Social networks drive social reform and liberties

Governments around the world are crapping themselves as social network sites and especially Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are changing the world in ways that their founders and users never foresaw.

Shit, even I am starting to like Mark Zuckerberg.

The change taking place in Tunisia and Egypt would never have taken place without Facebook and twitter.
Social network sites are feeding and driving social reform and revolution in a way never imagined.

The world has become a smaller place.
A student in Cairo can see, taste and smell the freedom a student, say, in Cape Town might enjoy, and want it. And demand it as his right.
And once you have given somebody a taste of freedom, you cannot take it back. It is like Pandora's box. It is out, and it's not going back. Ever.
It is seared in your memory.
Spawning
Once this realization dawns, it spawns. Friends tell friends. Soon every student in Cairo tastes some, wants some.
Now, instead of isolated reformists, reform becomes mainstream. Shit. It's accessible to everybody.
Screw the leftists. Revolutionary and social reform is centrist. It becomes a norm.
Organizing
Need to get a lot of people organized really quickly. Shit.
Facebook and twitter are the new graffiti of the people. But instead of left wing slogans spray painted overnight, we now have digital, instant and spawning graffiti.
Suddenly a lot of people can get organized very quickly.
Remember that old TV shampoo advert "she told two friends, and they told two friends..." and soon the TV screen was full.
Same deal. But at the speed of light.
Monitoring and Moderation
Want to be tried for war crimes? Do something in range of a cell phone.
Suddenly dictators and their lackeys are being filmed and posted. Not so easy to squash a demonstration quietly anymore. You are filmed a hundred times on a hundred phones,and before the tear gas has settled you are on YouTube. For all the world to see. And judge.
Exciting stuff.

But somewhere, someone is sitting and asking "how can we make revenue out of this"
And more scary, someone else is asking themselves "how can we plant and control this effect for our own good"

Both of you piss off.

It doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to us.

Making an important deposit

The smug doctor had said to wait three months and then come through for a deposit BEFORE thinking we were home and dry.
We did the first part, (mostly), and then started to get a little reckless and careless after the three month mark without going through for an actual check.
I mean he said to wait three months, and three months had passed.

And then my wife got very bad morning sickness symptoms.
Very bad.
We had a complete sense of humour failure.
Fingers were pointed. Blame was allocated.
We were gobsmacked and rushed off to get pregnancy tests.
It all felt like Déjà vu. Bad Déjà vu.
Creative excuses were prepared for family and friends.

An agonising 24 hours later we breathed a massive sign of relief. It had just been very bad flu-like symptoms.
But that was that. Test or celibacy.
(I think she was in favour of the celibacy thing,although I might just have been being sensitive)

My wife's sensitive parting words as I headed through to the hospital for the test were along the lines of, "Don't come home to produce a sample and then drive all the way back through again, its a waste of petrol, just do it there. For Pete's sake, don't be a wuss about it, it's no big deal."

Okay. My love.

When a reached the counter I was supposed to sign in at, I realised that a number of other people were there with all sorts of other tests that they needed to run.
I was expected to share a counter with other people.
Shitsake. It was like buying condoms when you were young and innocent. You needed an empty isle.
It felt like there were at least 376 other people waiting at the counter filling in forms in complete silence, a lot of them young school girls and old grannies and a couple of nuns if I remember correctly. Then a sever looking nurse with a booming voice called out over all their heads asking me what I wanted.
Shitsake.
I am sure I remember them all stopping what they were doing and silently turning to face me.
As softly as I could I stammered out "I am here to give a sperm sample"
"What!" she boomed.(cow)
"I need to give a sperm sample to check that my vasectomy has worked"
(bitch)

She gave me a small plastic vial with a screw top and very loud instructions, over the heads of the waiting masses.
I left quickly.

Okay, now the easy part. We've done this a million times eh, no biggie.
Mmmm, where to go?

I ended up in a toilet cubicle in the downstairs loo.
I tried. I really, really tried.
But it smelled like a hospital. Shitsake, it was a hospital.
The cubicle had those awful doors that don't come all the way to the floor.
And worst of all was the foot traffic.
Who knew a hospital loo had that many people wandering in and out.
Every time I got anything approximating a rhythm going, crash, in walked the next prick.
I tried till it got uncomfortably sore.
It just wasn't going to happen.

I stared at my new friend, the empty plastic cup.
Hello little empty matey.
We needed more us time.
So I zipped up and went searching for somewhere more romantic and secluded.
I found an upstairs loo on the corner of the third floor. This had to be quieter.
In I went and we started on the second act.

At one stage I thought I might be getting somewhere when the door opened and somebody came in and took a noisy leak in the cubicle next to mine and stopped the entire performance.
It was worse than a cell phone ringing loudly in a quiet cinema.
I tried one last time (bloody hell, my arm was aching by then)
I was making some progress when I had a kak thought. A very kak thought.
Security camera's. What if they had security camera's and there were at that moment,security guards, men and women, all crowded around a monitor laughing their arses off.
I looked around wildly.
There were no visible camera's, but I had seen The Bourne Identity, just because I couldn't see them, didn't mean that they weren't there.
It was too much.
It was time to bring down the curtain.

Later that day I got home with and empty cup and a serious timing issue for the next day.
You try and produce a sample, getting three kids ready for school, all in a shitty mood, without being bust.
With a wife who is harried and rushed and looks at you like a pervert.
"Do you really have to do that now?"
And then, as per instructions, keep it warmly wrapped in your pocket during the school run.
It was an experience I wouldn't like to go through again.

And I can only wish it on my closest friends.

Up the elephant's bum

Do elephants vomit through their mouths, or through their trunks…?



As it would at a 40th birthday, once the tequila’s had come out, the conversation moved to Tunisia.
“What is in Tunisia?” asked the doctor.
“Carthage!” said Nikki, “I’ve been there, it’s where Hannibal launched his attack over the Alps.”
“Are you sure” asked the stud.
“Oh yes”, said Nikki, “he came up through Spain”
(Nikki is a man by the way, odd name for a man, but then he’s a pom, so there you go.)

“Bullshit!” We all replied, how did he get his army across the sea.
“Boats you idiots”
“What about the elephants?”
“Bigger boats”

“So, what if they got seasick?”

Mmmmmmm
Five minutes quite thought, quiet sipping of drinks.

“Hey, how do elephants vomit?” we obviously wondered next, “through their mouths or through their trunks?”

Mmm. Not sure. Good question.
Ten minute debate. No consensus reached.

Let’s have another tequila, eh.

“Hey”, said the handsome charming one, “Talking of elephants, I once saw a YouTube clip of a man with his head up an elephants arse.”

“Bullshit agent.”
“No really.”
“No, Bullshit.”
“No really okes, I did, I bet you I did”

I bet you a good book that I would enjoy reading.

So here you are you middle aged bastards.

Pay up, buggers.

What are those dad? - Thats easy buddy, those are daddy's nuts

“What those are for dad?”

Dad's who bath with their kids are asking for trouble.
My own advice to any dad with young kids is as follows:
Never bath together. Ever. No matter how young they are.
Instil a Victorian sense of decorum to anything bathroom related.
Being naked in a bath with three year olds leads to all sorts of awkward questions:
What are those dad?
Easy one buddy, they are Dad’s (reasonably good looking) nuts.
This quickly goes down hill as the dreaded pre-curser gets asked: “What are they for?”
Soon you are at a dead end -“How do the dads get the seeds into the moms?”

This is when you submerge to rinse off the shampoo.

Seven years olds also can get their facts awkwardly mixed up, a few years ago, our now ten year old proudly understood that at birth the woman’s body had all the eggs she would use in her lifetime stored up and ready for release.
This was three decades sooner than her father understood this.
She also, via her mother and school, had a broad understanding that there was an act called sex.
However, she was under the impression that the mother got “topped up” once by the father, and in the same way eggs were regularly released, so too were the all important seeds.
One top up and you were good to go.

(A point that mothers the world over probably wish was true, no doubt.)

She was aghast to realise one day, after learning this was not the case and counting her siblings, that her parents had had sex at least three times.
With a disgusted face, she cringed out, “Gross dad, do you mean you and mom have had sex more than once? That’s disgusting!”
She was pretty upset about this. Her mother is probably starting to see it that way too.
(What the hell did she think they had done to earn an hour of TV with treats on Sunday mornings?)

Anyway, no more of this I should think.
Living in a rural area for a year has cleared all this up.

Our kids have now seen penises in all shapes and sizes.
Penises no longer raise the slightest interest.
Bulls, donkeys, mules and horses seem to live in a constant state of readiness.

My kids have seen goats, dogs, and even sheep having sex.
Cats on heat prowl around all night.
Chickens might be quick and forgo foreplay, but even they appear on the penis radar.

“Dad, the rooster is mating with Pamela Anderson (this is our chicken Pamela Anderson, and not THE Pamela Anderson), and her bum is all open and everything”
Gorgeous.
Followed by my then five year old daughter asking, “Shame, isn’t that sore?”
I am not kidding you when I tell you that when we were playing “the cloud game” a while ago, when one of my wife’s offspring said, “Look at that cloud, it looks like two goats mating”

More positive teaching comes in the form of the chickens and their eggs.
One of our chickens had 11 chicks hatch while the other hen, Mr Snuffles (hey, the kids chose the names), had been sitting on another 12 eggs for the past two weeks, and these also started hatching. This was very exciting and the kids made a lot of trips to the coop to check on progress, and at one stage we brought an egg inside for them to watch it hatch on the bed.

All very educational.
All good.

Also, with so many cute calves, sheep, goats and foals around, they are getting a very rounded and positive education.

One low point of note.
We had a very old decrepit dog called Sedgwick. Who smelled of faeces.
That is not the low point in itself.

The fact that we twice caught him trying to mate with our very startled six month old kitten, Cheetah was far more concerning.
It really happened.
I think this could safely be described as the low point in any dog’s life.
“Dad! Dad! Sedgwick is mating with cheetah”

And by golly gosh, so he was.
We even had time to get a photo to prove it.
This is sex education you can’t get in any school.
And I think I can safely assume that I will never have to broach the Birds & the Bees again.

Afrikaaners do have a sense of humour - Die Antwoord - Zef Side.

Never mind the NATS, today, Afrikaans people do have a (wicked) sense of humour.
These okes are classic South African. Cape Town. Bellville.
Six months ago they would have freaked all you Kirstenbosch concert go-ers out.
But now you too can love their irony, their sound, and most of all that 3.2 million Americans don't find them ironic.
Its like doubly rich and funny and cool.
Play loudly in your open plan office.

Local is often Lekker

So this year we should listen to more Sefrikan music.
It's offen fokken lekker, and it offen comes from fokken Cape Town.

Time to Brush up on Local Music - Jack Parow - Cooler as Ekke

My armpit looked like the vagina of a very old porn star with a bad shaving rash

It started out as a swollen gland under my armpit.
"Nice one" I thought, just what I feel like.
Then it didn't go away. For five days.
It just got bigger and redder and a shit load more painful.

Oh skaam! A boil.
Who gets boils at 42? I had like one, ever, when I was 13.
What is this. Latent puberty.
You have to be kidding me.

Then on day six, the discomfort turned to pain.
Like can't sleep at night pain.
Like 3 myprodol pain.
And the boil got bigger and redder and madder.
I was crying. I was wrecked.
No head.
My kids were looking at me writhing on the floor with no respect at all.
"Boils" - "we have them for breakfast"
Their eyes all screamed soft-cock at me.

Then I pulled the ultimate of all kak moves.
Shaving your pit. Gals do it. Nobs do it. Fetish freaks do it. Now I had done it too.
It didn't look very sexy.
In the mirror, my shaved armpit looked like the vagina of a very old, very flabby, very used porn star. With a bad shaving rash. And in the middle, a big, angry, swollen tit sticking out.

In my moment of greateast pain I cut 40cm off the end of the garden hose, stuck one end on my new third nipple, and sucked on the other end. Hard.
Honest no shit.
You try doing that with only one hand, in pain, with your other arm above your head, seeing everything in reverse in a mirror.
All I got were three perfectly round. Very painful and deep blue love bites. And lots of bruising.

At last Mount Fuji got a snow cap.
Squeezing started in earnest three times per day.
Buckets came out. First puke yellow, and then dirty grey and finally brown. Faeces brown. Yuk.
And each drop was sore.
But the hole is tiny. Too tiny. I need more action.

Day eight and I rush through to the Doc at 19h45 pleading for it to be cut open.
Grit your teeth says the little shit and then without any further ado he stabs the sharp end of a closed pair of surgical scissors into the hole, and then opens them and rips them out. Geeze. My toes curled and I screamed a little 5 year old school child like scream.
Double strength ant-biotics and be a man.

Two days later I am back at the doctor.
The pain shooting through my veins is blood poisoning.
I have a temperature, aching joints, sore muscles and a fever.

I look at my kids with new respect.
My wife has had to squeeze my suppurating porn star vagina nipple armpit each night.
In one foul stroke I have managed put her off hetero, gay and porn star sex.

Its not a lot to be proud of, but it is something.

New Years Resolution # 7 - I will learn to surf by the end of December 2011

Toilet Etiquette

Some questions only have one right answer.
So when you reappear from the loo after a quick pre-movie leak and you are about to dip your hand into a box of shared popcorn, and you are asked - “Did you wash your hands?
The only correct answer to give is: “Come on! Of course!”

But let me tell you.
Off the record.

There is no bloody chance I washed my hands in there.
Yes it is a beautiful cinema, and yes, the bathrooms are immaculate, but none the less, it is a PUBLIC toilet.
That means a lot of people use it.
People I don’t know. People I don’t want to know.
Some of them odd looking.
And that means Warlock is most certainly the cleanest thing in there.

I have a common sense golden rule of public toilet use.
Only touch yourself.
Realise this - your dick/penis/cock (Warlock) is the most germ free area in there.

Only open the door with your elbow or your foot. Don’t touch the door handle or the germ laden metal door panel around it.
You don’t take the door off its hinges, just a gentle nudge with your foot will do.

Once inside use the urinals whenever you can, just walk in, unzip and get things done.
Be careful about peeing on the blue tablets or the ice cubes and trying to get them to melt in one spot, you might get some splash back, and nothing will take your mind off the opening credits more than the thought that somebody else’s putrid piss is slowly burning a hole on your skin.
If they are not automatic, then when you flush use your elbow, or don’t flush at all.
Make sure you don’t touch anything with bare skin.

Now, if you have to use a stall take extra precautions.
Again, nudge the door open with your foot (you wear slip slops at your peril, hippy creep)
I can’t say this enough.
Do not touch anything in there.
Lift the lid and the seat with the toe of your shoe until they are resting in the upright position.
Have your leak, write your name, and get it over with.
Now, afterwards, if it is a press button flush or a lever, use your foot, or if in a long sleeve shirt, your elbow again, is also allowed.

Here’s where most of us eff up. Don’t wash your hands on the way out. A million urine and faeces covered hands have been on that tap before you. It is wet, and moist and warm. You are guaranteed to pass a shitsakes infection to Warlock from which he might not recover.

Leaving is more difficult than arriving. The door opens against you.
But don’t slack off now.
And for shitsake don’t use the door handle. Think of all those shitty, wet infected hands on the door handle before you. It’s frigging gross. Don’t do it.
Wait for someone to come in, or wait for someone to leave, and then catch the bottom of the door with your foot.
If you get stuck and you don’t want to miss the previews waiting for someone to come in, then go for the top of the door. Carefully.
I find you can generally get enough traction with your fingertips to swing it open.

Exit calmly. As you approach your partner wipe your hands on the back and side of your pants as though the drier didn’t work properly. If required, hold them up and blow on them and add a “tsk, tsk – bloody hand driers never work properly”

Enjoy the popcorn secure in the knowledge that you have done your bit to combat the spread of germs and vile venereal disease, and give thanks that you aren’t a woman who had to sit, or even worse, that you didn’t need to do a number two.