Stating the Obvious

This weekend I decided to go for a long overdue haircut. When left to its own devices, my hair will start resembling the kind of foliage you find on a jungle floor. With South Africa trapped in the middle of both a drought and a heat wave, I decided to go nice and short. This morning upon entering the office a colleague of mine took one look at me and exclaimed "You cut your hair!" to which I replied "No, I didn't". This baffled her so she said "But it is shorter" to which I replied "Yes, I concentrated very hard and pulled it back into my scalp". I realise that my response was probably a bit unnecessary but I find people's need to state the obvious baffling!

Between 2005 and 2007 I had long flowing locks that hung down between my shoulder blades. People would come up to me and exclaim "Your hair is so long!" What exactly am I supposed to do with that statement? I am quite aware of the fact that my hair is long, so it is not as if you are supplying me with information that I did not already possess! Am I supposed to say "Really? Well spotted! I never knew! Thank you so much for telling me!"

What baffles me even more is the fact that you see this almost compulsive need to state the obvious everywhere in your daily life. Let me give you a few examples:

Looking at these examples, it truly makes me believe that there is very little hope for the intelligence of human kind. And just in case you were wondering, you have reached the end of this post.....

Savvy Shopper

Shopping has always baffled me. It should be simple enough. You go to the store, select an item that you want/need, provide the cashier with some money and leave with your purchase. Easy, right? But no, shopping is needlessly complicated not by the shops themselves, but by the customers who frequent them! I did a previous post (which can be read here) in which I describe the various types of shoppers out there:

• The Ankle Bashers - these are people so focused on their shopping that they are completely unaware of their surroundings and proceed to wheel their trolleys into your ankles, usually being very unapologetic afterwards.
• The Long-lost Friends - these are people who haven't seen each other in ages and decide to catch up on lost time, usually in the middle of the pasta aisle.
• The Confused - these are people who will debate the merits of buying one brand of gherkins over another, usually for lengthy periods and also in the center of the aisle

This past weekend I had an experience that has inspired me to add another category to my list; The Oblivious Shopper. I was standing in front of the spices looking for a specific one when I felt something being added to my shopping basket. I glanced to my left to find a woman loading a few items into my basket without once looking in my direction. Behind her stood her extremely amused husband, watching the proceedings with a slight shake of his head. After his wife had wandered off, presumably to go ambush someone else with toilet paper, we removed the items from my basket and placed it in his. We were both having a good chuckle at the sheer absurdity of the situation. He then followed his wife to prevent her from adding tomato sauce to another shopper's trolley.

What is it about shopping that turns intelligent people into retail zombies? Walking into a store appears to lower your IQ by 50 points and causes you to do strange and unusual things like adding items to a complete stranger's basket or discussing the merits of No-Name Brand Baked Beans in the middle of the aisle. I would speculate on this strange phenomenon further, but I have to go check the fat content of canned peas......

The Voice

I quite enjoy singing. Whether it is in the shower, driving in my car or simply sitting around at home, I like to belt out a good tune. Usually when I am alone. Otherwise I might be asked to please stop making such a racket because I am scaring the neighbour's children and upsetting all the dogs in the neighbourhood. So singing might not be a talent of mine. But I enjoy it nonetheless. I also admire people who have perfected the art of singing. Someone who doesn't need to be edited in a soundroom before they sound like they might have some talent somewhere. Someone who has a beautiful voice and uses it to its full potential. People like Andrea Bochelli, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey. Now, while I am a fan of the aforementioned singers, I also enjoy people who are just starting out. Singers who are making a name for themselves on the strength of their voice alone. People who can sing a beautiful song and not be asked to please stop scaring old people. That's why I am also a big fan of acapella bands. These are singers who can sing haunting and lovely melodies, who can enthrall you with their vocal talents without the need for musical instruments. Which brings me neatly on to my next point. Some of these acapella bands have decided to include musical instruments as well, but using only their voices and natural talent. Bands like Pentatonix and Music Crowns. But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding (Mmmmm, pudding....) so I have put together a few videos for you to enjoy....

Music Crowns - Hotel California

Pentatonix - Daft Punk Medley

Michael Winslow (from Police Academy) - Whole Lotta Love

Peter Hollens - Song of the Misty Mountain

There are many more amazing vocal talents out there, unfortunately I won't be able to list all of them, but you can find the links to the artists shown above here:

Pentatonix
Peter Hollens
Michael Winslow
Music Crowns

Internet Vines - 6 Seconds of Fame

I recently discovered something called Internet Vines. These are short amateur videos, usually about 6 seconds in length, that depict everyday occurrences in a humorous way. You can find literally thousands of them on YouTube, some quite good, others headscratchingly bad. I have decided to share a few of my favourites with you:

Taking Selfies

When You Gotta Go

Game Physics in Real Life

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

Failed Smack Cam

When You Oversleep

All of the Vines above are courtesy of Curtis Lepore. You can find his YouTube channel here.

Blaze of Glory

Who doesn't like a good braai? Standing around the fire, listening to big hunks of meat sizzling on the grill filling the air with a delicious aroma. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Now, in our company we have two offices; one in Centurion and one in Gallo Manor. Because most of our technical staff live in Centurion, there is no need for a caretaker at our Centurion offices. Our Gallo Manor offices contain our admin and finance staff and, because no-one resides close to the office, we have employed a caretaker who lives there and makes sure all stays well. I realise at this point that you must be wondering what a braai and our office arrangements have to do with one another, but I shall explain shortly. See, our caretaker developed a hankering for a good piece of meat roasted over a fire. Okay, so far so good. He then lit said fire before realising "Dur....I don't have meat.....hur hur hur" and then leaving to go get some. This is his official story. Whether he really wanted to have a braai or whether he was preparing to make a sacrifice to the gods of stupidity only he knows.

There was a bit of a breeze last night, and in the time it took him to go to the shops to buy some intelligence, the wind blew some sparks from his braai onto a log pile. And not a small log pile. A towering stack that resembles a hacked down forest. Seeing as our spring season has so far been reaching volcano-like temperatures, the ground is dryer than a piece of sandpaper stranded atop a rock in the middle of the desert. Thus a small spark from the braai set the log pile blazing. When our hapless caretaker returned, he found the backyard looking like this....

After presumable wetting himself and maybe crying just a little, he grabbed a garden hose and bravely attempted to put out the inferno. This had about as much effect on the fire as peeing on it. Thankfully a passing police car noticed the towering flames and alerted the fire brigade, who spent quite a significant amount of time trying to put out the blaze. After a few hours of frantic activity the backyard looked like a scene from the apocalypse but at least the fire was out. Thankfully the flames never reached the building so the damage, while looking terrible, wasn't actually that bad. You can be assured that we will have another braai at our offices in the near future. Our main course? The caretaker.....

The Tongue

I don't think I classify as an animal lover. Sure, I appreciate the beauty of nature and the animals that dwell therein. But in general I like cats. And that's pretty much it. I do tolerate dogs, don't get me wrong, and I've even learned to like and appreciate some of the dogs that I have gotten to know. But there are some dogs that I struggle to like. Dogs that seem to go out of their way to annoy me. A prime example of this is the basset hound. My first experience with a basset hound was when I was sitting somewhere, casually working on my laptop, and the sound of scrabbling paws reaches my ears. I look up and there, seemingly suspended in mid-air, was a basset hound on a flying trajectory to my lap.

Now, before I make up my mind about any dog, I have to meet them and get to know them first. Having one the size of a small rhino making an unannounced landing on my lap is definitely not my idea of a first meeting. That encounter already gave me an uneasy feeling about basset hounds. So it was with some trepidation that I found out that my future brother-in-law had acquired one. He called it Bones. And for some reason, known only to him, he loves it dearly. I do not. After my first encounter with it I promptly renamed it The Tongue. It seems to derive a great amount of pleasure chasing you around the house trying to sniff and/or lick you. It once chased me around their kitchen trying desperately to lick my ankles (in retrospect wearing sandals to their home might have been a bad idea). It finds feet and exposed skin irresistible! And for some reason it has a tongue that appears to be longer than the dog itself. How it fits that sizable (drooling) tongue into its mouth remains a mystery. Maybe they should invite over a few scientists in HazMat suits to find out.

To me a basset hound is like a cartoon character that has come to life. It seems impossibly droopy and floppy with a tongue that is longer than the Nile River, and just as wet. And yet it is blessed with an almost inexhaustible level of energy. And does it use this endless supply for the greater good? No! It uses it to chase you around the house in a crazy bid to lubricate your ankles! Or to chew whatever it can find. I'm pretty sure that the stomach lining of the average basset hound consists of die-cast titanium! It will eat rocks, plastic bottles, clothing, yellow-cake uranium and other miscellaneous items and still be perfectly fine! It proves my theory that it is a living cartoon character time and time again.....

A Challenging Task

So I read recently that the mark of a good writer is the ability to write about pretty much anything. A really good writer can take a boring topic like toenails or slightly green moss and turn it into something informative and amusing. That gave me an idea. I selected a few of my more avid readers and sent them a message, asking them to come up with strange and unusual ideas for my next blog post. Obviously topics that were overtly sexual, racist or blasphemous would be discarded. As would anything that has to do with Justin Bieber, and I would probably block the person who suggested him. Soon my inbox was absolutely flooded with a suggestion. Yip, just one. The topic? My future brother-in-law's basset hound. Thankfully I decided not to give up, and received a few verbal suggestions. My original plan was to put all the topics I received in my inbox to a vote, and then pick the most popular one. Seeing as I only received one written suggestion, I have decided to rather take all the suggestions that I have received (written and verbal) and blog about them in the coming weeks. I have also decided to blog about them in the order that they were suggested, so next week Monday you can sit back, relax and read the gripping tale of one man's best friend. Or as I like to call him......The Tongue!