When Autresponders Attack

Favourite Man has been trying to set up a USA-based e-bay account for me, but ran into problems when they wanted a credit card number. It's turned into quite the fiasco!

Once he realized the system would not accept a South African credit card, he sent them this message:

Please close this account immediately.

Well, back came this:

Dear Michelle,
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to the closure of your account. We're sorry to hear that you've decided to close your eBay account.
To have your request processed as quickly as possible, please go to:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html
Follow the directions you'll find there.
Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Hudson k.
eBay Customer Support

To which he responded:

Dear Hudson

Thank you for your email.

There is only one small issue with what you've told me to do: I am asking you to close my account as I do not have a debit or credit card. As such, I cannot complete the registration process. So, what happens when I log in?
You guessed it, your system asks me for a debit or credit card to put on file. Then it's back to square one again.
This is getting boring. I would like you to please close this account as I can't do it myself.

Thank you

Second later...

Dear eBAy Member.

We're ,your request processed as quickly as possible, please go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html

Follow the directions you'll find there.
incerely,
Paula D.

eBay Customer Support

Hmmm.. so e-bay doesn't sell spell/grammar checkers... And Favourite Man is getting increasingly peeved!

DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?

Why are you giving me the same reply to a different question?

I would like to point out to you that:

I do not have a debit or credit card. As such, I cannot complete the registration process. So, what happens when I log in?

You guessed it, your system asks me for a debit or credit card to put on file. Then it's back to square one again.

This is getting boring. I would like you to please close this account as I can't do it myself.

Thank you

Yup, seconds later:

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to closing your account.

We're sorry to hear that you've decided to close your eBay account.

To have your request processed as quickly as possible, please go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html

Follow the directions you'll find there.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Steve N.

eBay Customer Support

To which Favourite Man responded:

Mary had a little lamb...

and got:

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to don't want to close your account.

We're glad you decided to stay with us! We look forward to continuing our successful and fun relationship. Thank you again, and welcome back to the community!

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Steve N.

eBay Customer Support

Grammar's going downhill again...! One last try:

Actually...

I still want to close my account and was wondering if you could take the time to go to the bottom of this email and read it from the beginning and then close it.

Thank you.

Perhaps that will get through to a Human? Apparently not:

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to closing your account.

Upon reviewing your account, I have noticed that your account is still not confirmed. In order to close your account you need to confirm your account. Once you have completed the registration you can close your account.

To confirm your registration, please request that eBay resend your confirmation code. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/services/registration/reqtemppass.html

2. Enter your email address in the box provided.

3. Click the "Resend email" button.

4. You'll receive an email with instructions and a special, one-time confirmation code. Follow the instructions in that email to confirm your registration.

***Note***
If you don't receive an email within 24 hours, it might be due to issues with your email account. We recommend first checking the bulk or spam folder of your email inbox. If the message doesn't appear there, you should change the settings of your spam filter and then repeat the above steps. eBay will resend the email with instructions.

You can contact your Internet Service Provider for more information about any problems with your email account.

With regard to the closure your account, to have your request processed as quickly as possible, please go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html

Follow the directions you'll find there.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

Sincerely,
Simona P.

eBay Customer Support

One last try!

Dear Simona

I just did as you asked and this is the error message that your system came up with:

Unable to Confirm Registration

This is most probably because I could not complete the registration as I
do not have a debit or credit card.

Again, please close my account from your side.

Thank you

The response?

Dear eBay Member,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to closing your account.

We're sorry to hear that you've decided to close your eBay account. To have your request processed as quickly as possible, please go to:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html
Follow the directions you'll find there.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Parker P.
eBay Customer Support

Eish.

Poll time!

Right, so the weather's changing around here, and I thought I'd throw a poll into the mix. What do you like? Warm weather or cold?

Hot or Cold?
	Boiling - the hotter the better
	Warm - not singed
	Lukewarm - just peachy-mild
	Nippy - but not icy
	Freezing - polar bears all the way!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Chill

On Wednesday night Favourite Man opened the fridge downstairs - and all three computers in our room upstairs went off! Thinking it was an Eskom glitch, we restarted everything. A few minutes later he opened the fridge door - and my son's computer went off!

Hmmm....

Yesterday Favourite Man and The Kid had showers in rapidly-cooling water. Seems we had a geyser (hot water heater) issue. A breaking-down element was responsible for all the electric problems.

By last night there was no heat left in the water at all. I needed to get clean - but there was no way I was going to take a cold shower. Had to do a cold-water hair wash and then gingerly dab at the rest with soap on a cold facecloth. Not fun :-)

Well the plumber is out today. The plumber thinks he knows better than anyone, and has managed to trip the mains.... Eish.

I really hope we'll have hot water tonight. AND for the two long weekends ahead! Funny how these things always happen at inconvenient times.

Home

Can't put into words what's been stirred up inside with this one...

Yet another website gripe

Yesterday I was on about websites that take too long to load. I've got a new gripe today - unfortunately triggered by the same site that I gave up on yesterday!

And here it is - websites that don't actually do anything useful.

I'm back at trying to access a user list via the slow-loading website. Having cached itself as far as graphics and look & feel go, it's now loading a bit faster. However, the information I'm looking for, which is obviously being pulled out of a database somewhere - well, isn't. There's no information appearing on the screen.

This isn't the first time it's happened. Two months ago we contacted the customer support bloke to inform him of this, and he passed things on to the IT blokes, and then we waited. Eventually we had to go to insistant mode - I took to emailing him a "please confirm receipt of this message" on the hour, every hour - and after two days he caved :-) We at least got a reply out of him. It still took numerous phonecalls to get things fixed.

Except it seems they actually weren't. The site is still trying to pull information unsuccessfully, making it completely and utterly useless.

Seen those kinds of websites? They either send you around in endless circles of "click here for..." or throw up "page not found". Perhaps they do look useful at first - but finding anything you need is basically impossible, whether it's contact details or a product price. They're simply not content-functional. They don't work.

You can have all the bells and whistles you want, you can pare it down to lean and mean, you can have it functioning efficiently - but if it's not providing what it's supposed to provide, it's just a waste of bandwidth.

Snapshots

I left for work a little later this morning - having to go find some petrol to feed the ever-thirsty Landy beast thing first. Usually I'm out the door by 7, get to work at 7:30, take all the time and space I need to park in the empty parking lot, settle right in to the daily slog, then leave a little earlier to miss the homebound rush-hour traffic and hold up as few stressed commuters as possible.

Early in the morning you see school kids on their way to their desks - soccer mom-mobiles and taxis and busses full. There are quite a few cyclists heading toward Stellenbosch - one I see every day and can judge my lateness/earliness by how far along the road he is. Scooters and motorbikes. The usual complement of business folk, a couple of farmers, truckloads of workers, and a few carpooling uni students.

But leave a bit later and the whole picture changes. A new wave of commuters appears. Around 8 you find those who only start work at 9 on the roads. The young and trendy. The flexi-timers. And the tradespeople. Petrol stations are filled with logo-bedecked vehicles for plumbers, car parts guys, builders, agents for various companies. The fancy-car CEO and upper management - those who don't have to clock in precisely on the hour. And the big delivery trucks that have been loading since early in the day.

Today it's beach weather. It's a beautiful day out. Just the right kind of day to leave home later and catch the first bit of sunshine - instead of in the dark and seeing sunrise as you hit the office. There's a huge cold front heading our way for the weekend - but this morning there was nothing better than driving my old Landy with that sun streaming in. And a bit of a change of scene from the normal commuter traffic.

Memory Surge`

It's amazing what triggers a memory. I've just been handed a chocolate from a container doing the rounds here.

And suddenly I can hear my dad's mom, "Little Gran", talking to her Maltese Poodle. She'd say "I'm eating chocolate!" and the dog would go nuts begging for some.

Haven't thought of that in years...

An Inconvenient Truth

Nope, not the movie - though it seems I missed Earth Day yesterday...

The very inconvenient truth is that the postal service can't be trusted. In any form or variety.

Here in South Africa post is not sacred. Theft is rife - it's a help-yourself fiesta out there. We have a number of varieties of postal services, from small independants to larger franchises, to the main Post Office proper.

In recent months we have had a lot of problems with a franchise branch. Postnet Somerset Mall has lost our post, returned it to the sender as "unknown", sent things surface mail when we paid for registered airmail, over-charged for postage of other things, and made weekly magazines simply vanish for months on end. At least one important overseas parcel has gone missing - while others sent a week or two apart arrived suddenly together. There's something very dodgy going on there.

Favourite Man favoured the smaller official Post Office branch just down the road - which had its share of incompetance, but at least they got things done. Mostly. Forwarding of mail from one box to another not included.

We've recently moved over to the local central Post Office nearer home. We generally haven't had any problems sending or receiving stuff from them. Until today.

Two weeks ago I sent a registered mail item to someone in Johannesburg, a small padded & secure envelope containing something they had bought and paid for. It arrived - or at least the empty envelope and my note arrived. The contents are missing. Gone. Stolen.

So now it's the back and forth of him lodging a complaint there, handing in the envelope to form part of an investigation, me filling in forms and claims etc here, and general to-ing and fro-ing while I fume furiously at the untrustworthiness of whoever did this.

Perhaps I'm living in la-la land, but I believe in trusting until proven otherwise. Well, it's otherwise. Trust broken. Suspicion installed.

The trouble is there are NO other options when it comes to mail - every single company has shown their bad side, and most just go through a central sorting office anyway. Short of carrier pigeons (which could be shot down and eaten by the hungry) or pack mules (hell, we'd save on petrol!) how does one send things by post and actually have it arrive on the other end????

No wonder everything's going electronic. Then again... that's not exactly secure either, is it!

::update::
So Favourite Man gets on the line to the head office in Pretoria and speaks to Security. Or tries to. After holding for who knows how long, a young chick answers the phone, lets him tell the entire tale of woe, and then says "Sorry, but the Security people have all gone to Bloemfontein for a hearing - oh, and where is Somerset West (our town)? And can you please phone back another day? I'm just here to take messages"!

I tell you, there are some things that are so ridiculous that you just have to laugh, or you'll cry on your keyboard and short out the entire organization.

I give up

If there's one thing I've learnt about website design, it's that you have about 3 seconds to catch someone's attention and give them a reason to stay on your site. Attention spans of internet users are notoriously short - and patience even more so.

My dad has written a book. It's been selling pretty well via word-of-mouth, but when he had someone design a website and asked us to test it, we discovered that the designer had added all sorts of bells and whistles. On our reasonably-fast Third World line, it took about 10 minutes to load! There's no way anyone other than the most determined would hang around long enough to buy a book from a site like that. Fortunately it's been redesigned since.

This morning I was on one of my business sites, trying to access information to sort out a list of users. The site simply wouldn't load. As urgent as that information is, after half an hour I simply gave up. There are so many background scripts running that the actual stuff you're trying to access doesn't work. Which makes the entire site completely and utterly useless.

Those in First World countries may be used to streaming media, big graphics, flash eye-candy etc loading with the speed of light. They may have always-on access. But it's not the same everywhere. Most of Africa can't handle loadtime-heavy sites well, so by default the users will go elsewhere instead of sitting around waiting. A lot of internet access is pay-per-minute, and most folk can't afford to spend all day online.

It's precisely that reason that makes me consider very carefully what goes onto the websites I design. If it takes more than a few seconds to load, it's gone. No matter how cool, nifty or smart it is. Lean and mean, baby - lean and mean.

You don't want potential customers and clients giving up and going away. Equally, you don't want a boring site that doesn't catch the eye. There's a very fine balance to achieve between good-looking and functional. And it's not at all easy.

Find that balance - and you're good to go. Miss it, you'll see me giving up and taking myself off elsewhere. Along with a whole lot of others.

Time is money in more ways than one.

Ice-Ice baby

Eish - it took all my willpower to get up this morning... If you're reading this from a part of the world where you're snowed in all winter, you're gonna laugh. But I grew up in Zimbabwe where the zinging cicadas and shimmering horizons are the order of the day! (Damn, I could do with a bit of that now)

So when the temp hits around 5C overnight, I'm cold. Too cold. Give me bushveld heat anyday, not this!

This morning, coupled with the dark, was the chill. And I'd much rather have snuggled up with Favourite Man than braved the Deathly Hallows of the downstairs to go bake cheese muffins. But unfortunately common sense sometimes trumps those overwhelming urges to indulge - and up I got.

Olivia hates the cold in the morning. She goes completely petrol-hungry when it comes to warming up, and uses up way more getting to work in the mornings than coming home again. Fortunately it no longer takes half an hour to start her, thanks to Favourite Man helping to sort out a couple of issues I had last year.

Also fortunately, the aircon demon seems to have decided to leave us in peace today. It is comparatively toasty this morning at the office, and my lips haven't turned blue by 9! (Spke to soon, it's just taken a dive)

Nevertheless, it's cold. It's definitely wintery. And I've come to work armed not only with my winter jacket, but a jersey under it too! I have a feeling I'm going to need to go clothes shopping for very warm stuff soon...

Failure

How do you deal with feeling like a failure?

Last week a combination of factors (and low blood sugar) had me trawling the depths of feeling like a complete and utter loser - in tears all the way home. From owning an expensive-to-feed Land Rover as car of choice, to messing up the latest meal, to my daily habit of saying completely the wrong thing at least once, to losing out on half my must-do list, to not having a firm enough butt... you name it, I found things I'd failed at that day. And every one I discovered led to another bullet point. I ended up feeling completely and utterly dejected. At least for half an hour.

But here's the thing. When you hit rock-bottom and are all feel-sorry-for-me'd out, you eventually reach a point where you need to choose.

You can choose to give up. Or you can choose to fight.

Well, I choose to fight. Though some days I really get tired of battling against a gale-force headwind... Nevertheless, there's still fire in my belly and I refuse to be knocked down (..."but I get up again"). There are times when you can do nothing else but to shrug off failure as a "whatever", and come out kicking life in the teeth. Giving up is not an option. It NEVER is an option.

So in spite of my occasional tendancy to fail at a good few things on any given day, you won't see me hiding away in a corner somewhere. Instead you'll find me with a steely glint in my eye, jaw jutting out as I beat the latest challenge into submission.

Failure? Not a chance, not on a permanent basis at least - even if I do regularly stuff things up.

Starry Starry Night

If anyone asks me if I got dressed in the dark today, I can in all honesty answer "YES". It's incredible how quickly the seasons have changed. A few weeks ago I'd still be able to see what I was grabbing out the cupboard. This morning I only knew I had the black lace bra/panties because they were darker than the relatively-pale patch that was my hand. At least I hope I do... now that the sun's up I'd better check that I didn't grab someone else's undies by mistake! :-)

Of course the seasonal change also has the sun disappearing around 6pm. It seems so much earlier in the year for this than usual. I used to make supper with the last afternoon sun still hitting the front yard. Now it feels like I'm crafting a midnight snack.

And there's a distinct chill. This weekend was the first "snow warning" on the weather report for mountains north of here. When Favourite Man and I took a stroll just before bedtime, the full moon was up, the sky was clear - and the air icy. No more barefoot wanderings. No more thoughts of skinnydipping. No more blogging nekkid! :-)

But the southeaster has dropped at last. There's still an occasional flashback that has a breeze moaning beneath doors and rattling blinds, but the constant barrage of heat and wind seems to have calmed down. There's mist in the mornings, dew on the windscreen, flat-reflective seascapes instead of whitecaps.

Although much colder than I prefer, it's still lovely to peer out at night and see those brilliant, cold-clear stars. To wake to misted-up windows, all warm and cuddly under duvet. To ponder sleeping in while it rains on weekends, and entertain thoughts of Comfort Food.

We'd better enjoy it before we get sick of it and start longing for summer once more.

Photoblog: Sunrise

Perspective

There is always someone slower than you on the road. There are generally a lot of people faster than you, if you drive a Series Land Rover.

There is always someone fatter/thinner than you. Prettier/uglier in equal measures.

There is always someone worse off than you. There is always someone better off too.

There is always a boulder blocking your path - there is always a way around it.

There is always hope. Life. Love. There is always good.

It's only your perspectives that change.

Conspiracy Theory

These things fascinate me - the "what ifs" that some folk come up with to explain things you probably never even thought of.

My favourite is still this one - the Road Sign Conspiracy. I tested it out on a trip from Paarl to Somerset West once, and - if you use your imagination - it works! Nearly crashed laughing at that one.

Trawling the headlines on my Reader this morning and being bombarded by bad news, I was struck by a sudden random thought. We all know prices are going up and up the world over. Petrol/diesel, food, interest rates, electricty, you name it. And here's where my conspiracy-theory brain cell kicks in.

Those most affected by all this are not the rich. I stood behind a lady in the checkout queue recently who happily plonked down over a thousand bucks on a variety of luxury groceries that barely filled half a trolley - while I stood counting my cents and hoping to cover 4 essential items behind her. The well-off don't particularly notice a 61c per litre rise in petrol prices for their luxury cars. They still race around as randomly as usual, sip expensive coffees mid-morning in the mall, and carry designer-branded shopping bags laden with treats back home thereafter. If Eskom shoots the prices of electricity higher, it simply gets paid as one of the bills - and the security lights, decorative garden lighting etc stay burning. Ditto on everything else - some folk seem to have an endless supply of ready cash and not feel a thing.

On the other end of the scale are the guys I see sitting around hoping for jobs every morning at the side of the road. The old aunties turning up with their wedding rings at Cash Crusaders to eke out a few Rands from the exchange. The truck-loads of farm workers scattered throughout the commute crammed in like sardines, and the lady who cleans the offices who lost everything when her shack burnt down. These folk are the ones hit the hardest by price hikes, especially for basics like food and power (though it's been mentioned that many of the poor rely on paraffin, not electricity - so all the scheming of Eskom to get the rich to subsidize the poor is really a moot point).

Anyway, back to the conspiracy thing.

North of us, the Zimbabwean bloke in charge has been starving and beating his population into an ever-shrinking group. It's not the fat cats that die of hunger, it's the little people. Here in South Africa, it's the workers who are marching against food price hikes, not the company executives and government officials.

And of course, the more little people you kill off, the more there is left for the important people.

See where I'm going with this random conspiracy theory?

It's all a ploy to rid the world of the poor, so the rich can prosper! :-)

Of course - the poor are the ones working the land, producing the food, doing the unskilled labour that keeps the economy ticking over. So if my theory (albeit wild, way-out and totally inaccurate) is anywhere near correct, the important people are going to run into some very big problems a couple of decades down the line, and have to get their soft hands dirty!

Thus ends your completely wacky thought of the day. Back to regular, more intelligent programming.

Go

Kashmir. The very name breathes a hint of adventure, of hidden and undiscovered places, of towering mountains, of the exotic. Just that single word conjures up itchy feet. You can tell I'm due for a bit of leave, right? :-)

I have this overwhelming urge today to travel - to get out and see places, to explore and experience and photograph. To document the world around me in word, picture and memory, to get up to my eyeballs into the yet-unseen.

I've been nose to grindstone for a good while now. Even "breaks" are filled with the tasks that get neglected while I go flat-out on essential stuff. And I guess that's why I'm craving the exotic, travel, adventure, new experiences.

For a couple of months we've been very much home-based, even on weekends. We've been working hard on Cape Connect (with its associated Classifieds) and Olivia in turns. Spare moments turn into late nights as we churn our way through the to-do list.

But it can't last forever - and we do need a change of scene now and then. Kashmir would be a lovely option (so would Paris, Shark Bay, Chile, or Tunisia), but failing that there are so many places close to home to explore! Hell, we live in the Cape, and I haven't seen half the back roads yet.

I've got a spot of leave coming up in a week's time. Thanks to a slew of public holidays, I've got 9 days to play around with for a minimum investment of 2 days off work. Perhaps I won't be heading to Kashmir, but I definitely will be getting out and about!

Better charge up those camera batteries.

Celebrity in the House

Favourite Man has been published! One of the awesome things he made for Olivia the Landy is featured in this month's Land Rover Monthly magazine, with the photos he took of the process. Quite co-incidentally, the final page faces an ad for a commercial cubby box that looks completely inefficient next to his strong and sturdy one. :-)

I'm so proud of him I could burst. Go FaveMan!

(cross-posted to Olivia's blog)

Power to the People

They're at it again. We've been VERY lucky to avoid loadshedding by Eskom at home up until now. But Favourite Man and the Kid are currently powerless, which brings operations to a total standstill and has them finding "creative" ways to "amuse" themselves. Much more worrying to those of us who work away from home than when they're simply sitting in front of computers all day :-)

Of course there's not much we can do about it. Have you priced solar power lately?! I'm not good at toyi-toying, and it's not likely to help matters anyway. Other countries might get a notice over their power protestations, but here we just shrug and go about our non-powered business or play.

Then Eskom goes and puts up prices to do... what? Apparently they're building power stations. When? Who knows. Meantime it's a knock-on effect. Higher prices of electricity and fuel translate pretty quickly into higher prices of everything else - except salaries.

Shamelessly swiped off NinjaMonkeys is this bit by Jeremy Clarkson, who has such a wonderfully acid tongue. He also has some pretty good points - and an interesting take on possibilities down the line.

But it still doesn't solve the problem right now of what do we do when the juice runs dry.

And quite honestly I have no answer to that question. Yes, we're getting creative. We're also getting fed-up. Creative + fed-up equals... what, exactly? Apathy? Determination? A riot? Or just coffee made with a blowtorch instead of a kettle?

I suspect it's just going to be a case of everyone for themselves. Back to self-sufficiency as much as possible, getting "off the grid" in ways that you can both afford and self-manage without attracting the wrath of the Power(less)s that Be. And while we're at it, we're going to have to start growing our own food too I reckon.

Now THAT'S what I call (returning) power to the people!

Have a Screw!

No, not that kind of screw... My dad reads this blog, for goodness sake! :-)

When I fired up the puter this morning at work, after plugging laptop into docking station, I found a small black screw lying next to it. Hmmm.... that's not a good sign (see how well Olivia's got me trained! :-) ).

I'm not the type to keep a messy desk. It's very minimal - only what I'm working on out on the surface, with my water bottle and Paper Landy grouped neatly to one side next to a single photo frame. Cables are tied up out of the way behind the screen, only one "adornment" is on the divider - my Olivia calendar. There's nothing lying around that doesn't need to be there - which is why a stray screw catches my eye.

'cept I have no idea where it came from! I don't want to go through the process of undocking this beast to check it out just yet, and I can't see anything falling off at the moment. Besides - what exactly is there that needs to be attached with a screw on my puter?

Dunno. It's pretty modular.

Meantime I got a screw loose. Or, more accurately, a loose screw. Let's hope nothing blows up for a lack of it.

Speed

Let's see if I can post this, in spite of the frustratingly-bad internet connection we seem to suddenly have this week...

I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to get me a small, light super-sportscar one of these days. I'm thinking I can use it as a Virgin Earth company car and get a tax write-off? ;-)

First it was the Atom Ariel. And still is. Damn, what a beautiful beast.

This morning Favourite Man tentatively pointed me in the direction of this, the Caterham Superlight R500. Yup, it's low, it's fast, it's light - it's everything a Land Rover isn't. And for a Landy chick that's a serious confession of hidden evil thoughts. Hence Favourite Man's tentativity - he knows I'm gonna want one for Xmas! :-)

I suspect that I have an inner speed demon wanting out. 60km an hour in Olivia is all good and well, and puts a gigantic grin on my face. 80km an hour in the Disco2 is a pretty comfortable ride. But I'm not getting bugs in my teeth, nor my cheeks peeling off in the breeze. I'm used to being the slowest thing on the road (bar the truckload of grapes behind a tractor we have to steer around on the commute). And sedate, slow, enjoying the scenery is a good thing. Really it is.

But I still want something low and fast and mean and light. Something that goes ZOOOM and not just BVROOOOM. Something wildly impractical but way-cool. Something that scares other commuters... :-) Something like this.

Plunge

Ok, I've done it. A while back I tried Facebook for a few minutes, and then disabled my account. I'm back :-)

In fact, I have been for a week now - and in that time have found old friends, new friends - and some people I'd much rather forget. I've been kissed, bitten and booty-slapped. I've gained a blooming plant, a hatching egg and a puppy named Ty. I've gotten into a pillow fight and Bliksemed someone.

One more thing to keep me busy!

But this I've determined - it's not going to take over my life. I'm not spending my entire day plugged into Facebook.

OK, I did dream that my poor puppy ran out of food and water - much like the electronic pet my son acquired a few years back, and which I ended up getting up to "feed" throughout the night - until I thought "Stuff this, it's a damn battery operated toy! You can jollywell starve" and got a full night's sleep again.

So ja, it's on to Facebook and its own little community of strange things. We'll see how it goes. But I'm still not Twittering! :-)

Driving in Cars with Girls

Olivia took a trip to Cape Town this weekend to meet a fellow Landy Owner. blogger and friend of Favourite Man.

Going there was easy. The South-Easter was behind us, and the petrol guage barely moved. Sun was up, day was lovely, and off we went puttering along at her happy speed of 60km/hr.

Got there, had a super time.

Coming home was a very different story. Firstly - night. Late enough night (ie, after 10pm) for someone my age to say "should be in bed already". I'm not at all fond of driving at night, especially when it comes to my contact lenses drying out constantly and me not being able to see too well. I'm bad at judging night distance, and don't relax into the driver's seat at all from start to finish. The smallest distractions set me on edge even more.

And then, 15 minutes into the trip home, we came across a huge traffic jam. Caused by a fresh accident - which in turn was caused by some serious over-speeding.

Half-way across the oncoming lane opposite Grand West Casino was what was left of a Toyota. The engine was lying a ways down the road... The occupant/s were very much dead. On the other side of the road was a reasonably new Jaguar. That guy was trapped and about to be cut out with the jaws of life as we passed, but otherwise was concious and OK. I refused to look into either car as I drove by, as I know how images stick in your head. But it was a very very bad one. And you can be sure it had me on full alert for the rest of the trip home.

Of course one can only do one's best on the roads - and sometimes it's the other idiots that are the problem. Those that drive drunk or speed or generally are stupid. And we were passed by a good few while we pottered along.

Or rather, struggled. On the way back we were going into the wind in a vehicle that has all the aerodynamics of a block of flats. Every gust has an effect. Every blast pushes against all those straight up and down bits, catches in the roofrack, drags at the aerials. I had such a grip on the constantly moving steering wheel to keep us going straight that by half way home my right shoulder had cramped up completely. Being Olivia, it was eyes on guages all the way, as well as watching the bonnet (which came loose again the other day as I got to work, and could do so again at any time). My body feeling every vibration, hearing every sound to detect anything out of the ordinary - and eyes still straining to see. It was a slow, hard trip home - and the fuel guage dropped like a stone as we burnt up petrol against the gale.

But we made it home safely. We pulled in to the parking bay in one piece, and for that I am very grateful. There are others who didn't...

Blog-blocker

Ever had one of those posts in progress that just block further blogging?

I've had one languishing in Drafts. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it was everything I was thinking and feeling and wanted to spout forth on, but I ran out of time to finish it, then tried to go back and do so the next day - only to find I'd lost my train of thought. So I tried again the day after, and nope, no luck. It's turned into an awkward mumbling affair that has nothing to do with what I originally intended!

But wrestling with it has prevented me from posting anything else this week.

It's a Blocker post.

Anyway, it's gone now - so perhaps the words can flow once more.

Oh hey - here's to the weekend, y'all.

Introducing....

For the past two and a bit years, I've had a "parked" domain name registered, planning all sorts of things for its use. Yesterday it aquired a small bit of HTML and went live!

World, meet the newly-sprouted Virgin Earth.

Homeland

I'm watching the events unfolding in Zimbabwe with more than a passing interest. Although I was born in South Africa, I spent the first 12 years of my life there. My brothers were both born there, so for our family it is more than a little "home". Favourite Man comes from Zimbabwe too. And as the recent elections dominate the news, you'll find our ears tuned in to any mention of what's going on there.

My family moved to Cape Town in 1984. I haven't been back except for a brief touchdown in Harare on the way to see my parents in 1997. It was pitch-dark outside, so I didn't even get to see the airport we left from. But there are very special memories of our lives there that have helped form the person I am today - resiliant, practical, make-do and a lover of simple outdoor pleasures. I grew up barefoot and thorn-pierced, with a bike and always with a dog (sometimes an entire menagerie), without a TV but with a treehouse and a huge yard. In spite of war, in spite of sanctions, we were deeply happy.

It's been hard to watch the country deteriorate into chaos under a tight-fisted mean old man who doesn't know how or when to let go of power. It's been hard to hear the stories - some almost worse than the horrors of terrorist attacks in the 70s. It's been difficult to hear of family friends left broken when their livelihoods, their homes, their farms were taken by force - and they're living as broken-spirited elderly people with nowhere to go, nothing to show for a lifetime of slog.

The destruction of the country, one habitat, one human, one food-bearing farm at a time is horrific - it has to end. And now there's a glimmer of hope, a chance for positive change. Even though everything is still up in the air and Mugabe is fighting tooth and nail.

It's the latter that worries me. How much violence will he incite - how much more will "his" people have to suffer, the average bloke on the street? His cronies are staring "unemployment" and a loss of their cushy powerful positions & farms in the face. It's no wonder they're doing what they can to prevent it.

And yet things HAVE to change. The situation has hit rock bottom so hard that there's nowhere else to go other than outright war, something those who remember the last one will want to avoid at all cost.

So we trawl the news for any sign of hope, any glimmer of a brighter future for the homeland ahead. And wait....

What's in the noodles?

Ever really stopped and wondered what's in your 2-minute noodles?

Well I've just been given pause for thought. There's a small piece of red plastic in mine. And the flavouring doesn't taste terribly natural. But they're an easy meal - you nuke them in hot water and you're done.

Still... what's in those noodles? You know that ongoing Chinese-products scare? What if there's something dodgy going on with these cheapest of foods too?

We munch these things without really thinking. What's that green stuff floating around? It's supposed to be parsley - but is it really? Why is there oil on the liquid - and what exactly is it? How did they come up with the flavourings - and were there good practices or bad when it came to making that?

As a Food Technologist we learnt of acceptable "parts per million" for foodstuffs. Parts of insects, that is.... Some foods your ppm is higher than others. But what's in my noodles?

Hmmm... suddenly I don't feel that hungry anymore.

Change - but not much

Yup, my last post was my 1 April one. :-) We're not moving to the desert, we're not opening a meditation retreat. Though it would be nice....

There is a little change afoot, but only a little. Well - it's sorta big, sorta little, if that makes sense. After all, isn't life always in a state of flux? Isn't every day different from the last - even if it looks like you're doing the same thing over and over again? And each day is an adventure all its own - if you choose to see it as so.

And it's a choice I make daily. I can let the life-blows get to me, or I can stick up my fists and face down the challenges with determination. I can put my head down and ignore the journey as I plod forward - or I can look around me and drink in every available experience. It's an attitude, and it's a chance to grow and change daily.

And when those really big changes hit (and there will be one soon), it's all part of the adventure.

So there you go. There's my change for the time being. :-)

Change - again

I've been avoiding doing this, but the time has come to say it out loud.

I'm packing up life as we know it and moving to a rather remote site in Namibia to open a meditation centre. Favourite Man and I have been investigating this option for a while, and reckon we'll be more comfortable in robes than "street clothes", so off we go!

Details to follow... wish us luck! :-)