle to take a leak when our manbits are doing their best impression of the North Pole. So be patient with us while we are trying to figure out how not to piss in our own eyes first thing in the morning!

Staring
If you catch us looking at you with our eyes glazed over, it doesn't mean that we are picturing you naked. It could just be that we phased out thinking about how we'd love to have opened a meadery in medieval times and called it Yon Thirsty Warthog, all the while just sort of looking in your general vicinity.

Mr Fix-It
When people come to us with a problem, our first inclination is to try and fix it, even when it is almost impossible to do. If you need us to listen, maybe lead into the conversation by telling us that you just need to vent for a bit. That way we will be in Attentive Listening Mode instead of Immediately Solve Problem mode.

Shake It Off
No matter how much we may squeeze, shake and dance after taking a wee, there will always be some left in the tube that will manifest itself the moment we are zipped back up. This does not mean that we don't practice proper hygiene, it is just something that happens.

The Funky Chicken
If, on a hot day, you see us doing a strange and unusual move while walking, we are not having a minor seizure, we are trying to unstick our balls from our legs, or trying to reposition said balls into a more comfortable position.

Good Aim
Because as guys we have to stand and tinkle, and that involves holding our manbits and pointing them in the direction of the toilet/urinal, a good aim is essential. But sometimes our little fellers just don't feel like peeing straight, no matter how carefully we aim. So if we do go off course, bear with us, we are not doing it on purpose.

Hobbies
If we have a goofy or strange hobby and you take an interest in it even if it bores you to tears, we will adore you for it. We love having our significant others take an interest in what we are doing recreationally, even if they don't understand it.

The Hero
We will often actively fantasize about saving the day. Whether from a mugger in the street or aliens bent on enslaving mankind for their own fiendish desires, we never grow out of a manly desire to be the hero of the moment.

The Zip
All guys learn very quickly from an early age to pull the zipper away from our bodies when zipping up. If you romantically lean behind us for a cuddle and then decide to help us get dressed by zipping up for us, don't be surprised if you suddenly get a butt in the stomach as we try and get our manbits out of the way of the gnashing metal teeth.

Shrinkage
All guys like to be thought of as big manly men. And none more so than in the dangly bit department. But due to our sperm requiring body heat in order to survive hanging from a skin sack between our legs, sometimes things shrink up when the temperature drops. This is a sensitive moment for us, try not to laugh (outwardly).

The Big Scare

So my lovely lady and I are fans of scary films. I'm not referring to anything with Justin Bieber or Paris Hilton in them, but genuine thrillers or horror films. But, after a while, we've started noticing some really common events that happen in pretty much any scary film, so much so that I have started referring to them as Horror Cliches. I've even started looking out for them in every film we watch and, most of the time, I find them. So without further ado, herewith my list of the most common Horror Film Cliches.

The Road
Inevitably someone will be running down a road and will be chased by the baddie in a car. It won't matter that the foliage next to the road is thick enough to hide Godzilla, the victim will never think to dive into the safety of the bushes where the car can't go.

Women Can't Run
The baddie appears, the woman bolts for the exit. The floor will be as free from obstacles as an ice rink but the woman will trip over absolutely nothing, enabling the baddie to catch up and shoot/stab/eat her.

The Useless Cars
At some point someone will jump into a car and try and start it. And, without fail, the car won't start. This is the same car that will most likely be shown running perfectly and reliably throughout the first part of the film.

Splitting Up
In most, if not all horror films, a group of people will decide that their chances of survival will increase if they split up into smaller groups or head off into the darkness on their own. Let's face it, if you are in a group of people of 4 to 6, you could easily overpower said baddie. But no, let's all split up and get creatively murdered while stumbling around in the dark.

Adults Are Useless
If it is a horror film where the main protagonists are kids/teens, the adults will usually not be of any help whatsoever and get murdered by the baddie the moment the kids/teens approach them for help.

The Speed-walking Killer
It seems that, no matter how fast the victim is running, the killer who is purposefully striding after them at a brisk pace will always be gaining. I'd love to be on that fitness program!

Phones Don't Work
No phone will ever work in a horror film once the baddie makes an appearance. Landlines will be cut or out of service and cell phones won't have signal or would have been destroyed in some accident.

Dark House/Building/Basement
There will always be a creepy house or dilapidated building or gloomy basement, usually so the baddie can jump out and murder a member of the group. What baffles me is how the baddie hasn't fallen asleep out of sheer boredom while sitting in the dark waiting for his first victims to arrive. And how he is not instantly blinded by the light that someone will eventually shine on him so he can murder them.

The Final Girl
There will always be the girl/teen/woman who has faced the baddie at least 15 times, each time getting slashed or stabbed or wounded in some way but persevering and eventually ending the baddie in some brutal way before hobbling off into the sunrise.

The Expert Shooter
The hero will always be an expert marksman, even when they've never wielded a gun up to that point. They will find one, fumble with it for a bit before emptying the entire magazine into the killer with surprising accuracy.

Jump Scares
There will come a time where the hero is catching his/her breath, usually in a darkened space, and then suddenly the killer will leap out and cause them to run away. How the killer got into their hiding space before them and why he doesn't just stab them then and there will always puzzle me.

Creepy Kids/Teens
For some reason there will always be creepy kids or teens hanging around. The little girl with the dark hair blocking out her face is a popular choice.

Killer Bathrooms
Most of the murders in movies will happen in the bathrooms. Either because the victims have decided to take shelter there (in case of pooping themselves out of sheer terror) or they are in the bath or shower, usually soaping themselves up like someone in a body wash commercial before getting murdered by the baddie.

Tardy Cops
The police will always arrive too late to actually do anything. And then in most cases get murdered by the baddie themselves.

Affection Kills
ANY form of romantic affection or intimacy basically guarantees that you will get murdered in the same scene, while the steamy events are happening, or one directly thereafter.

"Based on Actual Events"
Thriller/horror film producers like adding that line in, just to make you think that this has happened somewhere in the world and could thus happen to you.

The Rising Tension
Most of the time, while the hero is attempting to sneak away from the baddie, the music will rise dramatically thus making you think that the baddie is going to jump out and murder them right there and then but..........nothing happens.

Gloomy Investigations
The victims will always go and investigate dark areas. If you knew a killer was in the vicinity you would rather stick to well-lit areas instead of bravely but stupidly heading into the dark to go and see if you can find them. But then I suppose if the victim simply walks into a well-lit area and sits around for 90 minutes the film would be pretty boring.

Animals
Just as with affection, if the victim investigates a noise in a darkened room and is startled by a cat/dog/other miscellaneous animal, they are pretty much guaranteed to get murdered immediately after breathing a sigh of relief.

The Unkillable Killer
The killer will always survive whatever is done to them for the duration of the movie. They will get stabbed, shot, set on fire, thrown from a roof, blown up or run over but will always get back up to try and murder the victim again. That is some serious dedication!