The truth and the untruth

There are five types of people in the world.

Opinionists
Non-opinionists
Critics
Experts
People who don't care

Now generally, I am an opinionist. One of those people who, as far as possible, enrich their lives through media (whether printed or otherwise) and through that enrichment then forms an opinion about a subject. This subject can be absolutely anything from music to news to the chewing gum stuck at the bottom of the counter at KFC.

See, opinionists are important, because they enrich the lives of all others. Whether you’d like to admit it or not.

A friend of mine is a brilliant opinionist on the topic of music. One can ask him absolutely anything and he’ll have some comment on it. On the off chance that he doesn’t know, you can be sure he’ll look it up asap and then give you feedback.

Opinionists are what they are for the sole purpose of knowing for themselves.

Non-opinionists are those people who you don’t really catagorise. They like the hand full of interests they have. They follow it, but never bother delving into the finer detail of anything.

I know too many people like this. The only reason they can hold any conversation is because they regurgetate whatever opinionists, like my friend, has told.

Thus far: Opinionists are the enrichment and non-opinionists are leeches.

Critics. Now, read CLOSELY what I’m saying.

These people are opinionists who think they have enough info referring to a certain subject, to actually think that their opinion matters. They then go vocal with it, trying to sway other people.

This often ends in dismal reviews of movies, bias opinions and a general sense of being ill informed.

Everyone is a critic. Indeed, for the sole reason that every person in the universe, at some time, proselytizes their opinion without proper research or regards.

I don’t exclude myself from this group.

Experts. Now I wish there were more experts out there. Then, maybe, the world would be a better place and we’d not sit in the midst of a global economic crises. {Although I must say South Africa is doing quite well, given the circumstances.}

Experts are few and far between. They devote their lives to the cause and know all the finer details. Please note, that not every student is an expert, nor every professional.

Now you’re thinking to yourself: WHAT is she ON?

She’s on nothing.

She’s simply saying that the reason you become a teacher is because you want to facilitate the growth of students, and then, you become less of a teacher, because you don’t keep up with all the developments. Whether due to a lack of resources, interest or motivation ~ the point is that the teacher is not an expert, because they do not stay ahead of the pack.

I’m not going to say who I see as an expert, because I fear you finding a hole in my opinion. :P

Then there are the people who don’t care or give a shit. They never bothered to read this.

What the hell is my purpose with this long story?

It’s easy, actually.

Don’t consider yourself in the position to force your opinion on others if you really are just informed. The accuracy or capacity of your info is not important. What is important, is the fact that you realise when you should give an opinion and when you should just shut your gaping hole.

I am giving my opinion. Reason? That arsehole that gave that review, which I just read, is SUCH a bias critic-mofo that he has NO idea about the true implication of the crap he wrote. He could instead have said: “I like you so much I want to dry-hump you and spew your babies out of my nose on regular intervals with the rainbows that I lick from your arse.”

But again, that’s just my opinion. :)

"Why are you waiting for the world?"

With the gentle heat of summer bouncing off the buildings in town, and hundreds of people bustling in the streets over lunch, I bumped into a drunk homeless guy.
I had seen the same guy on my way to the bank. Aimlessly falling around, asking random people what they where up to.
So, upon my return, it was my turn. But instead of asking me what I was up to, he said to me: "why are you waiting for the world?"
Stroke of genius, I must say. Why AM I waiting for the world?
I wait for everything. The world has to allow for emotions to work themselves out, the world needs to send me a sign before I buy something, the world needs to send me a perfect partner.
But then I realised something. Yes, we have to take charge, but I already do.
I walk up to a person and go, “I think you’re really attractive.” I make the first move, I buy that dress. I have no boundaries and no limits. I speak my mind and put myself “out there,” as they say.
Looking at this, though, maybe the problem is that I act, and then still wait for the world to react – instead of just turning around and going on.
It’s silly really. I can interpret this in so many ways, when all I really need to do is breathe and remember what the drunk homeless guy said. Just keep it in the back of my head.
Yesterday on the train the seat across from me had a question scrawled across it:
“When last did you see two people bump into each other and fall in love?”
Good question. So, naturally, I thought about it.
Not recently.
Some of my older friends and family have told me how they saw their partners in the street/traffic etc. and knew then and there that they were going to marry that person.
That doesn’t happen anymore.
Years and years ago I made this rule, never date your friends. This rule came in after my circle of friends tore apart after one of the girls decided to start dating the guys in the group. So, I have never ever ever dated a friend.

Maybe I’m waiting for the world to send me someone to bump into?

Maybe this is a mistake and I have to try something different?

Maybe I just have to take more charge?

Maybe I have to wait?

Maybe…

Married women ~ start looking after yourselves!

I'm sitting at work with my hair in a kind of messy state, realising that I have to blog, because I haven't in ages and that my hair is a mess, because I ran late putting on fabulous make-up and completely forgot to brush the mess...
Yesterday, while on the train to the Northern Subs, I realised that married women look shit.
And it's true. Your average middle class woman will look after herself while she's single and then once she's been lassoed by some bloke, her personal maintenance will go to 0.
Reason?
I'm unsure.
It could be one of so many things or a accumulation of the lot.
Maybe they take on a far-fetched attitude that says "he's seen me at my worst, so I can look bad every day",
Or maybe it's a case of "not like I need to impress anyone anymore".
But honestly, woman! LOOK AFTER YOURSELF!
Being married is not a sign from the gods that you now have to give up your wishes of owning real Jimmy Chou's and have to start wearing vulgar underwear!
Yes, there is a law against "too-much-brown" and yes, you are breaking it!
I do understand that it is difficult to squeeze off the R200 a month for MAC, and that you've lost your fabulous figure after popping four children.
But there's ways around that! There are fashion blogs for mommy's and an assortment of fashion mags. Spoiling yourself is inexpensive and looking good is a privilege, not a chore!
Besides, if I had looked like I was scraped out of the drain by the docks, I'd not have had the job I do.
Success is a stairway, and it'll be an easier one to climb if you do it looking good.

Just a min rant for today! <3

WTF petitions

WTF petitions

So today my mail notification pops up, and as I was busy with something else and didn't look at the title in the pop-up, I naively looked into what it might be.
Of course I ignored the warnings of DON'T LOOK AT THE PICTURES, because

1. I'm a journo
and
2. I'm a bloody nosy woman.

Now if I've learn anything in the past is that petition e-mails with overly cautious warnings in them do not always point at horridly grotesque images. In fact, these useless anti-violence images often have fairly SFW (or safe for work) images of beaten women or wounded members of the public in them.

But every now and then there comes a case, as the one today, where the warning should be: YOU ARE GOING TO PUKE YOUR GUTS OUT AND DIE IF YOU LOOK AT THE IMAGES.
In fact WHY THE **** did they attach images in anyway if you're going to serve your liver up on your desk?

And what weird collegues do I have that actually forward this crap?

But alas, I looked at the images. And now I want to poke out my minds eye with a heated object.

Now I'm sending this rant in the wrong direction. So people start these petitions that go:
Sign it, send it to this official person and forward to 1000 friends. If I were an official person and 1000's of people forwarded the same email to me again and again and again with different names in spaces 2 through 500, I'd delete them.
Or maybe it's just me... I dunno. But what I DO know is that petitions seldom mean anything.

The only reason you're going to stop crime or influence crime rates in to become proactive.
Hire Batman.
Or start hunting down and killing criminals like Dexter.
You can even take some ideas from Saw (1 through 6)
I dunno.
But stop sending stupid e-mail petitions!

They don't work!

Ah ~ you wanted to know what the image was? Nah, it's too graphic to share. SoRRy. :)

The hills and the valley

Over the hills and far, far away...

For Zara


You know that gorgeous valley that women very often flaunt. The valley of desire and sometimes much frustration?
With the plump hills of seduction that so many crave and that are the catalyst to many adulterated thoughts.

Now I for one admire these. I love the complementing necklines, the beautiful brassieres, the pretty piercings and every now and then the seductive beauty spot. But sometimes I see something else.

An unattractive bulge near the side or a familiar shape. Even a hand reaching inside.

image from: sarees.bz

See, the modern western woman has become accustomed to using her hills of fortune as a holding space, or shall we call it - an extension to their handbag.
Quite disconcerting, I'd say. Don't you respect those?

I must say I have seen it all!

Breast for baby

When I still worked in retail a quite attractive woman with a baby once strolled into the shop. I helped her politely, as was my way. Flinched, when baby started to scream.
But handy-mom had a solution. Indeed, she extracted a bottle from neath the hills and stuck it into baby's mouth.

Awe.

That was all I had ~ shear awe. I couldn't believe that one could carry a 500ml bottle of milk under your breast!

Keeping abreast of (shop)lifting

I must say that I doubt there's a better place to hide things, though! One could easily smuggle complimentary alcohol bottles (you know, those tiny ones one would receive when flying business class. Do they still do that, though?).
And if you were to shoplift you could hide something in there quite discretely. (No, my dears, I have not tried!)

But sometimes it gets too much

One morning in a crowded train, I did, however, get the shock of my life. A fairly sturdy (for lack of a better word) woman boarded an already crowded train. There she stood in all her overly curvaceous glory, when in dipped her hand.
What she extracted was NOT what I had imagined! A magazine. Yes, dear readers, she extracted a WHOLE rolled-up magazine from between her cleavage! Where the hell she had hidden it with the much-too tight top she was wearing, I still cannot say.
But it was damn frightening. And when the train came to her station *poof* the magazine did a magnificent disappearing act into the valley. I of course looked at her as if she was a larger-than-life manifestation of a bumblebee, but I could not see a single sign of the magazine that had been there not two seconds ago.

What else?

Cellphones, make-up, money (yes, the popular one!), stolen goods, flash drives - you name it, I've seen it arise from the depths of the female valley. Becoming an extension for overflowing handbags, a place to hide valuables from lurking thieves, a fast way to answer a call or pay. (image from: textually.org)

What happened to the classic?

See, I am concerned with this. As a person who readily appreciates what a woman can offer, I truly fear the case of getting jiggy with it, only to have your hand attacked by a stray nail file! Imagine that.

Besides, what would that very hot Versace spring number look like with a rectangular object jotting out from the side?

Think about it before you stow away. You weren't raised in the bush. :)

Dita von Teese for Wonderbra, image from: fadedyouthblog.com

A long ramble about implications

By now you should know that metrorail employees are striking.
This has forces hundreds and thousands of people to resort to taking busses, organising lifts and using their cars. I am one of those that will be doing the car thing as of tomorrow.

The problem now comes in with the striking of those who deliver the fuel.
Not only will you now run out of petrol, but busses and taxi's will also have to cease operation.

The result of this is a dire impact on the economy of the city as well as the medical field. Many ambulances and medical personnel will be without means to get to emergencies if this strike carries on too long.

But the question I ask myself is: Do these people ever realise the impact of their actions? Do unions really think things through before they allow their people to strike?
The funny thing is, without fuel the strikers won't be able to be transported to various locations to walk around and yell about how they want pay raise.

Note that what I wrote up here is complete "worse case scenario". I doubt it will come to that.

But strikes, like so many other actions are extremely selfish of nature.

Why, you ask?

See, by law all employees have to receive a pay-raise once a year. BUT, still they ask for a bigger increase. I'm uncertain about the rest of the country, but Cape Metrorail employees had a lengthy strike last year as well, which was followed by a pay-raise at the end of the year.
Now, five months later, they strike again.

I often see that companies and bodies of national importance (I only spreak for South Africa) rarely consider all things when they take drastic action.

For example. Marches don't just influence the traffic that use those roads, but also the economy of a city/province, for reasons partaining to lack of workforce and thus influencing prouctivity.
Medical services are also dealt a blow, as ambulances have to use alternative routes to emergencies - which could make them tardy for saving lives.

And of course all this influences tension.

If you've watched How I Met Your Mother, you'll know all about Barney's chain of screaming/anger that only leads to sadness all around. Now this is quite similar.
People strike/march. Heerengracht is closed for traffic. Everyone coming in from the N1 and N2 has to use Sir Lowry road. This makes the road back up with an extremely large load of traffic.
Person X is now stuck in this traffic and irritated, s/he comes late for work.
This irritation is transferred to lower employees which take it out on others and at home, which cause a whole lotta tension.

What I'm trying to say, is that in an ideal world sorting issues out in a boardroom, with proper planning is better than marching up and down, not going to work and influencing those that have little or no connection to your cause.
It really is a massive schlep (An arduous journey).

Writeability

Writeability - finding the niche and making it stick with your content

Now as you might think above mentioned is about writing. Generally I'd like to refer to writing for a market - especially a market that one wants to help grow and expose.

Many, many people take writing courses or study to become journalists for the singular reason of being able to write within a frame of reference for those who read their material. To put it simply: you want to write for your reasers. So that they can 1. understand it, 2. learn/take something from it, 3. so that they inform others about the writing/piece/brand.

Writing is a type of marketing. The content and the style makes your piece get more or less hites/readers, depending on the relativity and the content. How you present it is vital and what you want to achieve with it will strongly influence the presentation of your content.

Let's take two examples. Note that I purely base my citeria on the successes and failures of the examples that follow within the boundaries of their writing styles and presentation.

Rock Out Radio

Success:

The content is updated regularly and one never needs to find the fresh news. The presentation is simple, upfront and the writing is newsy and to the point.
The person who wisits the ROR website will find exactly what the intend to find. Not only to they extensively cover local (SA) rock music news, but international rock news shares proper in-depth cover.

Failures:

None, really. As this website successfully incorporates their readers and keeps an eye on wires locally and internationallt they have made leaps and bounds of success.


Metal4Africa

Success:

They regualrly interact with their market and present content in a manner which fits the reader.

Failures:

The content feels old and not fresh enough. One would easily think that the Metal scene in SA does not grow at all or, at least, very little. The writing style of the content is fairly clumsy, with neither a blog-like feel nor a feature-feel.
There is an extreme lack of international information/metal news. To establish a firm market and get readers to come back daily you want readers to think you're closely watching the scene/topic.

---

Basically one can see how two niche markets were pinpointed and how one made a huge success and the other failed gloriously.

In effect I just wanted to give you examples of how it can be done and how not to do it. Also note that the team working on Metal 4 Africa is much, much larger than the Rock Out Radio team...

In closing: establish, cover, write, keep it fresh and keep producing. That's the (quite simple) recipe for writeability success.