Entries Tagged 'News' ↓

For the international visitors’ interest, it snowed in Johannesburg this morning - for the first time since 1981. There are photo’s of it on the Highveld website, pop into their gallery if you’re interested.
In the news this morning they also said that a man had died of exposure. This troubles me deeply. Whenever I think about people dying of cold or hunger it makes me so sad I want to cry.
I found a beautiful, sad, and very true piece of writing on the Highveld site too…

Please see Highveld’s terms and conditions before using this content.

“Holding on for a hero…

I will not look at the news today. Not a glimpse, not a stolen glance over the shoulder – nothing.

I will avoid all things bad, drink two bottles of water, buy salad for lunch, and listen to the sounds of people going about their business. Today is a day for deep breaths, for taking stock, for sitting quietly reminding ourselves that winning hearts and minds is more important than standing on a podium, clutching reward.

With spring waiting patiently for winter to have its evil way, the lazy 7am sunlight makes for stark viewing. I saw an old man today, hiding from the wind against a posh Bryanston wall. Everything he owns in one trolley, everything he dreams about frozen in that moment. Bowing forward, begging for respite from a life which has offered him very little, the man battled for survival.

I wonder what he has to say. I wonder if he has a family. I wonder why he’s on the street, alone, fighting for his life. Does he ever look up at the stars, amazed at their beauty, does he ever admire the fireworks display of a highveld storm, will he let the sun rain down upon him on a glorious summer day?

Will he make it that far?

Chances are that the man cannot afford to enjoy the simple pleasures of life because he is too busy finding lunch in a gutter, searching for dinner in a trashcan – pushing his trolley along, hoping for a kind face in a cold world.

He is the soldier of misfortune, the gladiator of the underworld – ignored, ridiculed, pursued, haunted. Yet, he is the one who will risk another cold shun and wave a trembling hand. He is the one who bravely takes it on the chin when gleaming 4X4’s pretend he does not exist.

He has no job to strike from, no car to speed with, no agenda behind what he says. No company in which he can commit fraud, no wife to abuse, no family to murder. Yet, HE, is regarded as a third-class citizen. This man, guilty of nothing but boldly facing adversity – is what we point at when talking about the failure of the human race.

Armed with nothing but a trolley and the will to survive – he is the hero, the champion, the bastion of hope for every director, CEO, superstar and common worker in the world. For every day he survives, we can survive a hundred, for every smile he gives, we can give a thousand.

This man: cold, frozen, bowed forward . . . is the symbol of human triumph, the award-winning advertisement of unwavering courage.

I will not look at the news today. I will not think about all that I want changed in my life, all that I desire, all that I’ve not yet achieved. Today I will celebrate being alive. Today I will admire the setting sun, honouring the courage of one man to survive winter alone.

I hope summer warms his heart . . .

I hope he makes it that far.”

A driver who was high on cocaine destroyed an entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police.
Four police cars were destroyed before the 35-year-old crashed into a ditch and was arrested, near the village of Dussen in the south of the Netherlands.

And all along they thought it was aliens!!!

Source: Daily Mail

I suspect Natasha Bedingfield is partially responsible for the break up of Anna & Enrique.

Why, you might ask?

Well. The cute couple were going strong for nearly 5 years when suddenly Anna caught onto the new catchy Natasha Bedingfield tune “I wanna have your baby”, and guess what? Enrique didn’t return the compliment! Instead he dumped her. Or she him. Who knows. The reason being that Anna wanted to start a family, and Enrique, well… He was just not ready?

I feel for him, but hey, if you’re dating Anna Kournikova, and she wants to have your baby, you’re pretty stupid to refuse! But I suppose he is Enrique Iglesias after all…

I have been struggling to renew my driver’s license for a while now. As you probably know already, the traffic offices are one of my least favourite places. Since they have installed a new system, which is suppose to make the whole ordeal quicker & easier the whole of Gauteng’s traffic offices have nearly come to a standstill. I don’t about the rest of the country, but here things are pretty much ‘out of order’, and have been for some time now.

I will again attempt to apply for my new driver’s license this coming week, so please, hold thumbs! In the Eastern Cape 25 people have been arrested for driving without valid driver’s licenses, and were released on R700 bail. I heard on the news that they would be “accommodating” with those who haven’t been able to renew their licenses. Who the hell do they think they are? Its THEIR fault that people can’t renew their licenses, not ours?! Now they want to make it sound like they are cutting US some slack? I don’t get it! Plus now they’re going around arresting people?

Secondly, I don’t get why we need to renew our licenses? They’re suppose to do an eye test, but at some offices they don’t even do that? You just pay them R200 so that you can get a new card, with an updated photo on it? Its just a ridiculous money-making-scheme! Ugh… I wish I could just pretend that I don’t care about their arrogance, “Behold the all mighty department of transport?!” , but they pester us! There are thousands of taxi’s that cause people to die daily – most of they vehicles not even roadworthy. Get THEM off the roads instead?

The whole of South Africa knows that we can’t renew driver’s licenses at the moment!? Leave us ALONE!

Yes my off time was fabulous – I think April is the one month in South Africa which has the most public holidays, and I made proper use of them by booking leave to fill up the gaps between the holidays and the weekend. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about how I scraped paint off the walls, or spent a day in the mall which was so packed with bodies that at any given time, whilst walking through the shops, I could smell at least one person’s breath :/ — YUCK.
Today I will start to get ready for the upcoming weekend again… Nice hey?
Its just a pity that things at work are a bit busy – hence the upside-downess. I have stacks of files which I want to complete a.s.a.p., and then there are a couple of boxes full which need to be archived… I like working, sometimes I just feel that I don’t know what to do first – everything seems to have high priority? Suppose it ain’t that bad, cause somehow I work my way through it By the way, I’m still living in April, can’t believe May has come so quick.

May 2007 has been something in the very far future, I have to agree with BattleRocker. Something that Busted could sing about even? Now here we are.

Coming Saturday (May 5) is the birthday of many people I know. Not just know about, but know, personally. My boyfriend, my sister, two friends… And there are more that I can’t remember. I know it to be an anniversary of some other family members of mine too. Strange isn’t it?

For my own birthday I know only one person who shares it. June 8th doesn’t seem to be a very popular birthday, but its fine, I’ll celebrate it all by myself…

Please tell me that there is someone else out there who shares it? Someone other than politicians or architects who I’ve never heard of! Bloggers are WAY more interesting than politicians, except when they blog about politics. Then they’re worse. Second hand politics sucks so badly!

I do apologize if I come across as rude (toward politic lovers), I don’t hate you as a person, if you talk about something else I’d love to listen

TIES DECLARED A HEALTH HAZARD!

Malaysian doctors have declared neckties a health hazard and called on the country’s Health Ministry to stop insisting that physicians wear them.

Citing studies that show ties are unhygienic and can spread infection, the Malaysian Medical Association says they are not often washed and carry germs that can cause pneumonia and blood infections, the Star newspaper says.

“When doctors are doing their clinical rounds, they dangle all over the place,” the paper quotes association president Dr Teoh Siang Chin as saying.

But the Star also quotes a ministry official as saying it needs more proof that neckties are a danger before it relaxes the dress code for doctors in hospitals.

- Reuters

Source: ABC NewsOnline

This morning I heard over the radio that William & Kate broke up??

Awe… And they were such a cute couple! I will leave them be, and not discuss the reasons of the break up, those that make the media are probably untrue in any case. I would never wish for anyone to go through the heartache of a break up and hope that, if at all possible, they’d be able to sort things out. Can you just imagine the extra heartache of having everyone (all over the world) sticking their noses into your life? Commenting on who did what and why and…. It would just FREAK me OUT!

Whatever the future holds, best to both of these beautiful people.

Something else I found rather strange this morning is that one of the search keys which led to my blog was “Kate Middleton Pee” —- WTH??? How sick are people to google for THAT??? And how sick is it that my site pops up for that search? LOL – really bizarre!

If Pamela Anderson’s dog can get married, I’m sure my hamster can do yoga. (No, I don’t have a hamster, but if I had one, I would’ve taught it yoga…)

Anyhow, after Flatgreg’s comment on my previous post, I decided to google for “hamster yoga”, and voila, look what I’ve found!!!

I know, I know – you don’t do weights like that with yoga, please calm down all you yogi’s (or whatever you call yoga doing peopl) Its just a cute pic, don’t you think?

Ever heard of the “Flash Mob”? I haven’t, till I opened IOL tonight. Maybe I’m just a bit uninformed, but this really intrigued me…

Here’s what it is: In modern usage, flash mob describes a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, and then quickly disperse. They are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other communications networks.

Flash mobs did the rounds in Europe in the summer of 2003, and apparently this strange phenomenon finally hit South Africa. Here’s the summary article from IOL

Saturday shoppers at the V&A Waterfront were gob-smacked when about 150 people arrived at the area near the amphitheatre and staged a lively mass pillow-fight.

At precisely 12.07pm on Saturday the area was invaded by a horde of pillow-wielding young people who spent about a minute energetically beating each other about the head and face before collapsing briefly, then scattering.

The incident, organised by Brandon Matley, 20, and Andrew Kerr, 20, was described by Matley as a flash mob event following a global trend of similar occurrences. During these events a group convenes in a public space, briefly does something unexpected or random then swiftly disappears.

Pretty weird, huh? I find it even more weird that I’ve been left in the dark about this for so long!

Sources: Wikipedia & IOL

An article about two men who drowned first caught my attention because it referred to “swimers“…

This is not the first time that I’ve found a spelling mistake on their website, but it was the first time that I reported it. I know none of us are perfect, and my blog probably has loads of errors too, but I would’ve thought that an online news team would be a bit more careful, and spellcheck more thoroughly.
After I sent them an e-mail they quickly corrected their mistake, however, they only fixed it only on the one page?? If you search for “parys” on news24.com, you will still find the “swimers” article…

I give up!