Gambling: The shotgun post

Sitting in bed next to Jane trying to do some TEFL, when all of a sudden my brain goes…. Uhhhhh glu glu glu. My concentration level had hit its max. I turn to Jane and say “First topic that comes to mind”, “Gambling” She says*. So, here we go, a shotgun post about gambling. I suppose letting the creative juices flow would help with opening some space in the concentration box so I can finish the TEFL stuff without having to pay for an extension…

Broke…

You know what else nobody got cash for? Gambling… And if you do have cash for gambling, surely you shouldn’t be gambling?! I know that makes no sense but if you sit and think about it, its a total waste. If you are a single person and gambling then surely there is a flaw in your personal budget. Seriously, if you can waste anything on gambling then there is something wrong. You might argue that gambling can be recreational. I call a big fat BULLSHIT to that. Movies, dining out, going to the magic company, even going clubbing is recreational. Gambling is the non lazy way of throwing money away. Hey, at least you can pat yourself on the back for doing more than lighting a fire and chucking piles of cash onto it. Rather you are getting dressed up (if you still have a shred of dignity) getting into a car, driving to a casino and sitting at a machine feeding the monster. If you sense judgement, then well done, I mean judgement.

They won R100… after they spent R500. Such happiness!

If you are married and have children AND you gamble then you are a fecking douchebag! If you gamble but your family is struggling financially then you should be beaten, with a fish! I have gone to Monte Casino here in Johannesburg quite a few times. Not to gamble, but to watch a movie or go eat something, or watch Nutcracker on Ice. I have gambled before and in all fairness I love playing poker, but I don’t make bets with money! And the times I have gambled I have purely done it so as not to be THAT person. You know the ones I am talking about, those people who refuse to do something and then make the rest of the night feel awkward. (It was honestly just a suggestion, the handcuffs were optional!! GOSH!) Anyway, so at Monte Casino late at night if you walked around in the car park, you are sure to see some kids SLEEPING in the car… yes that’s right. Sleeping, cos their useless parents are “working” wasting their money.

“Mommy has to sell one of your kidney’s to pay the big nasty bookie”

I don’t think the games on the internet (that you don’t use money for) are any better. It is simulating gambling. What do pilots do to practice flying without putting lives in danger and not actually having to put on pants? They get into a flight simulator, so that they still know how to and what not to. I feel those games on the internet are simply simulating gambling and you are lying to yourself if you think that you have beaten the monster.

But, who am I to throw around judgement. You could argue that shopping or clubbing or drinking is a worse way of spending money. You could see it as a waste, and I get that. Having clothes, having a good time and meeting new people is such a big waste, no one should do it. Why am I so harsh? Cos I am a bitch, but also, I have first hand experience of what gambling can do to a person’s childhood. You might think that this would make me more sympathetic towards gamblers, but in all seriousness it has had the opposite effect.

*Jane did not know that this was for a blog post, she was thinking about the articles she has to write on gambling.

Radio Rage

Most of the time I hate listening to the radio while I drive. Maybe the fact that I have no car is a blessing in disguise… no, no its not. Cos in my own car I would not be listening to the radio. Why, you ask? Well for the same reason I do not like watching TV… meaningless chatter and adverts. YES! I HATE them. Oh and the DJ’s think they are sooooo funny, listen buster, if you were as hilarious as you thought you would not be on radio, you would be out there in theaters and places where live acts perform, like our own Trevor Noah. Damn that guy is funny!! Sigh. Join in the fun with this little snippet.

You sang that didn’t you?

Anyway, back to my ranting. So these DJ’s think they are so funny and that they have all this power to sommer just say and do exactly what they want. No, shut up, you aren’t funny and the reason you are a DJ is cos… you is ugly! *Deep breath*. I am fine. My issue is mainly with the adverts, in all fairness, sometimes the DJ’s are funny. But surely we all want to be listening to some radio, some beats, some soothing sounds!

 

I get extremely uptight when the radio is on and some awesome song is playing and the bastards stop the song midway, 2 minutes into the song, to tell me about TRAFFIC! Bitch, I am in the traffic, I know where it is at. Don’t tell me things I already know, play me a damn tune so that I can stop thinking about the idiot who cut in front of me. (This is of course what I would be like if I, in fact, DID sit in traffic). What I do find is that if I have my own music in the car I keep skipping the songs, even though it is all the songs I currently dub as my favorites. So I end up listening to the beginning of about 20 songs and maybe 2 minutes of that new song by Avicii. So maybe there is just no pleasing me.

you want a smoke and a pancake?

I would love a radio station that really does just play songs!! Please someone make this happen!!!

Up the game…

So the mistake seems to be asking your bootcamp trainer to train you a little harder… Phoenix and I have reached a place with bootcamp where we still look fine and can walk when we leaveafter an hour of exercise. Our bodies have reached that limbo place and thats not where you wanna be when trying to obtain the death machine body.

“Maybe we must ask her to train us harder…” seemed like a good idea at the time. Then she gave us each two 8kg kettlebells and we had to do most of our exercises with them bells. Lunges, with bells, squats with bells… people lemme just do the math for ya real quick 8+8=16. SIXTEEN kilograms added to each squat and then having to lift  that weight above your head without hitting yourself on the way up or actualy dropping it on your own head. Believe me, holding onto that 8kg kettle bell and still lifting it overhead after about 10times becomes a real act of faith.

Don’t even get me started on the exercise hangover, its hectic. You know its gonna be a bad hangover when you have to crawl out of bed cos your legs are wobbly. Unlike drinking hangovers, these hangovers don’t just go away when you drink a strong cuppa joe or have an oily fry up. This particular babbalas lasts for days and the second day is worse than the first, it’s like the muscles suddenly wake up on day two and go… “I’m sure we missed something yesterday… oooooh yes, BAM!!! Thats for you darlin’.”  At the time I immediately regretted the dicission, but now I’m proud. It really is an awesome pain.

Dressing up

Not in the sense of dress up parties where you have to look for toilet rolls to make that perfect sword to go with your Spartacus look. No no, the dress up I speak of is where you put effort and thought into the outfit you will be prancing around in for the day. Today, I opted for the good ‘ol pencil skirt/suit look complete with stockings and heels (them heels making me even more tall). It’s amazing what feeling professional does to the mind. I got to work and was straight in, making calls and setting up stuff. Maybe, and I might be wrong here, just maybe the whole thing is a result of having a car for the first time in a while. Granted it’s not mine but still, it restores a sense of self and independence that you never even knew was gone until it stares you in the face.

Get in mah belly!!!

Also, dressing up for a night out, whether it is to go clubbing or ten pin bowling, or in my case, going to a Mrs South Africa CANSA Gala Dinner with the Phoenix, gives you a sense of girlyness and importance! Granted we were at a Miss Hooters Swimsuit pageant before the Gala Dinner. I could almost feel my IQ drop with each poppie strutting her stuff down the ramp and not being able to speak English. (I am proudly Afrikaans, but dayam, I can at least speak English fluently). Ok, to be fair there was only one poppie that couldn’t speak English, but still, if you aim to be miss Hooters and represent South Africa in Las Vegas, you gots to sprekkin ze English. There aint go’ be no judge asking you questions in Afrikaans there. We got all dollied up in the bathrooms just before the Gala dinner started.

 

Swank and Phoenix with 2014 Mrs South Africa 1st Princess.

Lemme tell you, there is no feeling such as the feeling you get when you are surrounded by mostly beautiful women who have obviously impressed people enough for them to say, “you know what, you should try out for that Mrs South Africa thing”. These women were/are stunning. It was quite the event. My favourite part has to be the Muses, they are amazing. All strings South African girl band. They cover pop songs and they ooooooze confidence and attitude! Love it! Check this video out!

Anyway, so my whole thing is just, wanna feel good about yourself? Just spend some time dressing up. Guys you can also do it. Shorts and tshirt doesn’t ALWAYS work ;).

Engrish is hard, no wait, difficult.

Yes, the spelling mistake is on purpose and yes, it is purposefully done to sound like an Asian person is saying it.

All hail…

Ok, so English is quite hard. As you can see by my mass of other entries, I am on a self proclaimed very advanced level, those that know me, and have spoken English to me might agree with me. (I say might because I might also be making a lot of mistakes here and will be judged accordingly). Apart from the 3 English speaking house mates I have (have had). One of them is a teacher, the other has a degree in English Literature and the other is studying to be top of the food chain AKA a civil engineer… ALL of them grew up in English homes and NONE of them really speak anything other than English with the slight dab of sarcasm and crap. So you can well imagine what my life, living with these Super English people is like. Getting corrected for using are instead of is, or, you know, them not hearing right and choosing to correct anyway. Which really doesn’t bother me, because they are helping me.

I’m Afrikaans and I do this…

You know what else would help? If somehow they (and all other English people in my life) could give me a brief lesson in present perfect continuous tense (amongst other things), and help me to understand why the hell it is so complicated. Why, you ask? Well, recently I started doing an online TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course to enable me to go to a different country (hopefully South Korea) to teach English there. Lemme tell you, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that knocks your English speaking, writing and yodeling confidence like seeing how difficult it really is to learn from scratch.

WHAT?!

Especially for people who don’t have it taught as a fourth language, let alone a second.  I count myself lucky that I grew up with English and that I had people in my life who forced me to speak English to them. Don’t get me wrong, Afrikaans is still, and will always be, the heavenly language, the language you speak when you want people to know you are passionate about EVERYTHING from rugby to the chocolaty taste that the cake you had has.

Dis die taal wat jy praat wat mense laat weet dat jy het gees, talent, kultuur en n sekere vlak van brannewyn in jou bloed. Dis die taal wat jy praat wanneer jy wil skinder oor daai lelike meisie in die club wie se rompie eintlik net n groot belt is, net om later uit te vind sy is oook Afrikaans. Dis die taal wat jy gebruik wanneer jy kwaad of gelukkig is, wanneer jy jou toon stamp (oh, nee wag, dit is vloek).

But, I have to agree with… mostly everyone… English is the most widely understood and spoken language worldwide. So, to all my school English teachers, even the ones in the trees… even if you weren’t my teacher, and aren’t in a tree… I salute you. I will forever have a very high level of renewed respect for you, because this shit is difficult. (Please try not to do your teacher thing on this post)

It’s true…

The Legend of Hercules – Sorta movie review

Now before I say anything I just wanna say that I am somewhat of a big Greek Mythology fan, eversince I was younger and playing Zeus on the computer. I have several books about Greek Myths and regularly just read up about it.

This is also the cover of the game Zeus… such memories

Now as you probably know there have been a few movies based on Greek mythology: Troy, Perseus and its sequel Clash of the Titans to name a few. 2014 has seen one new myth movie called The Legend of Hercules and I was super excited to watch it, needless to say, I regret it, like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth type of regret. For one, the special effects were not special at all, but and the biggest problem I have is that they hardly tried to keep it in line with the actual myth of Hercules. Yes, in the movie Zeus is his father and Alcmene his mother but that is about as accurate as it got (slight exaggeration here).

Played by Kellan Lutz (who is also a vampire in Twilight… need I say more?)

This might be seen as a spoiler alert but in the myth Alcmene doesn’t writhe in a bed in pleasure and is suddenly pregnant with the Zeus spawn. No, Zeus appears to her in the form of her husband and lays with her, and then her husband comes back from wherever he was (one can only assume riding a Pegasus whiles drinking wine) and also lays with her, so she becomes pregnant with TWINS! Yes, Hercules and the brother who was his older brother (and tries to kill him) in the movie are actually twins.

The Nemean lion he kills with his bare hands (such sad effects there, I mean, even Aslan, the lion from Narnia was better and that movie is what, 10 years old?), was actually one of the 12 labours given to him by Hera, Zeus’ wife. He didn’t have to kill the lion to protect himself or his brother; he had to kill the lion as part of his labours. Here is what wiki says about the Nemean Lion

The Nemean Lion was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived at Nemea. It was eventually killed by Heracles. It could not be killed with mortals’ weapons because its golden fur was impervious to attack. Its claws were sharper than mortals’ swords and could cut through any armor.

Aslan looks way scarier than the Nemean Lion in the movie

OH, and that whole shpiel with Alcmene going to Hera’s temple and what happened there is not according to myth. There are some other minor grievances but, meh.

I know, I know, just enjoy the movie. Well I can’t help I know greek mythology and appreciate good special effects, after all, we are in 2014, people.  Maybe that’s just where my g(r)eek side comes out a bit. I am more excited about the other Hercules movie, that has none other than Dwayne *the Rock* Johnson as Hercules. That ought to be good.