Monday, 17 September 2007
My idea: For the record
Humans themselves are probably evolving at an appreciably slower rate (at least in any way that counts) than any other animal on the planet. The reason for this is that our technology is now doing our evolving for us, which raises an interesting point: If there are other sapient species in the universe, are they all on roughly equal intellectual footing? Their innate intellect effectively stops evolving after they have developed the capacity to use tools and shape their environment to their needs.
Monday, 04 June 2007
Heterophobia, the new stupid (the ranting of a geek/jock/yuppy hybrid)
Well, look at the world. Everyday people are finding new ways to be stupid, one of the more recent ground swells of stupidity is heterophobia. Come on, seriously. I've found that this is becoming progressively more common among a certain group of people. Who are these people?
Not feminists fighting suppression in a patriarchal society and not homosexuals that have been beaten by insecure morons. No. The new stupid is being perpetrated by the self proclaimed intelligentsia of modern society. The geek.
I'm talking specifically about the male geek. The kind of person that eschews all forms of exercise (with the sole exception of lugging their pc to a LAN). The kind of person that has to check www.weathersa.co.za to find out if the sun is shining.
You know what? I fucking like rugby and rock-climbing and when I go to the gym I prefer hitting the punching bag and weights to nancying around with a fucking palates ball and doing yoga. I know how to use a screwdriver outside of unscrewing the lid of my computer case. If I decide to do some DIY why the fuck does it illicit responses like "Oooooh, macho man"? I can't help it if you don't know which end of a fucking drill to use. I enjoy carpentry, I've built half the furniture in my flat and that gives me satisfaction. I also sit in the middle of my industry, I'm not a crotch stratching, ass-baring builder but neither am I an interior designer. It's called being a balanced human being, why don't you try it some time and stop being an idiot?
Last point to mention. I've polled around and none of my female friends find me aggressively heterosexual or overbearingly macho, just a few geeks who probably feel that they aren't macho enough.
Not feminists fighting suppression in a patriarchal society and not homosexuals that have been beaten by insecure morons. No. The new stupid is being perpetrated by the self proclaimed intelligentsia of modern society. The geek.
I'm talking specifically about the male geek. The kind of person that eschews all forms of exercise (with the sole exception of lugging their pc to a LAN). The kind of person that has to check www.weathersa.co.za to find out if the sun is shining.
You know what? I fucking like rugby and rock-climbing and when I go to the gym I prefer hitting the punching bag and weights to nancying around with a fucking palates ball and doing yoga. I know how to use a screwdriver outside of unscrewing the lid of my computer case. If I decide to do some DIY why the fuck does it illicit responses like "Oooooh, macho man"? I can't help it if you don't know which end of a fucking drill to use. I enjoy carpentry, I've built half the furniture in my flat and that gives me satisfaction. I also sit in the middle of my industry, I'm not a crotch stratching, ass-baring builder but neither am I an interior designer. It's called being a balanced human being, why don't you try it some time and stop being an idiot?
Last point to mention. I've polled around and none of my female friends find me aggressively heterosexual or overbearingly macho, just a few geeks who probably feel that they aren't macho enough.
Monday, 05 March 2007
Descriptor Competition!
I'm not actually sure how to describe myself so here is your opportunity to mock me for fun and profit. The person who wins will get a prize of some sort, possibly chocolate. The requirement? Post your description of me under comments!
BUILDERS
Hello lads and ladies!
Well, as some of you know Amy B and I are getting a flat together. No, ye bastards, this is not Hendri and Erica MK2. We are just friends.
But once again my mind wanders, the point of this post is actually on how to deal with builders!
Shoot them. Seriously though, shoot them. I'm not kidding around, shoot them.
As a person in the building industry this post may very well come back to bite me in the ass, so I'm probably going to delete it soon.
Context: We made the choices and the landlords [amy's parents] paid. We would, everything going according to schedule, have moved in on the 1st of Feb this year. Our new time to move in is Thursday. Now, because i work in the industry, you might have expected me to know better. Sadly, my first experience with a builder was actually very pleasant. Should anyone ever have the pleasure of working with Mr Dickie G (Actual name) I highly recommend him, however, he is completely atypical. I do learn from my mistakes though, and as such I have decided to present:
Conrad's Guide to Dealing with Builders
Step One:
Shoot them, have a ready made method of disposing the body and an alibi. I recommend dumping off Chapman's Peak.
Step Two:
Realise that you procured a builder for a reason, i.e. you needed building done. Procure more builders.
Step Three:
In the industry it is standard to have 3 builders tender on a job, do your best to find three and start an impromptu bidding war. Try get the most expensive and highly recommended one down to the price of the cheapest and the cheapest to offer to do the work for free and give you a pork chop.
Step Four:
Your builder will give you an estimate for the amount of time the project will take. You will point and laugh cynically, saying "I know how these things go, I read The Guide!".
Step Five:
Renegotiation! This is the most important step. Your builder has quoted to do the work for R50,000 excluding materials. You tell him that you will pay him R45000 for the job but, if he completes on schedule, you will pay him R55000. I know this seems silly to everyone in almost every other industry. Pay him extra to meet a deadline? Surely not! But remember, this is not IT. This is the building industry!
Step Six:
Visit the building site frequently and unexpectedly. Do not be surprised to find the builders a) sleeping b) drinking c) not there. When you confront the builder about this he will claim that it is because his people were victims of the "dop stelsel", you will remark that this is unlikely as he is white and he will ask you if you are a racist. They love that line, there is no coming back from it so don't bother. The idea is that at some point the guy may get a clue... well... maybe.
Step Seven:
Shock and awe! Its the due date and the builder isn't finished building. The fact of the matter is that he's not going to be done for another month after the original due date but think of the upside: The R5000 that you saved will buy lovely lawn furniture (well, the table anyway) because luckily the Rands in the builders eyes at the renegotiation phase blinded him to the obvious fact that he never finishes on time. Mwahahaha!
Step Eight:
Sit around with the appropriate genitals in hand while issuing threats to the builder who is now three months late. Finally shoot him and resolve that next time you will hire an architect so that he can handle all this shit
BTW, spellchecker wasn't working and its late, no spelling checks for this blog pls, I still want comments though!
Well, as some of you know Amy B and I are getting a flat together. No, ye bastards, this is not Hendri and Erica MK2. We are just friends.
But once again my mind wanders, the point of this post is actually on how to deal with builders!
Shoot them. Seriously though, shoot them. I'm not kidding around, shoot them.
As a person in the building industry this post may very well come back to bite me in the ass, so I'm probably going to delete it soon.
Context: We made the choices and the landlords [amy's parents] paid. We would, everything going according to schedule, have moved in on the 1st of Feb this year. Our new time to move in is Thursday. Now, because i work in the industry, you might have expected me to know better. Sadly, my first experience with a builder was actually very pleasant. Should anyone ever have the pleasure of working with Mr Dickie G (Actual name) I highly recommend him, however, he is completely atypical. I do learn from my mistakes though, and as such I have decided to present:
Conrad's Guide to Dealing with Builders
Step One:
Shoot them, have a ready made method of disposing the body and an alibi. I recommend dumping off Chapman's Peak.
Step Two:
Realise that you procured a builder for a reason, i.e. you needed building done. Procure more builders.
Step Three:
In the industry it is standard to have 3 builders tender on a job, do your best to find three and start an impromptu bidding war. Try get the most expensive and highly recommended one down to the price of the cheapest and the cheapest to offer to do the work for free and give you a pork chop.
Step Four:
Your builder will give you an estimate for the amount of time the project will take. You will point and laugh cynically, saying "I know how these things go, I read The Guide!".
Step Five:
Renegotiation! This is the most important step. Your builder has quoted to do the work for R50,000 excluding materials. You tell him that you will pay him R45000 for the job but, if he completes on schedule, you will pay him R55000. I know this seems silly to everyone in almost every other industry. Pay him extra to meet a deadline? Surely not! But remember, this is not IT. This is the building industry!
Step Six:
Visit the building site frequently and unexpectedly. Do not be surprised to find the builders a) sleeping b) drinking c) not there. When you confront the builder about this he will claim that it is because his people were victims of the "dop stelsel", you will remark that this is unlikely as he is white and he will ask you if you are a racist. They love that line, there is no coming back from it so don't bother. The idea is that at some point the guy may get a clue... well... maybe.
Step Seven:
Shock and awe! Its the due date and the builder isn't finished building. The fact of the matter is that he's not going to be done for another month after the original due date but think of the upside: The R5000 that you saved will buy lovely lawn furniture (well, the table anyway) because luckily the Rands in the builders eyes at the renegotiation phase blinded him to the obvious fact that he never finishes on time. Mwahahaha!
Step Eight:
Sit around with the appropriate genitals in hand while issuing threats to the builder who is now three months late. Finally shoot him and resolve that next time you will hire an architect so that he can handle all this shit
BTW, spellchecker wasn't working and its late, no spelling checks for this blog pls, I still want comments though!
Sunday, 04 March 2007
More on that theme
Does anyone else think that life is too tame? I am of course speaking for the middle class here but it just seems to me that we concern ourselves with so much that doesn't really mean anything. I'm not suggesting that life would be better if we had to fight rabid carnivorous beavers for a twig so that we could cook our evening meal of drowned squirrel with a rock salt crust (minus the salt bit). Even in South Africa, where I have personally been accosted twice, it just seems that we concern ourselves with incredibly meaningless things. I'm sure that I'm as prone to this as anyone else, but if course I'm blind to it because if I realised that my particular foibles were meaningless then they wouldn't have meaning. I think that before we decide what is meaningless, we have to define what is meaningful.
Personally, I think the following things are necessary in no particular order:
1. Continued existence
Duh. I've heard people spout on and on (and I'm not talking about goths exclusively) about how meaningless existence is, I used to be one of them. As the Hotel Roz Commons keeps telling us: "Life is what you make of it." (sorry about the spelling Mike)
Let me put that in a slightly less cheesy way: Get off your arse you lazy git, its YOUR job to give your life meaning. YOURS
Which brings me onto the next point:
2. Something to do
Well you can't just stare at the wall all day, why be alive then? Unless you have a particular interest in walls. Personally, my meaning lies in experience. I'm out to experience as much as life has to offer and as much as I'm comfortable experiencing. Even a few things that I'm not comfortable experiencing. Basically I'm in it for the ride; and as I mentioned before, I would rather it was a roller-coaster. With lead-ups and moments of calm to be sure, but just so that the ups and downs are put in starker relief.
3. Someone to do
That's a bit coarse I know, and no it doesn't summarise my view of relationships with the opposite sex, I just thought it was a cute lead on from no.2. You should know me better than that by now. But... back to our regularly scheduled broadcast. Point number three is basically a part of point 2 but it's so important that I think it deserves special mention. All the cliches are cliches for a reason, I'm not going to get into them but I think you take my meaning. Its always more fun when you have someone in the seat next to you. Especially if they scream like a girl. =P
And, well, that's basically it. In my not so humble opinion, that's everything you need. Existence for the sake of it.
Things you don't need are legion:
Friends who, in the final analysis, make your world a less pleasant place.
Opinions of other people. If they're not supporting you then to hell with them (this excludes positive criticism and any instance that involves the torture of animals or small children, well... animals anyway)
I would say shoes but I know some people whose happiness is inextricably linked to shoes, they should just ask themselves what is more important. Prioritise.
And ladies and gents, safety is overrated. I suspect that this is the point that is going to receive the most contention, but I think its true. Its better if the risks you take aren't life threatening (see point one) but if there is a risk involved things look brighter. That includes risk of injury, risk to your ego, risk to your financial status, etc..
So, I recommend doing crazy and unwise things. It's more fun!
That probably explains a lot to people about the way I am if they didn't get it before. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't reveal this much about myself but where would the fun be in that?
Personally, I think the following things are necessary in no particular order:
1. Continued existence
Duh. I've heard people spout on and on (and I'm not talking about goths exclusively) about how meaningless existence is, I used to be one of them. As the Hotel Roz Commons keeps telling us: "Life is what you make of it." (sorry about the spelling Mike)
Let me put that in a slightly less cheesy way: Get off your arse you lazy git, its YOUR job to give your life meaning. YOURS
Which brings me onto the next point:
2. Something to do
Well you can't just stare at the wall all day, why be alive then? Unless you have a particular interest in walls. Personally, my meaning lies in experience. I'm out to experience as much as life has to offer and as much as I'm comfortable experiencing. Even a few things that I'm not comfortable experiencing. Basically I'm in it for the ride; and as I mentioned before, I would rather it was a roller-coaster. With lead-ups and moments of calm to be sure, but just so that the ups and downs are put in starker relief.
3. Someone to do
That's a bit coarse I know, and no it doesn't summarise my view of relationships with the opposite sex, I just thought it was a cute lead on from no.2. You should know me better than that by now. But... back to our regularly scheduled broadcast. Point number three is basically a part of point 2 but it's so important that I think it deserves special mention. All the cliches are cliches for a reason, I'm not going to get into them but I think you take my meaning. Its always more fun when you have someone in the seat next to you. Especially if they scream like a girl. =P
And, well, that's basically it. In my not so humble opinion, that's everything you need. Existence for the sake of it.
Things you don't need are legion:
Friends who, in the final analysis, make your world a less pleasant place.
Opinions of other people. If they're not supporting you then to hell with them (this excludes positive criticism and any instance that involves the torture of animals or small children, well... animals anyway)
I would say shoes but I know some people whose happiness is inextricably linked to shoes, they should just ask themselves what is more important. Prioritise.
And ladies and gents, safety is overrated. I suspect that this is the point that is going to receive the most contention, but I think its true. Its better if the risks you take aren't life threatening (see point one) but if there is a risk involved things look brighter. That includes risk of injury, risk to your ego, risk to your financial status, etc..
So, I recommend doing crazy and unwise things. It's more fun!
That probably explains a lot to people about the way I am if they didn't get it before. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't reveal this much about myself but where would the fun be in that?
Friday, 02 March 2007
STRESS vs. BOREDOM
I'm aware that I talk a lot of sh!t... I am. A great deal of what I say is purely to get a reaction and start a spirited debate (read argument) because I think they're fun. And the less meaningful and arbitrary the debate, generally the better, because that way nobody gets hurt. I don't want to tell people that their beliefs are just as meaningful and valid as an abiding worship of Santa Claus to me. I don't really even want to challenge people in the face of ignorant social or political standpoints (okay, that's a lie). Though seriously, for me, it's all in the name if fun. I don't actually get upset, I may act out but that's just my nature.
Anyway, the point all of this is actually very different from the one I seem to be making. Once upon a time a stated that there is nothing worse for me than mediocrity. I would rather have big ups and big downs. And there is nothing worse for me than boredom, "may you live in interesting times" is supposed to be a curse but to me it is the greatest of all blessings. I'd rather be dodging bullets than sitting watching the grass grow. I think it might be a result of my age and excess testosterone (Mr Sharpe keeps telling me how masculine I am), but I blame TV. As a child I was led to believe that there would be baddies for me to chase and girls for me to rescue. Bullets would whizz and whine around my head but I would never receive a wound that would actually hinder me, it would simply leave an attractive and manly scar. I know this about myself now because Monday and Tuesday were incredibly tedious, and Wednesday was mayhem. Granted there were no bullets whizzing (and just 1 or 2 people whining), but the deadline was insane and the panic was palpable. And do you know what? There are actually very few activities that are more fun. I was, in fact, not talking sh!t.
Anyway, the point all of this is actually very different from the one I seem to be making. Once upon a time a stated that there is nothing worse for me than mediocrity. I would rather have big ups and big downs. And there is nothing worse for me than boredom, "may you live in interesting times" is supposed to be a curse but to me it is the greatest of all blessings. I'd rather be dodging bullets than sitting watching the grass grow. I think it might be a result of my age and excess testosterone (Mr Sharpe keeps telling me how masculine I am), but I blame TV. As a child I was led to believe that there would be baddies for me to chase and girls for me to rescue. Bullets would whizz and whine around my head but I would never receive a wound that would actually hinder me, it would simply leave an attractive and manly scar. I know this about myself now because Monday and Tuesday were incredibly tedious, and Wednesday was mayhem. Granted there were no bullets whizzing (and just 1 or 2 people whining), but the deadline was insane and the panic was palpable. And do you know what? There are actually very few activities that are more fun. I was, in fact, not talking sh!t.
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