Thursday, December 18, 2008

Daylight Robbery

I was robbed yesterday. I was enjoying one of my favourite spots in Cape Town, a secret little bench up signal hill - I went with Adi and Chelsea and Dylan, we parked the car and walked to this little bench where you can sit and there's no-one else around, and the view is awesome.

We're loving the scenery, and we come back to the car to discover that the small rear left window on Adi's car has been smashed, and the seats moved forward so that the perpetrators could make off with both Adi and Chelsea's handbags, as well as my work bag.

Whilst this has been mostly an annoyance more than anything else, the total value of stolen goods must be at least upwards of R15 000, if you count two cell phones and an iPod, a couple of CDs and flash drives, my gym bag, the R1000 they managed to withdraw from Chelsea's account, the R300 in Dylan's wallet, as well as all the ID books and driver's licenses.

It may be interesting to note - I had just received a phone call as we got to the car, my call log shows this as 17:17pm. When at the bank this morning, Chelsea was told that R1000 was withdrawn from her account at 17:18pm, so those fuckers must have had a car with them, and broken into the car as soon as we were beyond earshot of the car, and driven straight to an ATM.

Anyway, I was thinking about the implications of this. Chelsea, prior to said event, was saying how she's been donating to charities, giving away clothes, giving money to beggars, even thinking about working in a soup kitchen. Now, she's on the "fuck the world" path, not giving nothing to no-one. That got me thinking.

Those people have nothing (correction, they have nothing but a few cell phones, R1300, a gym outfit, an iPod, and new IDs), but we were still able to go home and get some cash that was at home and have KFC for dinner, have a warm shower, grab some DVDs and then hit a warm pillow for some shut eye. Those kids probably didn't have all those luxuries (well, they probably did, but the point is they're stealing because they don't have what we have, presumably).

I know my little R2 handout at the robot is not going to stop some kid from stealing, but if we all stopped giving, more people would have less, and maybe crime would get worse? Who knows? I guess with the world going the way it is, petty crime is only going to get worse, as people have to eat and feed their families. I know I'd steal if I had to provide for my families and that was my only option left (granted, I would much rather get a job as a gardener or car guard or something, so I couldn't imagine not being able to get any job at all). It's sad that the world is just spiralling and spiralling on down.

On the upside, at least, Home Affairs was apparently awesome: Adi and Chelsea and Dylan had their fingerprints were scanned, and they were given temporary IDs within minutes. At least something works, eh?

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Mountain is Changing Me!

So nothing really exciting has happened to me of late, apart from my awesome new camera that I bought (which also happens to be a phone - sweet!). I decided to take the plunge and pay some cash for a decent phone, one that would actually receive smses. In any case, I've been taking photos like a madman (5 mega pixel cameras rock) and tweeting a lot too, probably a bit more than is healthy. But twitter is cool! Find me at http://twitter.com/birvine and send me a tweet.

I've also been struggling to write lately, though I could attribute that to visiting family and not having much time for writing. Yeah, that's the reason! But mostly, I've tended to shy away from writing in my blog for fears that it would become a haven for my rants, and I wouldn't want to poison your rich and successful life with my cynical hatred and twisted sense of humour, now would I? No, I won't do that. I won't continually complain about how generally useless, unfriendly, greedy and lazy other people are.

Rather, I thought I'd mention how it's interesting how places change you, how the feeling of a new home or city can seep into your thoughts and alter, ever so slightly, the way you think. I've noticed it now that Chelsea and Dylan are here visiting - the Joburg / Cape Town stereotypes are true! Well, some of them anyway. One of which is that we Capetonians (I now qualify as one, surely?) are way more chilled out. We don't really favour strict schedules and plans, we walk slowly, we take things in, even the sun takes a few hours longer to set than in Jozi.

Is that only me? No, I don't think so. I've even noticed small changes to my accent - I'm not as flat in my pronunciation of words anymore. I also tend to notice less what other people are wearing, and perhaps not be as scared of strange looking people as I once was. The mountain is changing me!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Word.

So, I was reading the Thewster's blog today, Spiral to the Abyss. His latest post, It Starts With You, is a good idea (I think so, anyway). We all need to try that little bit harder, myself included.

Just the other day I gave a few coins to a guy on the side of the road who collects rubbish (Last time I screamed at him because he gave me attitude for not giving him money, meantime an empty bottle was lying on the road 2 metres away from him. Pick up the god damned rubbish!), and I've started using less electricity where possible. I've also made it a point lately to say hello, and genuinely enquire how the person who is serving me is. To my delight, they all smile and seem genuinely happy when they see that I'm really asking, and that I really want to know their answer. Word Thew. Word.

I've become somewhat obsessed with Twitter lately. It's like a facebook status, only you're not bombarded with all the normal facebook crap at the same time. I guess you could say it's almost like a group chat room, except more personal and much less time consuming. I like it! It makes me feel like I own an eBook reader where I get my daily newspapers delivered, and am sophisticated and political and new age and have lots of important friends that matter.

The only problem is my complete lack of twitter friends (much like me complete lack of blog readers, which is also somewhat sad). Currently it's only Hannah (Word Hannah, Word.) and Thew, and possibly Chelsea (Word Thew and Chelsea, Word.) and you. Unless of course "you" is one of the above. If not, Word you, Word.

Oh, I've also nearly completed another short story. Soon, I'll be submitting two short stories for publishing - She Eats Flowers (Yes, you have heard that name somewhere) and Unlocked. I'm also contemplating a re-write of another, though it's name currently eludes me (It's got to with a kid who cuts peoples' limbs off with scissors to steal their souls. It's pretty disturbing. Note to self: eat less cheese before going to sleep.), and that would make 4 short stories submitted this year! Which would be amazing. Word Brett, Word.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Writing Prompts

So, I did promise to have some writing prompts, and admittedly it's not easy. Here they are:

  • Write about a character who discovers that they can change the colour of anything they choose.
  • Write about a character who has died recently, and is meeting ghosts on their path to whatever their destination is.
  • Write about two schizophrenic characters, who are seeing the same "imaginary" person.
  • Write a poem about a cannibalistic shaman who travels the ancient world in search of prey.
  • Write about a magical item or talisman that controls what people see if they're in it's vicinity.
  • Write about a character who can do see how people will die.
  • Write about a character who can hear the dead, and is controlled by them.
So, those are a few. I hope they help out whoever reads this! I guess if they don't, at least they'll help me!

Procrastinate

So I did say that this post would have some cool prompts....but I lied. I'm going to do what writers do best: procrastinate! My next post will have some prompts - I promise!

So anyway, in an attempt to find some resources for writers, and some blogs of other writers, I added StumbleUpon to my firefox installation. I came across some very cool things (one of which happened to be the blog of an escort, but more on that some other time). Two links to check out:

The strange statues has an awesome pic of a hooded statue thing, check it here:


Pretty cool, no? There are a few others to check out too. Enjoy.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Writing Prompts

I've come to learn that there are very few decent, useful writing prompts out there. My next post will be a few short prompts of what I consider to be "decent quality" and muse-ful.

Whilst stumbling, I came across quite a cute little site: oneword. You click a button - a word appears with a timer, and you have 1 minute to write anything. It's difficult, the pressure is immense! Anyway, check it out for yourself. Here's what I wrote:

I looked above, and there they were. They weren't big, they weren't scary, just... there. The bright light glinting off the broken glass, the cool damp of the morning breeze - it was a perfect scene.


You can also see what other people have written here: http://oneword.com/2008/12/hover/full.html

Enjoy.

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Beast

There was an excellent article in the Sunday Times newspaper in the Lifestyle magazine, about advertising and commercialism. It's written by Neil Coppen, and I found it online, here is the link: Unleashing the Advertising Beast

It's a pretty good read, and I share his views: makes one think, considering that Christmas, that joyful holiday turned commercialist stain upon humankind, is fast approaching.