No future for our kids!!!

You know its happening. In 20 years time climate change is getting worse. Its snowing in South Africa, more crazy floods all over the world, sea levels rising.............its not gonna stop.

It seems crazy that we can have a positive impact on this but don't sell yourself short. If you can convince one other unstable friend to be green we might just be able to save a flower or two. I researched some easy practical ideas which I can implement. That's right I am taking off the blinkers and buying some karma with my blacklisted nature card. We all probably have so much carbon footprint that nature thinks we are all ISIS terrorizing the world. If you don't give a fuck then consider that at least you saving some money to pay for that porn site you regularly visit.

 1. Run your washing machine in cold water. In fact, almost 90% of the energy consumed by a washing machine goes to heating the water. Newer detergents, plus the washing machine’s agitating action, are enough to remove stains sans heat.

2.  Install a programmable thermostat. You can create various cycles for when you at work or sleeping to mitigate unnecessary usage.

3. Install ceiling fans. They use only 10% of aircon energy when you bypass the AC for some natural cooling.

4. Water plants in morning or evening. The heat during the day evaporates the water too much. Making your efforts futile and wasteful.

5. Don't use microwave popcorn. Microwave popcorn bags are lined with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—bad for the air and bad for you (it may contribute to cancer and infertility, studies show). Instead, pop the old-fashioned way in a pan on the stove with a thin layer of canola oil.

6. Make your own Green Cleaners.  Scrub the majority of your home with a water and white vinegar solution (it only costs about 20 cents!) 9 Parts of water to 1 part of vinegar. Forget the harmful chemical toxins in store bought cleaners.

7. Buy Coconut Oil. Trim your drugstore bill and beauty product waste by investing in a $10 bottle of coconut oil. It’s naturally antibacterial and antifungal, an excellent moisturizer, and penetrates hair better than other oils. Use it to soothe dry hands, moisturize your body, shave your legs, deep-condition your hair, and control flyaways

8. Use reusable bags.  Do not take plastic bags from the store!

9. Do not buy water bottles. Buy the huge reusable water bottles for a fountain machine. All the small plastic bottles you buy on a daily basis is a main source of pollution and waste.

10. Do not litter in the Ocean. The easiest way to get fired onboard is to throw anything overboard. They ocean is already being destroyed. 

If you any of you have some good ideas I can implement let me know. If you don't care maybe you should rethink that! I did purchase the below green equipment for my house instead of the petrol options as they use electricity. (I have to admit I took back the snow blower as it broke within a week and bought a petrol snow blower. In Canada I could be snowed in for weeks so just shut up okay)

My Bra Worsie!

Gone way too soon................

I was inspired to remember those we lost along the way. Two of my best friends Elton and Worsie who both died 12 years ago left an unimaginable void for us to struggle with and move forward. I am sourcing pictures of Elton and once I get them I will do a seperate blog for him.                                                                                                                                                                               

 Worsie meet world, world meet Worise. He was my best friend through high school and we lived together for about 10 years. I have too many stories of our skurrelbaans together but most of them I cannot print for legal and moral reasons.             

I will say that you could not get a guy more generous with this time and money than him. He would help anyone in need and gave everything he had even clothes off his back without hesitation. The rest of us could not do this. He also partied himself bankrupt with no  for his money - I would try to take most of his pay check and hide it away so that everything is not spent on Friday night. Seriously we needed taxi money to get home from where ever we woke up. Sometimes we took long walks home. It was not funny after a while.

 

How we funded our Adventures: We both got paid well and we would party our salary into the ground. Our next source of money was our numerous bar and restaurant tabs at a few clubs & bars in the area. As soon as his was maxed out we would max out mine. Then we would hit Cash Loans. I would spend my R5500 (lots of money 20 years ago) and leave my debit card with them and they gave me another R1000. Once all these are tapped out we would walk to the bar with zero in pocket and rely on our good looks and reputation for everyone else to buy us drinks. In a blink of an eye we would have 10 -15 drinks in front of us especially at happy hour. We could party the entire weekend with no money to our name. We were Winners cause we just could not loose!!!! 

The picture above is where we landed up at Ratanga Junction and had a mad time. We drank through all our money and at the end of the day all the staff knew us by name and wanted to serve us. We were on our way to buy a TV and decided to blow all the TV money on shit as well including this fokken expensive picture with a eagle or something. Shit faced and on our last drink we realized we were penniless and had no way to go home. So once again our good looks and luck shone down on us and we ran into my cousin Elana who was having a day at the park. She happily drove us home.

 

The picture above I have no feedback on other to say we were not athletically inclined except if to run from the police or my mother. To his defence he is surrounded by beer cans and sitting down so don't be fooled. I am sure the soccer ball is just a prop.   

 

One of my favourite pics is this one above. Taken at Club Royale back in the day. Royale became our base from which we would plan our missions. We would all meet up and let the night take us from there. No matter what time we walked into the Club it was always a place where everyone knows your name. Still is.

Worsie has joined "Club 27" with the other royalty like Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse etc...... We know he is in good company and ripping the place apart where ever he is. Love you much brother. You are missed more and more.

If you have a story you about the Wors Man please add into the comments below. Thanks so much.

Technology Sucks

VHS Master

My father once told me something so simple yet I live its reality everyday. He said: "Son, do you know what technology stands for?" I said no. He replied with: "It stands for speed"

Technology is constantly evolving to make our daily lives easier and our tasks faster and we see that with everything we do. He told me his company is working on a scanner which can add up your grocery bill by passing the entire cart full of groceries through it. This would be very much welcomed but I suppose if never got off the ground. He was a smart guy with tons of ideas and I regret never investing in any of it even though he gave brilliant sales pitches. I guess I just did not trust him enough. My bad!

Our kids will miss so many experiences we held deeply and that's the way it goes. I could mention a ton of stuff into my old age at which time my kids would stop listening. Its good to mention all of this but also more important to change with the times. Here is a simple example of an experience now extinct. With Netflix at your finger tips there is no need to get off you seat to rent that movie. You have thousands of titles to choose from and play them instantly. Now where is the fun in that? 

I could not find any pics of the actual store unfortunately.

 Its a pity that my kids will never know the true appreciation of movies. I am talking about mom promising to rent us movies for the weekend. This alone caused hysterical activity as we would be kickboxing and acting like ninjas in anticipation of the movies we favored. Mom then drove us to the video store preparing for a 2 hour practice in patience on her part and adventure on ours.Our usual spot was Dalvies Video in Athlone.

 The joy of running through the thousands of videos on the wall mixed with the devastation when after you found the one and then realize it was already taken out.....@#$%. Another hour to find another film. We grab three videos and hire an entire VHS machine for the night as ours chew up tapes like the Cookie Monster.Our we go with this massive machine is its huge protective cover and 3 VHS videos.

Yoor it was the best feeling ever coming home to set up all the wiring and spending an hour trying to get the video channel by twisting the knobs until your fingers bled. Its all worth it as tomorrow you gotta take all this back before they charge you a late fee!! Voetsak we paid big bucks for this so we wake up early the next morning to watch it again before we take it away. Gotta get your moneys worth.

 You could not lie and say the video store was closed because there was always a slot to return the movies through when they were closed. Oh the days back then. Golden!!

Let the Terrorist Through!!

Let the Terrorist Through

So received a letter saying to meet for the citizenship exam in the next week. Once successful I will get a date to swear an Oath to the Canadian Flag. Yes its better than getting a Green Card to the US its a dream for most people.

I guess I should be more happy especially since I got 100% for the exam but I cant betray my feelings. Lets get the obvious out of the way. A Canadian passport is like kryptonite to me, its like Van Der Merwe in a whore house with a credit card, its just doesn't get any better than that. For a guy from Athlone who has been traveling the world and knows what it means to use a Third World passport to get around, I should feel completely elated. Imagine you needed a passport with a current visa every time you entered Shoprite, this is what's its like. Having security personnel organize themselves every time you present your South African passport - in less than subtle ways I might add. Having my bags constantly ruffled through for bombs, guns, biltong and animal skins - which is understandable.

I look back to one specific incident when boarding a plane in Canada. It was the smallest airport I have ever been in. There was probably only 5 people in the entire airport including my wife and I. As I gently walked up to the security point I very slowly removed my passport from my shirt pocket. As I pulled it out ever so carefully as to not frighten the heavily armed security it was about half way out when they started to whistle and motion each other to surround me. The security in front of me started to give me her smart ass "I am just doing my job and you better listen or I send you to Guantanamo" speech. Ordered me to remove everything including my prosthetic leg and toupee.  I get taken one side and done over thoroughly. The Ghamajtie in me just snapped but in a well controlled way that my wife would just about approve.

I raised my voice and calmly spoke to the security and asked why on earth did she call a death com five on me when I did not even show her my passport. I told her how frustrating this all is. She understood my pain and nicely told me on my air ticket there is an allocation of SSS which mean triple security threat. Possibly because I paid cash or there is no return ticket. As my wife was stabbing me in my heart with her eyes for causing a scene in dear Canada I digressed and moved on.

Violated or Justified

I will get tons of slack for suggesting that their profiling is justified. For years working on ships we travelled in and out of the US and were always "randomly chosen" to sit in a bullet proof glass room with homeland security offices for anywhere between 3-8 hours. Looking around at all the brown people in the room you immediately see each others pain and solidarity with every eye contact and roll of the eyes. We are in the lions den and we have no choice. So shut up, comply, act subservient to the Homeland security Gods and beg like a leper for them to let you in. Ordinarily us guys would be bold and brave by saying you do not take discrimination, you will not be spoken down to, you will not be interrogated because you are in charge of your being and freedom. But in this case you are so desperate to get through that exit doors and to the promised land you would forgo your usual bravado and ego. Yes I said it. You would lick the doughnut crumbs off his face to let your through those golden gates.

Here's the despicable part: I do not blame them for profiling. If some crazy jihadist was trying to bring an explosive on the plane that I am on I would tell them to triple check all the brown people first!!