I Told You So!

My lovely companion and I really look forward to a very special occasion every year......our cell phone upgrades. She, predictably, went for the latest Samsung Galaxy, whereas I decided to stick with Nokia. I like Nokia a lot. It's always been beautifully designed, and very dependable. Up until now. I decided to get myself a Nokia Lumia 920. Now I spend most of my days doing this...

This phone causes me a lot of headaches! There are times where I want to answer it, and it has just decided "No, you may not!" and refuses to let me pick up the call. Other times I turn on the internet or connect it to the wi-fi and it just locks up completely, for no reason other than to piss me off. And, being a Lumia, it has a fixed battery, so you can't even take that out to reset it. Thankfully, Google rescued me (and the freaking phone). I now know how to do a reset. And this phone does this for one simple reason, it runs Windows. They should've given me a keypad that slides out the bottom with just 3 buttons on it; Ctrl+Alt+Del. That would've made my life so much easier!

But, it is a well designed phone. And apart from its inherent Microsoftness, it has a few handy functions. It is also not too bad to look at.

It looks especially beautiful while flying through the air, with my lovely companion in the background going "I told you so"......

No Time to Waste!

My lovely companion posted the following on my Facebook page recently:

That got me thinking; few statements in this world are as true as that one. Before our little angel came along we could take our time, start the evening off slow. Maybe a nice dinner, a movie, some deep gazes into each others eyes (not during the movie, afterwards), and then build up to a nice luxurious end to the evening. One of those where even the neighbours would need cigarettes when we're done. That is the way it used to be.

After our little angel arrived, however, things have changed a bit. We've learned to time our more romantic inclinations with her sleeping patterns. This is after learning the hard (no pun intended) way that taking our time just doesn't work any more. It would be the usual build-up, the loving gazes, the naughty smiles, the soft kisses, the tender undressing, the foreplay, and just when things are really getting going, you'd hear a sigh from the direction of the crib. All action is paused while we assess how awake she is. Then with a gurgle or a little sniffle from our little angel, we'd realise that our time is up. So now our romantic evenings are scheduled around when the little angel visits grandma. Then we can take our time and stretch out the enjoyment. But while our little angel is with us, quickies are all we'll have.....

Let it Snow!

It seems that it is impossible to turn on the radio, even here in South Africa, and not hear about the cold weather in America. It's even harder to imagine what that would be like when it's so hot that your eggs get hard boiled on the way back from the supermarket. When I think of winter, I don't think of mountains of snow burying people alive. I think of this....

SOME of the trees lose their leaves, the rest haven't noticed that it's cold yet. We walk out in the morning and think to ourselves "My, it's slightly chilly, maybe I'll wear a jersey or something." We don't have blizzards, or snowstorms. We have a slightly cold wind and maybe some rain. We definitely never have a Polar Vortex! That sounds like something a super villain would use.

Super Villain: "I demand 5 billion dollars, or something bad will happen!"

UN: "But we don't have that kind of money! We spent it all trying to solve world hunger and assassinate Justin Bieber!"

Super Villain: "Do I look like I care?! You will pay me, or I will unleash.....(dramatic pause)....my Polar Vortex! MWA HA HA HA HA!"

UN: "Argh! Not that! Anything but that!"

I'm convinced that a polar vortex is actually just the weather guys trying to make the cold weather sound more dramatic. But then, here in SA, we don't have things like that. Or tsunamis. Or massive city-levelling earthquakes. Or tornadoes. Or hurricanes. In fact, we don't have natural disasters here. That's probably why, in every disaster movie you will ever see, if they show the earth from space, Africa is completely untouched. If a meteor hits the earth and destroys America (as tends to happen in every disaster movie) we'll be sitting here, sipping a cold beer, wondering what that loud bang was....

Happy New Year!

To all my readers, I wish you a happy new year! And if you are looking for a specific reason to be happy, ponder this.......we've been doing pretty well since the world ended in 2012!

For some reason some confused people decided that December 2012 was the end of the world, but they couldn't accurately explain why. They found some obscure calendar from the long dead Mayan culture and based everything on the fact that the calendar ends in December 2012. I think there are many reasons for this; one, they might have just run out of space on the stone tablet the calendar was carved into, and two, the Mayans are dead, there was no-one left to bring out an updated calendar!

I'm not sure what these doomsayers were expecting? Were we supposed to just sort of pop out of existence? Poof! All gone! Was the planet supposed to explode? They seemed to expect the absolute worst! Meteors wiping out entire continents, tsunamis wiping out entire cities, earthquakes devastating most of the planet, Justin Bieber announcing a secret lesbian relationship with Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus doing something useful like solving world hunger instead of taking her clothes off (again), KFC announcing they would stock nothing but corn bowls. The world was going to go mad!

But, alas, none of this happened. Although I am still quite convinced about the Justin Bieber - Lady Gaga angle. Then there is the supposed Zombie Apocalypse. Some virus or something turning the entire planet into mindless flesh-eating killers. Now, if any zombie movie or series is to be believed, apart from walking around moaning and having the constant desire to bite something (like most of the cast of Twilight), zombies aren't exactly going to break any land speed records. Plus they aren't what you'd call bright, so outwitting them shouldn't be much of a challenge. I was astounded to learn that certain colleges and universities in America (why am I surprised) are actually presenting Zombie survival courses. The mind boggles!

You know what, in spite of all this, I firmly believe we'll all be alright. As the song goes: "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine!"