Car parade

Yes, I know you’re all wanting to know about the weekend’s test-driving. And there are a few surprises to reveal.

Firstly, let me tell you that I’ve come to the conclusion everyone has an “expert” opinion on which car you should buy, all with valid reasons as to why their car choice is the best, but very seldom do people’s choice of best car coincide. Thus, I’ve realised, it’s a choice best made by me, for me.

With that in mind, do not criticise me for my spur-of-the-moment two-lane crossing manouevre along Beyers Naude (as did the irate drivers around me, with good reason) to pull into a Mercedes Benz showroom. (Inyoka, alas don’t get too excited, it wasn’t really the Smart I was there for). What impulsively drew my attention was the *deep breath* new A Class. I know, I know, it’s distinctively a mum’s car, but they do have the sport kit for a not-yet-a-mum-heck-not-even-married feel. What put me off was the sheer arrogance of the dealership: it’s stupid that they won’t let you drive a car right then and there, knowing you’re going to walk straight out of their shop and into a competitor’s showroom, where you might immediately drive another car and fall in love with it, and prefer their friendlier customer service, and decide “Hell, who needs a Merc anyway?” I’m still waiting for the finance guy to call me.

So, despite the sheer joy I would get from driving a car no-one on this planet would expect me to drive this car falls to the bottom of my list. (Is that a sigh of relief I hear?) Surprisingly, the Gilb is actually quite in favour of this car, citing reliability, good vehicle (if not customer) service and a nice price for what it offers as reasons to buy this ‘mobile.

Next up, we went to a Mini dealership, where I got to test drive a Chili Cooper (ladies: it was cream with a black roof; gentlemen: 17-inch rims), where I had a great time terrifying the 18-year-old child that had to ‘supervise’ me on my drive, by chatting (which for me, a certified wop, means with both hands off the steering wheel, gesticulating wildly), all the while looking sideways at the Gilb, and driving at 100 km/h down a windy suburban street. I also forced him to allow me to reverse-park (reverse is actually my favourite gear, I’ve always wanted a car that had a second reverse gear) back at the showroom. The verdict: quite a nippy little thing, but while I was set on the cream version, I’ve decided I like the Astro Black better (black but with little sparkly blue bits, giving it a midnight blue appearance), though not certain whether this should be black bottom and top, or black bottom with white top and side mirrors, and in the latter case, (dare I even think it) perhaps the white stripes down the front. I nearly fainted at the difference in the price between the Cooper and the Cooper S, so regrettably, will not be looking at that option, but the vehicle would have 17-inch rims and a sun-roof, that’s got to count for something, right? The first dealer I went to told me my instalments would be R2,132 per month – I was over the moon, expecting somewhat more – but on closer inspection the sneaky saleswoman had put in a residual value of R97,000. So I spurned her, and went to a better dealership where they gave me the full gory instalment. Fright!

Then. At the Gilb’s insistence, I tried out another car. I won’t tell you yet what this was, suffice to say it’s a slightly more upmarket (I think) competitor to the Ford Focus. It purrs like a deranged tiger, and would outrace the Mini and Merc any day. It has 6-speed transmission (the weirdo salesman asked if I’d like to try the automatic or the manual. Duh), quite a formidable exterior, although admittedly the interior is not quite as stylish as (yet infinitely more spacious than) the Mini. The excitement of buying this car is that, once again, no-one would expect me to be thinking of buying this car, but for quite the opposite reasons suggested by the Merc. Also, I’d definitely get this one in black, and would even break my no-customised-plates rule because its number plates would simply have to be: SWRT GVR. That ironic (yet simultaneously thoroughly appropriate) gimmick is almost too much to resist, and could sway the decision in this car’s favour.

Of course, no mention of my beloved Alfa. Folks, I can’t resist – much to everyone’s mystified horror, I cannot buy a car without giving my first love a test-drive first. This is the Scarlett Johansson of motor vehicles, and who wouldn’t want to ride her? (Scarlett, if you or your agent or publicity monitors are reading this, I’m sorry to objectify you like that. I worship you for so much more than your lesbian fantasy appeal. Mmmmm…)

So. No more mention of cars until the decision is made. It has to happen in the next few weeks, or not at all this year.

The experiment

Excuse my potty mouth, but:

Clit-licking butt-fucking hot wet pussy penis-pounding orgy
Teen Asian anal fuckfest
Luscious lesbian lickers

There, thought ought to be enough. I just want to see whether this has any effect on my hit counter totals today.

For those of you who are horrified at my language, I apologise, especially if your boss walked past your computer screen as my site uploaded.

For those of you who came here hoping to indulge in any of the above sex romps, I apologise too. I suggest you rather go here for some action.

And a happy, kinky weekend to y’all, folks!

Cars!

I feel a little bewildered at the pressure I’ve been subjected to at work, to buy a new car. Ever since my promotion (in fact, even before then), I’ve been told that my darling Max is not good enough.

“It’s not fit for someone of your status to be seen driving a Corsa, Ant”, they say. It has got to the point where I think they don’t care as much about the quality of my work as they do about the car I drive.

Sheesh.

Well, partly bowing to the pressure, and partly acknowledging that Max really is on his last legs, I’m going to start looking at a new car (but my current inclination is to go for the long-term leasing option rather than outright purchase).

If I were to spite my employer, I’d go out and buy a brand-spanking new Uno, to see the reaction. Instead, I’m going to view this as an opportunity to drive a posh car for a while. My leanings are:

Alfa 147 – truly, not a car I’d ever buy. As beautiful as this machine is, and as proud an Italian-South African as I am, I cannot deny the mechanical faults of this sexy machine. The real Alfa I’d want is the hot hot hot Brera, but I’m guessing even on rental the price is prohibitively expensive. Colour: undecided. Although terribly common, that cherry/fire-engine red is a winner, but then, being partial as I am toward green, that metallic light green looks damn fine too.

Ford Focus ST – yes, a man’s car, so what is a girl doing wanting to drive this? I can’t explain the attraction, but there’s definitely a connection between this machine and me. And while I’ll up the ante in my racy driving, I’ll never proclaim to live up to the driving antics of the men who own one. If I decided to go the buying route, this would definitely be a winner – think of all the guys who’d want to buy a second-hand one from a female driver rather than a male driver (a stereotype, but it’s true). Colour: metallic blue or the release colour, that metallic rusty orange.

Mini Cooper / 1 series BMW – okay, this might come as a shock to some, given that I always rip off beemer drivers. I’m a lot more forgiving of 1 series drivers though, because… probably because I actually like the look of this vehicle, and my friend N who drives one seems to have a great time in hers. That’s something I’ll have to run by her though – can I have the same flashy car that my good friend drives? As for the Cooper, this is a cautious choice, because I’m not sure it really suits my personality. Bold, yes, hippy retro wannabe, no. Plus, it’ll look naff parked in the basement next to Peas’ retro revival machine, Ludwig the Beetle. Mini colour: cream with dark leather interior. Beemer: no idea yet.

It’s terminal. It has nothing to do with (black) petrol attendants or power cuts.

First-up, my disease: I have a serious, serious case of Google-itis. My friend went for the interview in Zurich (they call themselves ‘Zooglers’), and should know of his success any day soon. The office is a delightfully understated, traditional old-style European architecture building, with a tastefully subtle post at the entrance with an eye-level 30cm sign saying ‘Google’.

I bagged this pen from my friend, whom I ordered to pilfer as many branded items of stationery he could lay his hands on:




Our IT guys came round yesterday and were positively drooling over the writing instrument. My precious…

Then, an incident last night, to follow so many similar incidents before it. Petrol attendants have the serious hots for me. Seriously. I’ve been proposed to, asked on dates, asked to dump my ‘boring white boyfriend’, invited to parties, been given free shit (including a bunch of red roses on Valentine’s Day, rather than the customary single red rose). But last night, I experienced the most touching gesture yet. An attendant sucked rusty water out of my water tank through a dirty plastic tube for me. I was mortified.

It began with the simple request to check my oil and water (and at his insistence, my battery cells’ water level too). When he got to the water tank, he gasped when he saw how rusty orange the water was. “Madam, this is going to damage your radiator. If the water gets there, it’ll break and need seriously expensive repairs. Please let me rinse out the tank and replace it with clean water.” “Um, ok”, I said gratefully. I expected him to bring out some mechanized contraption to remove the offending water from my tank, but all he produced was a muddy two metre-long piece of tube. “No! I’ll find someone who has the proper equipment to replace the water – don’t put into your mouth!” I pleaded.

There was no stopping him, however, as he appeared genuinely concerned that my car would break down and rack up untold fortunes in repair expenses. He flushed the tank out with clean water twice over, then stuck a bottle brush into the tank to dislodge further rusty grime, then re-rinsed it again and filled it. His colleagues and the other customers watched the entire episode in amazement/disbelief/amusement. I’m a total sucker (no pun intended) for great service, so he earned himself a R20 tip. I’ll be back there again.

xxx

On an entirely different note, my frustrations at the sporadic power cuts were briefly abated yesterday when an Zimbabwean colleague told me: “It’s absolutely great that when the power goes out the whole economy shuts down in this place – that’s how you know the country’s going somewhere. In Zimbabwe, it wouldn’t have made a difference, everyone could’ve kept on working!” Viva our intermittently-electrified South Africa!

Getaway

So, our company had its biannual getaway from Thursday to Sunday, which was… odd, to say the least.

For starters, the “conference facilities” of the venue consisted of a dining room from which they barred all other resort guests from entering while our desk-bound discussions were taking place (this also meant we were kicked out whenever the table had to be laid for dinner). There were no telephone lines (no 3G or cell phone reception), teleconference facilities or speedy printers in sight either.

The place was electric. On the day we arrived, a raging fire (a foreboding sign, in retrospect) was licking at the fence of the property. “All in control by the farmer next door” the managers promised. This fire raged for 2 days, and it got to the point where ash was falling out of the sky and into our hair, until a terrific bout of rain doused it. Unfortunately, this terrific bout of rain was accompanied by fearsome lightning, which struck the electricity lines and hence wiped out our only tenuous connection to the modern world. “Our farm is the highest in Mpumalanga” management cheerfully boasted. Mmm-hmmm. The next day, the generator was struck, so our laptops were left with 2-hour lifespans. (at this point I can inform you that I did not participate in any team-building events other than the first volleyball match, due to a deadline for a project on Monday. Getaway, or perhaps come along?). Somewhat mystifyingly, despite the torrential downpours, two of the surrounding hills were struck by lightning and their sparse vegetation managed to catch alight (quite a sight to behold, if you haven’t seen it happen before).

The managers (a husband-wife team) were of the temperament least suited to the hospitality industry. On arriving, they screeched at us for being an hour late, because this would set their “schedule” behind by an hour (heaven knows how difficult it is to delay a volleyball game by an hour) and smacked of our “poor team spirit”. By my and a colleague’s poor attendance of the teambuilding events, a culture of “non-commitment” was evident (hello? It’s Saturday evening and I’m working feverishly on a presentation. Not committed?)

The food was abysmally scarce. We’re talking nouvelle cuisine portions of standard, non-nouvelle cuisine foods. And they had an unnatural fondness for chicken and chips – rather disappointing considering we were in the land of trout fishing.

The barman was Congolese, with a barely working command of the English language, and even less command of bar tendering skills. “No, please don’t use the shot glass you just used for Sambuca to pour my Jamesons.” “I said a double. On the rocks. In a short glass.” “Can I please come around the bar and pour my own drink? No? Well then will you pour the drink I actually asked for, please?”

Creepiness is. The project I was so feverishly working on goes by the code name of an obscure spice. At lunch one day, some little kid comes up to me and demands to know my name. Upon enquiring what hers was, she tells me her name is the very same obscure spice’s name. “Haha. Very funny. Who told you to tell me that?” I demanded. Her pops overheard me and insisted it was her name. Frea-ky, twilight zone material.

I managed to escape the madness earlier than planned on Sunday morning, thanks to a colleague who wanted to leave before the butt-crack of dawn. As a consequence, I am still recovering from sleep-deprivation. Zzzz.

Little brainfarts

Lacking anything ponderous or wildly entertaining to relate to you today, I’ve opted out for pointless factoids.

1. Do you know that some people out there hate Google? Not the folks like me, who use it simply for free searches, free email, free images of the Earth from space, free blogsites, free videos of stupid people doing stupid things, free auction site (ok, not really – that product was a downright flop). No, the IT-clever ones (probably numerous of you bloggers out there, the ones with customized, self-developed blogs that look infinitely better than my crappy site) that use Google to do countless other complicated things, and perhaps even send them recommendations for improvement. So I decided to do some crude research on the topic, using… surprise, surprise, Google as a search tool. The search for ‘ “I love Google” ’ scored “about” 139,000 readings, while ‘ “I hate Google” ’ bagged “about” 47,000 results (which equates to 1 in 4 people who publicized their feelings for the company on the Internet, claiming to hate it. Aside: I wonder if the tendency to write about Google on the Internet is skewed towards people who love Google, or hate it?)

2. A close friend, who doesn’t want me to jinx his chances, is flying to Europe this week for an interview with this same love-hate company. So, dear Google, while trawling the Internet and making a record of this blog entry, please note: I, in all my IT-phobic ignorance, adore you. Please give my wonderful, intelligent friend a job, and while you’re at it, please also give him some shares. My dear friend, in turn, please donate 1 of these golden eggs to me (but hurry, before their stock crashes). And dear Google, if you want to give me a job, I accept unconditionally (do you have an office in South America? If not, I’ll start one for you!)

3. The French term haute couture, meaning ‘high fashion’, like certain other words of theirs (heaven knows I enjoy a good South African champagne as much as the next person), is banned from general use, and may only be used by those fashion boutiques who have: a) boutique presence in Paris; b) employ at least 15 designers/clothesmakers; c) put out runway collections during every spring/summer and autumn/winter show, in which at least 35 different outfits are modelled. Pah. I’d rather take my fashion prêt-a-porter, personally.

4. Advisor vs adviser? Being someone who prides herself on her flawless spelling (of the Queen’s/O.E.D variety, I might add), I was utterly devastated to learn that advisor is actually an American form of the word, while adviser is the British form. All these years of ignorance! Relating the search for the ‘true’ spelling back to the Google love-hate relationship, I must point out one ‘quirk’ (not so much a flaw as a circumstantial eventuality): advisor had a vastly higher number of Google hits than adviser did, which points only to the fact that Google Search’s material, being websites, is heavily American-biased, and hence the ‘incorrect’ spelling proves to be far more documented than the O.E.D-accepted one.

5. Noise protection ear plugs do not serve well as aquatic ear plugs. During my first visit to the gym for the year, I braved the swimming pool with a pair kindly (yet unknowingly) sponsored by Sasol (the Gilb gets them free and has to wear them while in the plant). We were shopping at TotalSports on Saturday, and when I picked up a pair of legitimate swimming ear plugs, he told me not to waste the money: “Don’t be stupid, Liefie, mine will work just as well!” As if! The damn things kept floating out from my ears (like little lumo-orange turds in my pool lane). My cursed left ear was resultantly blocked for half the bloody day – completely disorienting.

Whew! I’m done with your education, peeps. Over and out.

The vagina is cold and dry

I’m probably going to get this story a little wrong, so Timmy (the doctor who developed this diagnosis), feel free to correct me.

As one of the intern doctors at the Barberton hospital last year, Timmy came to notice that whenever a female patient was admitted and a nurse had seen her first, no matter what her complaint was (headache, stomach cramps, coughing up blood etc) they would always write on her hospital form thingy (I can’t think of the technical name right now) “the vagina is warm and moist”.

Timmy found this extremely bizarre, and complained to everyone (except the offending nurses, of course) that this was an idiotic thing to report. “Only tell me if the vagina is cold and dry, then she has a problem!!!”

Of course, the joke did not stop there. Timmy decided that if a patient’s vagina was cold and dry and he was trying to revive her by “going at it hammer and tongs” (you have to do it by going at it hammer and tongs, he tells me) but the vagina remained cold and dry, then she was either dead or a lesbian. In fact, they now callously use the phrase “the vagina is cold and dry” to say a patient (male/female) is dead. As in “how was your call last night, Timmy?” “Oh, I had two cold and dry vaginas”.

Oh, our kind-hearted and sensitive doctors, eh? God bless ‘em.

A muddy New Year

Well, well, well. Happy New Year’s to all of you – let’s hope a fantastic 2007 lies ahead!

What did Santa put in your stockings? My stash comprised of three tea drinking-related gifts (sigh! Twinings, when will you take notice of me? I’m your best SA advertisement, after all), a Wine magazine subscription (yay! Finally!), some food goodies and an interesting selection of books, among other bizarre presents.

The post-Christmas days were spent in various parts of a very wet Mpumalanga. After a very, very food-filled Christmas and Boxing Day, I headed up to Barberton to visit doctor friends wrapping up their internship year at that town’s hospital where… we gorged ourselves silly on more food/alcohol to while away the hours that couldn’t be spent doing sunny-weather activities like hikes or sight-seeing.

The Gilb joined me there so we could move on to Sabie to meet up with his crew of friends for a New Year’s weekend of camping. Of course, two alarm bells were ringing in my head: one, his rabble of friends, as adorable as they are, are equally disorganized planners; and two, the rain did not seem to be letting up. Anyhow, we arrived at the camping place (Merry Pebbles) which was teeming with mostly Afrikaans, mostly fat families in tent setups that would rival any Jones’s ones. See the pic below for the average Joe’s tent setup:





As you can see, we’re talking hectic camping kit to make camping familes feel like they’re practically in their homes (and I don’t doubt that some of them were quite literally in their, ahem, mobile homes). Bringing a satellite dish on your camping holiday? Why not just check into a hotel and save yourselves the effort of pitching tents?

We named ourselves the amateur campers, which no doubt is the sniggering thought that crossed our every neighbour’s mind. Refer to the pic below for our camp setup:




We happened to pick a spot destined to become the muddiest on the site, and randomly arranged our tents around a central area which was to be our little lounge (alas, totally exposed to the elements). When the rain picked up, we were inspired to use our firewood (what good is it in wet weather, anyway?) for the better purpose of laying a haphazard wooden floor so that we could walk on soggy planks rather than muddy ground. When the rain got even heavier, we managed to dig up a tarpaulin to dangle from a nearby tree trunk to protect our scarce cutlery/crockery stash (particularly our cups, which were necessary to drink our copious volumes of alcohol from). Despite the rain, I must confess we did get some sight-seeing activity in: we went to the Sudwala caves (highly recommended, if you haven’t been) and Mac-Mac Pools (where I embarrassingly tried to force myself to jump from the mini waterfall into the pools below, much to the amusement of a crowd of onlookers coaxing me to take the mere 2m plunge, with me panicking because I couldn’t see into the murky water and was terrified I’d land on rocks. My pride eventually overcame my terror, however, and I was so cheered on by the strangers that I even managed a second plunge). We also managed to get two rounds of floating down the ice-cold Sabie river in rubber tubes (drunk, interfering with fishermen’s attempts to extract fish from the water, and repeatedly uttering terrifying profanities accidentally in front of conservative old folk and innocent fragile little children) before the heavens ripped apart to release depressingly constant heavy showers on our parade. Our attempt on New Year’s Eve to make a potjie was thus thwarted, so we grudgingly accepted defeat (all our neighbours were staring at us from the comfort of their cozy, dry gazebo tents, the nosy bastards), got dressed for a partytjie in the town, had an early dinner at Spur (the only place that would take us without a prior booking at this advanced stage of the New Year’s Eve festivities), then made our way to the sports bar that was rumoured to be the best place to celebrate the occasion. We danced like crazy people to the terrible Sokkie treffers the dj insisted on playing, and the Gilb even relented and taught me how to sokkie (I even managed to follow his lead for a bit). So we celebrated the turning of the year in style with mulleted lonely old people, pregnant teenagers, sweaty overweight couples and aggro Buffalo-shoed pool players. A genuinely great evening that was marred only by the discovery, when we got back to the campsite, that the Gilb’s and my tent was not actually that waterproof, so we landed up sleeping (if you can actually call it that) in his car, then getting up surprisingly early to pack up hastily and get the fuck out of the miserably muddy site and back to the land of the comfortably dry.

And so here I am, back in the land of the comfortably dry, and already wishing I could trade the work day for the mud…