2007 February « the other side of the mountain

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28 February 2007 at 11:54 am | In Random observations | 39 Comments

I went to Look & Listen yesterday evening. The plan was to augment my Pinky and the Brain collection, but my attention was diverted from the task when an exuberant teen bounded up to a clueless shop assistant loitering with intent near the ~~porn~~ erotic cinema section.

EXUBERANT TEEN: I’m looking for a DVD for my mother’s birthday. It’s called lay.. lay-something.
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [blinks cluelessly]
EXUBERANT TEEN: [hopefully] It’s called lay-muh-something. Lay-muh-something?
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [shakes head with stoner-like sluggishness] Nuh. Don’t have’nything like that.
EXUBERANT TEEN: Are you sure? My mom said she saw it here. It’s called lay-muh-something.
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [blinks cluelessly]

Enter KYKNOORD stage right

KYKNOORD: [through gritted teeth] Do you perhaps mean Les Misérables?
EXUBERANT TEEN: [bouncing exuberantly] YES, YES! That’s IT! [To CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT] Do you have it?
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [shakes head with stoner-like sluggishness] Nuh. Don’t have’nything like that.
KYKNOORD: [Grinding teeth] It’s a musical. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo.
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [blinks cluelessly. Face which was previously blank becomes positively opaque. Gestures vaguely in direction of Classical Music section]
KYKNOORD: [massages temples] Gnnnnnnnngh! [takes several steps to the right, discovers twenty-two copies of Les Mis cunningly hidden on shelf marked "L", retrieves copy for EXUBERANT TEEN]
EXUBERANT TEEN: [bouncing exuberantly] Oh thank you Mr Encyclopaedic Knowledge Man! Here, please accept this as a token of my esteem and gratitude [thrusts packet of Jelly Tots into KYKNOORD’s unresisting hand+ and bounds off to the check-out counter]
CLUELESS SHOP ASSISTANT: [sulkily] Oh. Lezz Mizrah-bubbles. You should’ve said.

GGGGggggggggggg!

+ I’m paraphrasing slightly, although the bit about the Jelly Tots is completely true

…ay, there’s the rub;

26 February 2007 at 10:23 am | In Human weirdness | 65 Comments

The other day, a colleague approached me for advice on a “ahem – delicate” matter. He spent at least ten minutes behaving in a threatening manner towards a small shrub, before coming to the point. An unfortunate choice of words, perhaps, because it turns out that his eldest son is frequently bedevilled by nocturnal emissions+ and he’s been instructed by his wife to “sort it out”. A sticky situation, indeed.

I proposed that the obvious solution would be to buy his son a magazine with interesting articles and let him address the situation with a, shall we say, hands-on approach. Judging from the look of horror that contorted his features when I made the suggestion, it seems that he and my old man belong to the same school of thought on the subject of first-person-shooter games for boys.

When I was a lad, my father took me aside one afternoon to tell me about the birds and the bees++. Unfortunately, The Talk swiftly devolved into an extended rant on The Evils of Masturbation. According to him, it was crime so disgusting and heinous, it was roughly equivalent to smearing yourself with human excrement and going on a kitten-killing rampage. I will be forever grateful to my dear ol’ dad for turning what had previously been an innocent pleasure into a guilty one.

Now that takes some beating.

+ - or as Hamlet would have it, “wet dreams may come”

++ “Fascinating, Dad. Nature is wonderful, isn’t it? Now when are we gonna talk about fucking?”

For all practical purposes

22 February 2007 at 1:28 pm | In Philosophical meanderings, Relationship ruminations | 23 Comments

There’s an old joke about a scientist, an engineer and a chocolate muffin. It’s essentially a panel-beaten version of Zeno’s Paradox (involving Achilles & the Tortoise) and neatly illustrates that theory isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be+. I was going somewhere with this, I definitely was…

Anyhoo, I think what I’m trying to say is that life is made up of moments where accuracy is of lesser importance. For example, when the answer to “What’s wrong?” is “Nothing”, you know it’s (probably) not true, but sometimes it’s just less hassle to pretend that it is.

Now, according to my buddy, Cedric:

“…if someone brushes you off three times in a row, it’s time to move on because you’re just going to embarrass yourself. When I am actually interested in someone, I go out of my way to not brush them off or, at the very least, make alternate plans. Maybe it’s just me…”

Source

The thing is, a lot of people struggle to say no. Although a simple “take a hike, buttface”, would be simpler and kinder in the long run, it seems too brutal, so we make excuses instead. Fortunately, thanks to many of the conveniences that modern 21st Century living affords us, we now no longer have to worry about coming up with a suitably plausible excuse on the spot. Gone are the days of “Er – er – I can’t. I, um – need to – er – irrigate my colon” We can screen our calls and respond to text messages or emails at leisure. UNfortunately, if you’re on the receiving end, it makes it a lot more difficult to decide whether it’s true, partially true or a complete fabrication.

However – and this is the important bit – for all practical purposes, it makes no fucking difference. None. Zip. Nada. You can agonise about it if that’s your thing, but really, the only decision you need to make is how many times you’re prepared to let it happen. If you’re like Ced, three is the magic number.

+ unless it’s a theory related to proctology, in which case, it probably is

Godot, where are you?

19 February 2007 at 2:02 pm | In Random observations | 28 Comments

I had occasion to visit a branch of Stodel’s Nursery this weekend+. For those of you from out of town, this is the garden centre equivalent of the Mugg & Bean – i.e. an impressive selection of overpriced crap cunningly coupled with jaw-droppingly bad service. It seems to be a winning business plan, because they’ve sprung up all over the place.

I’d just had lunch with Salman and he invited me to join him on an excursion to Milnerton’s premier emporium of garden goodies. He needed to buy a bag of Doctor Agri’s Magic Manure Mix (Now With Added Kryptonite-Based Lawn Steroids!) for the fucked up section of his garden where the aliens landed – or so he claims. I suspect that the bare patch may have had a more down-to-earth origin – such as an early-morning-after-a-serious-bender-stomach-contents-emptying episode, but that’s just a theory.

Having acquired the correct sack of fertiliser, we proceeded to the checkout counter where we waited…and waited… And. Bloody. Waited. Perhaps I’m an incurable optimist, but when there’s only one customer ahead of me in the line, I really don’t expect geological ages to pass before I get served. Salman and I had long since moved beyond cabbages and kings++, before he was able to finally conclude his transaction.

It would appear that Slowdel’s has a corporate policy that requires all their cashiers to either sustain a severe head injury immediately before reporting for duty, or at least have the ability to put on a sufficiently convincing act.

+ I know. What an utterly sordid life I lead

++ We were debating the relative merits of deliberately using cheap-ass imported Russian fencing foils as part of an overall competitive strategy

A rose by any other name

16 February 2007 at 9:20 am | In Abdominal rumblings | 21 Comments

Our office recently acquired one of those every-couple-of-minutes-perfume-spraying thingies+ in the gents toilet. No-one seems to know why++.

I have long since made peace with the fact that our ablution facilities appear to be a faithful recreation of a level of Duke Nukem. I suppose I should be grateful that the architect who designed the building wasn’t an avid Doom fan, but in all seriousness, making the place smell like the Woolies cosmetics counter goes just a little bit beyond weird. I’m not averse to change, but for the love of Google, the scheißehaus isn’t meant to smell like your girlfriend (or vice-versa, for that matter).

I’m not the only person bothered by this, although it is rather ironic that the most vocal critic of the new arrangement is the office’s primary producer of garlic-powered arse bombs. I had kind of assumed that his olfactory faculties had long since been beaten into submission.

Then again, maybe he just doesn’t like competition in what can only be described as a niche market.

+ I apologise for the use of technical jargon, but I don’t know what else to call it

++ Although the official branch conspiracy theorist sees this as additional evidence that “management is fucking with our heads, man”. He could well be right