JADB

When I initially decided to write this post, I had thought to keep it sweet and short, wishing both my friends and enemies the same thing: may 2008 bring to you what you deserve…

Up until a couple of weeks ago, that would still have been my stance, but one of my resolutions for 2008 is that I will attempt to forgive those who harmed or hurt me. Some of it was malice, some of it sheer callousness and some of it cowardice; but in the end it doesn’t matter. Sadly I can not forgive them yet, but at least now I can see that I will be able to in a while. That is a good change.

Strange things, resolutions. People seem to hide from them or ignore them. Yet the new year is the ideal time to make changes; though, to be honest, since every day is the first of the rest of your life, every day is the best day to make changes. New year just makes it easy to draw a line in the sand.

So, my resolutions for 2008:

1. Work towards and achieve being able to forgive those that had hurt me. Malice, Callousness or Cowardice makes no difference. I’m doing this for me.
2. Allow love and happiness to find me. Allow myself to go find love and happiness. Yes I need to get over some hurt first, but it is a whole damn year!
3. Make sure that my weight-loss keeps on track. I’m doing extremely well so far; I should reach the second-last of my goals in time for my next birthday…
4. Spend at least six hours a week in the Gym. This is going to be tough, since I’m way unfit and even further out of shape. I’m not even properly round anymore, fercrissakes!
5. Make my new company damn glad I joined them. Yes, I know I’ve already added more value than they had expected, despite the fact that I had been living under a very dark and heavy cloud, but in 2008 I’m going to astound them!
6. Get out and enjoy the countryside and nature more. Go and see and experience new things and new places. I’ve spent way too many hours inside in recent years.
7. Bring my friends closer again. During my time of pain I had rebuffed them, and it time to fix that. Sorry guys, I know you were there for me, but I could see squat through the pain.
8. Achieve at least some of my professional goals. I’ve put some of them off for far too long already.

Yes I know. Plenty. But fortunately most of them are in motion; they’re not here so I can start them, they’re here so my friends can hold me accountable if I stop working towards them…

And then my wishes. Relax, I won’t wish that everybody will get what they deserve…

Someone who used to to be my very best friend in the world parted from me shortly after saying these words: “Sometimes, love just isn’t enough”. To her my message is: “It certainly is… All that is needed is real love”. And thus I especially wish this for her with all my heart: that she will find somebody to truly love in 2008.

For the rest of you, I wish one of two things: that you realise that you have already found your true love and then make then extremely happy that you had, or that your true love gets fed up waiting for you and comes to find you… For in the end, as I had said, love is more than enough.

And then as a final, final thought: Love, peace and happiness to you all. Good Riddance 2007; Roll On 2008!

As Themba’s stentorian snores had lulled me to sleep the previous evening, so they not so gradually brought me to a none-too-gentle awakening. Yep. Still here…

With some caffeine fuelled enthusiasm I had decided that a shower was my first order of business. Alas, no, the miniscule alcove had not over-night magically assumed more generous proportions, no. Oh well, at least I got to leave it cleaner than I had entered it.

After dressing I wandered down to breakfast. And a surprisingly good one at that as well. The cynic in me immediately started wondering what the catch was… The place had not so far managed to fill me to the brim with confidence in their ability to play nicely.

Playing tourist time: Victoria Falls. Truly majestic. Or probably would have been if there was anything actually falling… Okay, that’s a bit unfair. The parts of the falls where there was falling water to be had (not an unfair expectation of some place proclaiming to be a waterfall I would have though, myself) was maybe excessively waterfall-y. Rather damp and everything. And quite high, at 100m plus… Okay. Effing high. 33 Storeys is a bit higher than I feel like falling down from. I did pick up on one thing though. Apparently I’m not really afraid of heights.

Then it was time to go back to the hotel for a blessedly cold beer. And the news that the airline’s licence had been suspended. We had to buy a new ticket. And we got to spend another day at Vic Falls. At our own expense. Oh. Joy.

Nothing but to do but continue with out event-packed afternoon. The elephant-back safari. Something I, as someone who had been reared on Kipling, had been quite looking forward to. And we were only half-an-hour late, too. An auspicious start indeed. We arrive in time for refreshments: anything from Lemonade, Sprite or Water. Unless you happen to want water, that is. But the tap’s in the loo if you would like to go get some…

Finally we were deemed ready for our great adventure; after we had been convinced to sign the indemnity form. It was at this point which an alarm started sounding in my head. Any venture requiring new clothes or indemnity forms are suspect by definition, in my opinion.

The real trouble started when one of the smallest elephants were brought closer and I was entreated to mount the bastard thing. All was fine till the denizen from the lowest of the hells started moving and the saddle started slipping to the side. “Now this,” I thought to myself, “is simply not going to end well.” Which I then promptly proved by valiantly holding on to the reigns which in turn was quite sturdily fastened to the saddle; which in turn decided that there was no way in hell that I would be staying on that damned elephant; it quite gracefully turned on the barrel of said elephant.

Themba and I, yes the very same Themba, now both got dumped, quite ungracefully and very damned hard, on the ground. From there we got to experience quite a unique view of elephants. An encounter I would have preferred to forgo and would really not recommend.

An earnest attempt now got made, after we had been patched up somewhat and the saddle had been actually cinched, to convince me to re-mount the elephant. Now I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but stupid ain’t really one of them. There was no way, on this green earth, that I was getting back on that damned elephant!

Limping, I made my way to the cooler box, and promptly did my utmost (with eventual success due to Themba’s kind assistance and thorough command of Zulu) to convince one of the rangers that we truly deserved a couple of cold beers.

Nursing a cold beer, a bruised body and my equally bruised ego we find that one of the rangers left to “baby-sit” us is the chief lion trainer for the safari-outfit. Apparently they become unmanageable at two years of age, so the oldest ones he had were all seventeen months old. If you had never seen a seventeen-month-old lion from close up, take my word on this: that’s one big pussy-cat!

Eventually supper-time arrives and I frantically try and find a reason to skip going to “The Boma”. I wasn’t at all too certain that I would survive whatever was in store for us now… In a way what we run into at supper was both better and worse than I had feared… The food was edible. The entertainment was fairly decent. But the “interactive drum experience” (just known as “drumming” to us ignorant South Africans) was a total wash. Well, for me at least. I was sitting at the table in too much pain to go fetch some ice-cream and some over-enthusiastic personification of evil (damn those extroverts!) expected me to be all eager and enthusiastic at the prospect of energetically beating a drum? I was so sore, I couldn’t even lift my beer to my mouth!

Later, with the pain mostly under control due to some decent painkillers (as opposed to my faculties, for much the same reason) I eventually stumbled off to bed; dog-tired and hoping like hell that I would I fall asleep before the painkillers wore off. In fact, I was also so doped up that Themba could have snored all he wanted, he could have started a fire-fight in the room for all I cared, that night I was going to sleep, damn it!

There were some upsides to all of that, fortunately. The day had been so “eventful” that I had little time to reflect on anything. I had been so busy wondering what new “adventure” awaited us, that there had been no time to think about “home”.

“Now, I’ve been to some dodgy places. No, I mean some really dodgy places. But that was behind me, I was convinced of that. I knew that that was history. Which doesn’t explain why I am here. No, it really does not.” These were some of my very first thoughts at seeing the Airport after landing…

It was bad enough when the Airline grounded all flights. Fortunately another Airline decided to honour the tickets. Sort of. After giving us a decent run-around for an hour, we’re informed that, instead of flying into Livingston in Zambia as we were going to, we would now be flying into Vic Falls in Zimbabwe. Ah well, close enough, I suppose. It then got a whole lot worse when the person organising the flight, the one with the transfer vouchers, with the paperwork, the money to pay for the hotel, managed to miss it… Not his fault really, since he would have had ample time to do all he needed had the Airline not decided to lose an engine a while ago, but still; it worried.

Here on the other side another, new, comedy awaited us though. Somewhere, somehow, one of the bags got lost. All got checked in together, and all, but that one, had made it. One managed to “get lost”. But of course it would… It was on Friday. Bag number X000013. It was doomed from the start…

Thistry we wandered to one of the shops. Paying a mil-and-a-half for anything freaks me out just a tad. Maybe a house is still okay, but a bloody ice-cream? Well, to be fair, that translates to just over R333 at the official exchange rate. For a bloody ice-cream? Now, I’ll readily grant that I haven’t bought any ice-cream in a while, but I would have considered R15 to be a tad expensive but understandable: I mean it is an Airport after all. But that’s no excuse for more than a 2222% premium, is it?

We finally got to the hotel, not at all certain of our welcome, since the person who had organised it all is the only one not available to explain to them that it all had, indeed, been organised. Thus it’s just another place, with another adventure awaiting us on this day from the nether realms. I get to share a room with Themba. Themba is okay. I like the dude, I really do. But not enough to share a bed with him okay?

Paying for beer at the local pub proved to be another adventure in itself. One pays in rands for prices quoted in Zim dollars to then get US dollars in change. Most unfortunately they don’t accept coins, ever so sorry. A nice little racket, of course, since it means that everything gets calculated in multiples of R6.77. And then rounded up. As I said, a nice little racket indeed.

Finally it was time for our first “activity”. A sunset cruise. Now it was time to experience the wilds of Africa with man in his natural habitat. On the deck of a barge with a cold beer in his hand. And I certainly experienced lots… Hippos. Crocodiles. Bottom of my beer glass. To be honest I saw way too many of the last for personal comfort; I got too close to the grim reality of it, if you will.

End of the day arrived, and we promptly moved on to Supper-time at “The Makuwa-Kuwa”. Which is great; that is, unless you feel at all uncomfortable at the idea of paying $25 US for a fairly common South African Cabernet. R100 I would’ve been able to justify to myself, but paying nearly R200 for a R50 bottle of wine was a lot, if you’ll excuse the pun, harder to swallow. Being forced to be honest, though, I would admit to the food being very, very, good. Deciding to simply avoid the wine, I’m starting to feel a bit better about this venture. Until, that is…

I went off to bed quite looking forward to a well-earned night’s rest after quite an eventful day. Fortunately it had taken only a modicum of brute force to separate the beds so I wouldn’t find myself sleeping close enough to Themba so that I would end up feeling obliged to make him an offer of marriage. Unfortunately, though, it soon became evident that Themba snores for the First Team.

Great. Just effing great…

incongruous (Adjective)

Lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness: “a plan incongruous with reason”; “incongruous behavior”; “a joke that was incongruous with polite conversation”

Similar to:

• (adj) discrepant, inconsistent (not in agreement)
• (adj) inappropriate, incompatible, out or keeping, unfitting (not in keeping with what is correct or proper) “completely inappropriate behavior”
• (adj) inharmonious (lacking in harmony of parts) “an inharmonious (or incongruous) mixture of architectural styles”
• (adj) ironic, ironical (characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is) “madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker”;

A tale of two (or more (conflicting)) thoughts

In the dark days of the Internet, when email was still pronounced “facsimile”, there circulated the image of frazzled guy with the following homily:

Stress: The state of tension created when the mind overrides the body’s desire to choke the living shit out of some arsehole who desperately deserves it.

Of course, in my case the overriding factor is not my mind — in all honesty I would enjoy nothing more than kicking the varmint’s arse (repeatedly) — the overriding factor is geography. Well for the time being, at least.

A WOPR of a tale

During said dark times a movie played on circuit, one of the more accurate renditions of how one would go about breaking into a remote computer system.

They covered a few of the techniques, including “Dumpster Diving”, “Social Engineering”, “Backdoors” and “War Dialling” in order break into the remote system.

The movie, for any of the geeks who hadn’t picked it up from the title from this section was WarGames, and the computer in the tale was Joshua.

Now you might be wondering where in hell I’m going with this. Wait, and I’ll tell you.

In the movie the protagonist, David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), manages to dial into NORAD’s “War Operation Plan Response” computer. Thinking he’s dialled into a Computer Game company’s central server, he kicks off a “game” of “Global Thermonuclear War”.

If you have never seen the movie but you think you might want to, you might want to avoid the following couple of chapters or even get back to the post after you have seen it. Don’t worry, I won’t mind. I’ll wait.

After finally getting access to one of the main consoles to WOPR, David realises that “Joshua” is going to play the game all out, including unlocking real missiles and blowing up real cities.

In desperation he and the designer of the system, Professor Stephen Falken (John Wood), manages to get WOPR to play Naughts-and-Crosses (Tic-Tac-Toe for those benighted people with no idea what that is) against itself. After he realises that the game’s futile, a perfectly played game of Naughts-and-Crosses will always end in a draw, he tries the same with “Global Thermonuclear War”. Seeing the same result (including from the “South African Gambit” scenario, amusingly enough) he makes one of the more profound statements to be seen in movies:

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

I find it very sad that I can relate to that excruciatingly painful truth. I doing my damnedest to get past that, but it is difficult.

It was a Dark and Stormy Knight

I have always seen myself as a romantic. Not one of those improbably fake and overly sugary ones from “Mills & Boon” novels, though there might be a slight dusting of that in there as well, but more one who might have been a character in one of Byron or Shelley’s works. A proponent of the romance of chivalry — a man of loyalty, of generosity, of bearing, of courtesy, of love, of honour. Especially a man of honour.

One who might remember the flowers and might remember the date, but also one who will be there when needed as a protector, someone who will be there when needed as bulwark against the world. Someone who might not always be perfect, but will be perfect for the task at hand. Not a bully, a guardian.

What happens then when your shield is not required anymore? What does a knight do, when he gets cast aside? Now the easy answer is “Just find himself another Lady”, but life doesn’t really work like that, does it? Emotions get invested, time spent; plans made. Visions of a long life with plenty of opportunity to prove his worthiness and dedication, again and again. The same it’s been up until now.

But sometimes, it seems, Love just isn’t enough. Now granted it should be, I mean what else is it good for? And when you find it might not be is when the very foundations of your world get shaken, That is when you realise that not all the romantic heroes died happily. Not all of them found their soul-mates and managed to keep them. And that trying to be one of the good guys are going to get you hit where it hurts more often than it’ll ensure happiness.

Just because you attempt to approach the world with honour does not mean that those in the world will treat you with honour. Just because you try and do the just thing, does not mean others will. This could easily lead to treating others in kind, and the temptation is near overwhelming.

Maybe honour’s for the birds.

Maybe I should be using some of the skills I’ve acquired, using words (one of the last magics left to man, I believe, allowing us to create thoughts, images and emotions, allowing us to control and manipulate, if we’re so inclined, to great effect) skillfully and honourably, to my own advantage. Maybe I should be using words to gain what I want from others, the same way it’s been used against mine. I mean, after all, turnabout is considered fair play after all…

Unfortunately I find the whole idea abhorrent, completely incongruous with my self-image. At times I so wish that wasn’t so, so I could at the very least face the bandits in my life at armed equally.

So like that silly battered knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, I keep on shouting out the challenge! “No, I assure you, it’s nothing but a flesh-wound.”

Foolish, I’ll grant. But sometimes Love, like Honour, might seem foolish from the outside.

From in here, right now, it is still very much worth fighting for.

The End?

So will he or won’t he?

Will they or won’t they?

What will happen? Damnit!

Well, the story isn’t over yet, you see… Happily ever after takes a lot of work. “Every pound of happiness costs at least an ounce of pain” the cliché goes.

But as long as I can pay that cost I will.

As a former career soldier, Remembrance Day contains even more poignant meaning to me than it would to most people.

In commemoration of Remembrance day, the poem that lead to the wearing of poppies on this day:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

Peace be with all of you…

I’ve recently gotten a RSS reader running, and one of the first feeds I enabled was BBC news. Which would explain my increased awareness of the many unmitigated weirdnesses of modern Europe.

In case you’re not aware, I’m a South African; and, like many of my contemporaries, I have always viewed Europe with a certain feeling of vague bemusement. My forebears might have moved to Africa to flee the religious persecution in France, but we’ve been in Africa for so long we are culturally more closely aligned with African than European values.

Now I’m not quite certain how normal this might seem to the British, but one of the things I’ve picked is the appearance of a country in moral decline; where the people are so obsessed with trivialities that reality had better dare not intrude.

The most recent indication of this had been the stories of youths stoning the Fire Brigade.

Today, however, Boing Boing has an entry referring to a — so called — “Happy Slapping” UK-based phenomenon where, to quote from their source TheFeature, “kids [are] attacking not just their friends, but complete strangers minding their own business”.

Without putting to fine a point on it, if some little punk tried to do that to me, he’ll wake up in a hospital sans front teeth. Not everybody can make good on a warning like that, though, but why the hell should one have to anyways?

Now down here we tend to focus on real issues like HIV and the AIDS pandemic somewhat more often — except, of course when our President insist that HIV does not cause AIDS — which means kids have a lot less time for crap like that.

That actually brings me to my perception at to the root of the problem: the little jerks have too much time on their hands. To put it civilly, they are bored. To distraction. In earlier generations the problem would have been somewhat easier to solve: Ship the little bastards off to the colonies. Unfortunately, however, the colonies no longer wants them. You get to keep them.

The alternative solution to the problem had always been, and having identified the problem, is what I would now suggest: Start a war. Sort of like the one you had in Iraq, but this time do it with feeling. Go talk to your buddies in America if you’re uncertain of which war to start, you wouldn’t want to aggravate them in this, else they’ll attack you.

Which wouldn’t normally be a problem with all the spoilt louts you have lazing around and could thus throw into the defense effort, but those will be away having been shipped off to the front. Pay attention, dammit, that was the whole point of this exercise.

Or maybe you guys can have a word with the Americans, and you can each go send your idle youth to fight each other some place. I volunteer the Sahara: nothing else happening there anyways.

Just don’t involve the locals. They might get pissed off and retaliate; I don’t think your louts will be able to handle that.

I suppose it was bound to happen.

My fiancée has been bitten by the blogging bug and I decided to get her her own domain. Why? Just ’cause I can, I suppose. Besides which, she likes it so there!

Something I’ve always found rather peculiar in me; since I’m a career geek — disregarding, for the time being, the time I spent in the South African military — I tend to be rather familiar with technology and its trends. Yet when it comes to the softer, more social, aspects of our, with respect to Aldous Huxley, ‘Brave new World’ I seem to be quite adrift.

Now, personally, I place the blame firmly on the shoulders of Fight-’o-net; erm… I mean, of course, Fido-net. As anyone poking around at that time will be able to recall with varying amounts of fondness, Fido-net was a fairly harsh environment to take one’s first faltering steps in electronic communication in. Think Splash-pool meets Jaws…

The long and short of it, though, is that, while I am more than capable of building the Internet QE2, I consider myself quite incapable of even paddling a canoe; my last trip anywhere having been on the Titanic, as it were.

Getting to the point (finally!), after being challenged by my fiancée I’ve decided to — stretching the analogy even further — get my feet wet again and go swimming in the electronic stream.

Or something. Anyway, since I had already configured her domain and WordPress I decided to give this here blogging stuff a go as well.

So here we have just another self-centered pretender of indifferent skill blathering on… I pity thee, poor reader.