direct from my corner store - hot drinking chocolate from milan. got to love carlton :-)
Tuesday 30 June 2009
moretto thick Italian hot chocolate - for greggles
direct from my corner store - hot drinking chocolate from milan. got to love carlton :-)
City Power se moer; and Michael Jackson
No power at home since about 4pm yesterday. No hot water this morning. Not even at the gym. Was 1 degree at 6am.
Not. Happy.
In other news...
I'm only being nasty because there is no sensation in my fingers.
Not. Happy.
In other news...
I'm only being nasty because there is no sensation in my fingers.
Monday 29 June 2009
Friday 26 June 2009
The rate of change
This is why I'm glad that I work for an IT compnay and that I specialise in Change Management. My theory - I should always have a job, untill people start empoweringthemselves to deal with change, which I suppose is inevitable - either way the stats are interesting and it kinda feels like the planet will explode at some point...
Hells yeah, it's sad...
... but why does everyone pretend to have been his best friend? As bad as the barrage of child molester jokes and unfunny email attachments that are being photoshopped as i write this, are the outpourings of faux emotion and soulless, inane platitudes that people attach to news articles or set as their Facebook status. Someone i know (but haven't seen in years and don't think very highly of) wrote this little gem as his Facebook status : "
Farewell MJ, a true genius of our ERA, your legacy will live on in our lives, so many memories.
Are you fucking serious? Did you know him? Do you think of him every day, light a candle for him between soap operas? Jeeeeezus! What the fuck is an ERA anyway? Capitalising doesn't make your mindspray any more meaningful. And if you're really mourning, why not do it privately?It's revolting, people these days have an opinion on fucking everything, even on the death of people they've never met, who's country they have never visited, or who they have never even seen in the flesh, even through binoculars. I blame the Internet. And Facebook. Just because you've been given a platform, doesn't mean you have anything of significance to say. I'm aware that the same could be said about this blog, but everything i say is of significance by virtue of the fact that it came from my lips, so your argument isn't valid.
Anyway, ja, its sad a dude died, a really talented dude at that, and its sad he led such an unhappy and tortured life, but I'm guessing everyone who pretends to be MJ's best chommie now that he's dead made at least 10 jokes about his child molestation case while he was alive, so pipe the fuck down.
Thursday 25 June 2009
Banks' profits: Red and black ink | The Economist
Banks' profits: Red and black ink | The Economist
Shared via AddThis
Ah nuts I thought it would reproduce the whole story and graphic...
Shared via AddThis
Ah nuts I thought it would reproduce the whole story and graphic...
Wednesday 24 June 2009
If you've ever owned turntables...
... then this will make perfect sense. The Urei 1620 is the mixer by the way. Its a legendary old school disco/early house mixer with rotary knobs rather than crossfaders.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
SA Consumers
Some interesting stats on SA Consumers.....- Half of men, and three quarters of South African women listen to gospel music. Next most popular among men are House Music and Kwaito. Women prefer love songs and ballads.
- 5% of mothers aged 20-34 have attended a movie in the past 4 weeks. For women without children of the same age group, the proportion is 12%.
- 22% of adults (16+) say they do crossword puzzles at least once a month.
- 4.3 million adults attend a nightclub/disco/rave at least once a month. 91% of them agree or strongly agree with the statement 'People should be careful about what they drink'.
- 69% of urban South African adults think TV is a generally believable source of information while only 45% feel the same way about newspapers.
- There are 1.5m adults who participate in running or jogging in South Africa. 15% are heavy drinkers of beer, and 9% are heavy drinkers of energy drinks.
- 71% of South African adults watched SABC1 in the past seven days. 16% watched no TV at all. In 2000, the number of people who said they'd watched Etv in the past month was
- 9.7m. In 2008 it had grown to 20m. On any given week, roughly 2m of these viewers watch WWE Smackdown.
- 76% of urban adults who do not receive an income say they personally own, rent or have use of a cellphone.
- 5.9 million adults send SMS's on a daily basis. 9.5 million send a 'please call me' message, and 0.6 million send MMS's.
- 80% of households that live in shacks have at least one cellphone, up from 42% in 2005
Adapted from source: http://www.eighty20.co.za/, June 2009
Chinese ladies getting game
Why size is everything in China
By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai with additional reporting by Yan Jin
Published: June 22 2009 17:02 | Last updated: June 22 2009 17:02
Big eyes, big noses, big breasts and now humungous Hummers – China seems to be indulging an obsession with size, just when the rest of the world is learning the virtues of moderation.
In Shanghai, for example, business is booming on eyelifts, noselifts, chestlifts and other surgery aimed at enlarging classically Asian narrow eyes, flat noses and unobtrusive mammary glands. At the Shanghai Time Plastic Surgery Hospital, Dr Liao Yuhua says business is up 40 per cent since the end of last year – not despite the global economic crisis, but because of it.
Half her business is job-related: “Many of our customers are white-collar workers, many have lost their jobs, so they have time to execute their plastic surgery dreams,” says the retired paediatrician, whose genially wrinkled face and ankle socks that bag around her feet hardly seem like anyone’s clichéd view of a plastic surgeon. “They want to be more competitive when they go for the next interview,” she says, adding that famously pushy Chinese parents are very “supportive” of this trend.
Several brought in their children to make appointments straight after China’s strongly competitive national university entrance examinations earlier this month. “Parents hope that their kids can be more competitive in job hunting,” she says, admitting that as an employer, she would “recruit a prettier nurse with the same qualities as one who wasn’t so pretty”.
Graduates leaving college this year are facing one of the toughest job markets in years, and women – who make up three-quarters of Dr Liao’s patients – find it particularly hard to land a job. According to a study recently by the Centre for Women’s Law and Legal Services of Peking University, published in the Chinese press, one in four women surveyed said they had failed to get a job because of gender, a fifth said salaries were cut if they became pregnant and 11 per cent lost jobs when they had a family.
Dr Liao says plastic surgeries have grown by 15 per cent a year since the fad really took off in China about five years ago. But China is hardly alone in using disposable income on facelifts – and even justifying the cost as a career development expense. In the US last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, cosmetic procedures rose among all groups except Caucasians; procedures among Hispanics were up 18 per cent. But the age profile of consumers of plastic procedures – and the parts of their bodies they want fixed – differs greatly from the US to Asia.
At Dr Liao’s hospital, the top two procedures are so-called double-eyelid surgery – which inserts an extra crease in the eyelid to make the eyes appear larger – and inserting a bridge in the nose, using a part of the rib. “Oriental people prefer bigger eyes and bigger noses – everything they don’t have,” she says, chuckling at the irony that, in Chinese slang, westerners are called “big noses” (and it is not necessarily a compliment). Her clients are mostly aged 25 to 35 – whereas half of all plastic surgeries in the US are for patients aged 40 to 55.
Bigger eyes are relatively cheap: from RMB2,400 ($350, €252, £213). Bigger breasts cost RMB60,000 (and clients must sacrifice a piece of thigh).
Zhou Jin Feng is one of the clinic’s satisfied past clients (blackhead removal). This time the 31- year-old nurse – clean-cut yet hardly a wanna-be movie star – wants a double eyelid and more pointed chin. “Young people these days want to be pretty, it’s important for their self-esteem, mainly for job hunting,” she says. Dr Liao says many of her patients are doctors, nurses or teachers: “Beauty is very important for communication in such professions,” she says.
Dr Liao can remember when plastic surgery would have been seen as bourgeois decadence of the first order. Now she thinks it is just a natural consequence of the wealth effect. “When the basic needs are met – a car, a house, food – what shall we do with our extra money? Spend it on beautification.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai with additional reporting by Yan Jin
Published: June 22 2009 17:02 | Last updated: June 22 2009 17:02
Big eyes, big noses, big breasts and now humungous Hummers – China seems to be indulging an obsession with size, just when the rest of the world is learning the virtues of moderation.
In Shanghai, for example, business is booming on eyelifts, noselifts, chestlifts and other surgery aimed at enlarging classically Asian narrow eyes, flat noses and unobtrusive mammary glands. At the Shanghai Time Plastic Surgery Hospital, Dr Liao Yuhua says business is up 40 per cent since the end of last year – not despite the global economic crisis, but because of it.
Half her business is job-related: “Many of our customers are white-collar workers, many have lost their jobs, so they have time to execute their plastic surgery dreams,” says the retired paediatrician, whose genially wrinkled face and ankle socks that bag around her feet hardly seem like anyone’s clichéd view of a plastic surgeon. “They want to be more competitive when they go for the next interview,” she says, adding that famously pushy Chinese parents are very “supportive” of this trend.
Several brought in their children to make appointments straight after China’s strongly competitive national university entrance examinations earlier this month. “Parents hope that their kids can be more competitive in job hunting,” she says, admitting that as an employer, she would “recruit a prettier nurse with the same qualities as one who wasn’t so pretty”.
Graduates leaving college this year are facing one of the toughest job markets in years, and women – who make up three-quarters of Dr Liao’s patients – find it particularly hard to land a job. According to a study recently by the Centre for Women’s Law and Legal Services of Peking University, published in the Chinese press, one in four women surveyed said they had failed to get a job because of gender, a fifth said salaries were cut if they became pregnant and 11 per cent lost jobs when they had a family.
Dr Liao says plastic surgeries have grown by 15 per cent a year since the fad really took off in China about five years ago. But China is hardly alone in using disposable income on facelifts – and even justifying the cost as a career development expense. In the US last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, cosmetic procedures rose among all groups except Caucasians; procedures among Hispanics were up 18 per cent. But the age profile of consumers of plastic procedures – and the parts of their bodies they want fixed – differs greatly from the US to Asia.
At Dr Liao’s hospital, the top two procedures are so-called double-eyelid surgery – which inserts an extra crease in the eyelid to make the eyes appear larger – and inserting a bridge in the nose, using a part of the rib. “Oriental people prefer bigger eyes and bigger noses – everything they don’t have,” she says, chuckling at the irony that, in Chinese slang, westerners are called “big noses” (and it is not necessarily a compliment). Her clients are mostly aged 25 to 35 – whereas half of all plastic surgeries in the US are for patients aged 40 to 55.
Bigger eyes are relatively cheap: from RMB2,400 ($350, €252, £213). Bigger breasts cost RMB60,000 (and clients must sacrifice a piece of thigh).
Zhou Jin Feng is one of the clinic’s satisfied past clients (blackhead removal). This time the 31- year-old nurse – clean-cut yet hardly a wanna-be movie star – wants a double eyelid and more pointed chin. “Young people these days want to be pretty, it’s important for their self-esteem, mainly for job hunting,” she says. Dr Liao says many of her patients are doctors, nurses or teachers: “Beauty is very important for communication in such professions,” she says.
Dr Liao can remember when plastic surgery would have been seen as bourgeois decadence of the first order. Now she thinks it is just a natural consequence of the wealth effect. “When the basic needs are met – a car, a house, food – what shall we do with our extra money? Spend it on beautification.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Thursday 11 June 2009
Purity Ball
Got this from The Lords of Apathy blog. The caption was (and this is going to offend):
"Yeah, I got your purity balls right here beeyotch!!"
"Yeah, I got your purity balls right here beeyotch!!"
Did you know....
Okay team, so this weeks did you know has a recycling theme (for those of you who have been spending time with me recently you will know about my new found excitement and love of PET)....
1. Aluminium cans are indefinitely recyclable and are back on the shelf six weeks after it enters the recycling process
2. 1 ton of plastic bottles (PET) saves about 4 barrels of oil
3. Each ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 225 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 22700 litres of water!
4. If you do a life cycle analysis on recycled goods versus good produced from scratch it always saves energy - recycling aluminium saves 96% while glass only saves 21% of energy.
Therefore it makes economic sense to recycle and you don't just have to be a hippy tree hugger! Not that I had doubts about whether any of you didn't believe in recycling...
Thursday 4 June 2009
Victoria likened to Mexico - as a hotspot...
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25584064-2702,00.html
awesome.
awesome.
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Monday 1 June 2009
Happy Birthday Helz!!!!
A couple of joumasebloggers and some other stragglers made it out to Magaliesberg to celebrate Helen's 30th with her. It was a great weekend despite one uninvited guest. The food was plentiful, the wine was flowing and the company was excellent. Hel's, thanks for organising it all. We all wish you fantastic 30s. x
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