And you thought *your* hair was great!

I love Japan & Japanese people. They're so... crazy, so... different, so... odd.
Their culture is a collage of the new, the old, the fantastical and the down right bizarre!
Take a look at these photos here from men's fashion mag Men's Egg - don't ask me about the "egg" bit, I don't get it either, but frankly the fashion is a bit scrambled... so maybe that's the connection.
Just look at their hair!
Not even Jennifer Anniston's hair was that good in the early days of Friends.
Jen girl, eat your heart out at that volume!

A little stupidity can go a looooong way...

I can still remember those chain-mail pyramid scheme, scam & con letters that were physically sent to my parent's mail box when I was a kid.
Being young, innocent & quite naive, I would read them & think; "Wow! If you send R10 (which was a lot of money to a kid in those days!) to this guy & then send a copy of this letter on to all your friends, you'll be rich! Rich in no time at all!". It sounded so good, so easily obtainable, so interesting...
Yehp, young, naive & impressionable with a wild imagination.
Of course, my mother explained to me that it was all a scam, I gave it some thought & realised that she was right - it was too good to be true. But at least I have the valid excuse of being a kid at the time, too young to understand the ways of the world.
This woman, however, does not.
Since 2005 she has sent more than $400,000 to Nigerian 419 scammers, remortgaging her home and cashing in her husband's retirement plans, ignoring the advice of police, bank officials & the FBI - who warned her that it was a scam. -cough cough-, -choke choke-. What?!?!!!!

"When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course."

Gotta love all those stupid people in the world; how easily they fall.
I can't believe she actually thought that the President of the United States & the head of the FBI would contact an ordinary, unknown citizen regarding their inheritance money in Nigeria.
Apparently everyone warned her; family, friends, bank officials, law enforcement officials. And yet despite that, she persisted, obsessed & greedy for a huge payout of Nigerian riches. -blink blink-
Now she wants to use her story to warn others not to fall for the same scheme.
Uhuh. Likely story woman.
There's probably 2 people in the whole of America that she'll probably dissuade from falling for the schemes. The rest are probably as stupid as she is & won't heed the warnings of those around them, nevermind someone on tv.
More likely, she's probably going to tour the talk-show circuit, in an effort to pay off the huge debts she has accumulated as a result of her blind stupidity. No doubt, she'll try sell her story to publishers & TV executives, hoping that a book deal & a made-for-tv movie will bring her the fame & fortune she obsessively pursued in the first place.
Watch out for Janella Spears: Lost Inheritance coming to a bookstore & TV channel near you!
Oh yeah, I'm getting out the microwave popcorn as I write this, shaking with excited anticipation...

Glaciers on Mars oh my!

So they've discovered large-ish glaciers on Mars - which holds the promise of Mars being explorable by humans.
Ice means water, and water means hydrogen & oxygen - oxygen to breathe & hydrogen to power engines for the return trip to earth.
Fantastic! So when are they selling tickets & can I bring my own in-flight snacks?

South Africans rush home on the wave of global financial crisis?

So according to a report that "South Africans are flocking home", many people are returning to the country, due to hard times overseas.
Apparently a non-profit organisation that encourages & helps South Africans to return home, held an expo in London last month where "four out of five" of the +1000 that attended, were returning home within "the next six months".
Oddly enough, I know of people still moving there, as well as a number of individuals who have no intention of returning home.
Fish-packing in a smelly factory in Scotland is still more profitable for many people than working back at home.
I also wonder how many of those people were individuals whose working visas are about to expire or people who have been working arb jobs such as bartendering & nightclub security. Everyone I know that has a professional job is still sticking it out in the UK, even those that are between jobs...

Legal and legit yeah!

So I'm finally a legal biker again, after getting my learner's license yesterday morning at the most impressive testing centre in Johannesburg; Wetshoven in Aukland Park. Yeeha!
I don't have to get creative with my routes for the next 18 months, during which i intend to get my bike driver's license - never having to repeat the process of writing a learner's license again.
For those international readers, the process of obtaining a Learner's Permit is a painful and time-consuming task here in South Africa.
In the Gauteng province, you must phone a call centre first, to apply for a Learner's Permit. Thankfully the role of the call centre has changed and they merely give you a reference number now, as apposed to booking the test for you.
Previously the call centre would take your details and book the test date for you, with a waiting period of anywhere between 3-6 months before writing the test. You could not specify the testing centre's location, nor could you make a booking for more than one person.
The issue was that tons of people phoned the call centre, made a booking & never arrived at the venue to write. Of course, the call centre's system would show that the venue was full for that day & as a result, testing centres were often mostly empty despite the "fully booked" status on the system.
This resulted in people queuing from 6am in the morning at testing centres in a desperate hope to write the test for their Learner's Permit at some point during that day or any following day that the testing centre could manage.
WHAT A MESS!
There still seems to be a huge mess with regards to the procedure & such, with other testing centres having long waiting lists. Fortunately the testing centre I went to is far more organised than others, operates for a few hours on a Saturday morning and is not as crowded as others. Hoorah!
But now to the test:
Out of a class of 35-40 people, around half failed the test, which is a very easy test to do! I understand that there are many individuals who do not have the same reading, writing & comprehension skills as most, due to a disadvantage in education when they were growing up - those individuals are excempt from my comments that follow.
The test is available in four of the 11 official languages of the country & I'm certain those languages change in accordance to relevancy & location.
There are many individuals who fail the test numerous times, rewriting & rewriting until eventually (by a stroke of luck perhaps) they pass.
Do we want those individuals on the road?
Honestly, the test is not that difficult! How on earth are those individuals going to safely operate a vehicle if they cannot get even the basics right, before they've even gotten into the vehicle?!?!
If they do not know the rules of the road, do not know the meanings of road signs & are not sure of the controls of a vehicle (which are the 3 sections covered by the test) they are not going to be safe drivers on our roads!
Why are we allowing people to legally get behind the wheel with little (if any) theoretical competancy?
And for those who will answer with the typical reply: "we must not discriminate against those individuals who are perhaps less academically capable than others", I have this to say; it's not a matter of discrimination, it's a mater of public safety! A person who does not have a good grasp of the road rules, should not be on the road! They will be a danger to themselves, any passengers they may have, other drivers, pedestrians, etc etc!
There are so many atrocious drivers on our roads & we wonder why. Aside from the fact that many drivers obtain their license & permits via bribery of traffic officials, the traffic department is giving incompetant people permission to drive on our road.
It's down right crazy!

The sun will finally set on Egoli - thank the heavens!

Yay! And again I give a resounding YAY!
I'm not a fan of soapies - I think those individuals who dare call themselves "writers" while producing those excuses for plots and storylines, should be shot, drawn and quartered.
Thankfully the world often provides a SuperVillain with the opportunity to shout out in loud celebration. Loud enough to be heard above the wails of misery from the mindless masses out there who waste 2 - 3 hours of their life every weekday, glued to their tv sets as they follow the same set of incestuous individuals year after year, in their mindnumbingly-predictable, pathetic lives.
The local soapie Egoli, that has been running for 18 years (yes, that's 18 years of utter rubbish) will finally come to an end!
No doubt something equally abysmal will take its place, but for now I can celebrate the death of a hideous apparition & hope, wish and dream that for just one moment, all those idiots who wasted their time with Egoli, will hopefully do something more constructive with that time.
But who am I kidding? If there's nothing to replace their silly soapie, they'll just turn to publications of equal value such as You, Huisgenoot and Heat magazine.

Super... Stupid?

As a mastermind, I expect stupidity. It's nothing new.
Reality dictates that there are far more idiots out there than there are intelligent individuals. It's like entropy really, people tend to devolve & gravitate towards the obtuse and one regularly encounters excellent examples of this.

* Example 1: A site where you pay a bunch of strangers to ship some unknown object to you. Of course, I applaud the creators of the site for their unique way of taking advantage of the gullible masses out there. Cleary no idea is too crazy or too strange to be successful.

* Example 2: A "dating site" exclusively for "good-looking" people. The creators now have their own reality show where you can follow the lives of the two male Directors as they conduct their business.
Firstly, I find it highly amusing that the "Directors" of the business consider themselves rather good-looking... I think these guys have been spending waaaay too much time with their reassuring mommies.
Secondly, a lot of the people whose pics are displayed on the front page, aren't exactly the kind of people you'd expect to see on a site that supposedly caters for the cream of the aesthetic crop.
Apparently the intent of the site is to provide a service to good-looking people so that they don't have to waste their time going through the profiles of unattractive people in order to find a date. Profile photos are submitted to a peer review, and one's inclusion into the site is determined by how the rest of the "beautiful people" rate your aesthetic appeal. Hmmm...
How do they factor different tastes in? What if some people don't like your hairstyle or the shape of your nose & yet others think you're the next Brad Pitt?

* Example 3: A travel agent for the afterlife - a site where you can book your spot in heaven. Yehp, they're for real. For just $15.95 these guys will guarantee you a spot in heaven, or "your money back"!
I get the appeal of this funny concept, but to pay $15.95 (the current equivelant of R163) for your get out of jail free card, is just plain... silly. But once again, kudos to them for milking the gullible masses.
(They offer group discounts, just in case you're planning mass suicide with your group of wacky cultist friends)

Excellent, my faithful minion!

Even SuperVillain's have birthdays. And on such occasions, it's good to have minions and associates with some brain-power.
Thanks to my special friend (who shall be referred to as Miller Man, in order to protect his identity) for the cool birthday invitation/card/thingy-ma-jig.
Check out Miller Man's awesome site, with some of the amazing things he's done.

Computer-generated reviews

All good SuperVillains know that there's no reason to waste your precious time doing something when you can find a minion to do it instead.
What better minion than a computer? You don't have to feed it, listen to its constant moaning about a raise, or get annoyed at its lack of mental prowess.
Thanks to these guys, SuperVillains can now spend less time looking for those gadgets that'll assist them in their evil plans, & more time finding ways to utilise the Destructo-Blade in said plans!
It's a rather innovative website that trawls sites like Amazon & summarises reviews for products. The great thing about it is that you get an over-all feel for whether the gadget is worth buying or not.
It's simple, functional and you don't have to pay it over-time!

Hamba Kahle Mama Afrika!

Sadly, a great South African icon has passed away. Miriam Makeba died of a heart attack at the age of 76 in Italy in the early hours of this morning.
Though her wikipedia article is a bit sparse, there's a little information on her rather eventful life.
She spent many years outside of the country, escaping Apartheid and concentrating on an international career.
Thanks to Mama Afrika, people all over the world were introduced to the cultural sounds of South Africa, through her songs that will remain with us, now that she has passed on.

George W. Bush: An Autobiography!

So apparently George W. Bush is eager to pen his memoirs...
Heaven Help us!
Firstly, can the guy actually write?
He seems to barely have been able to read his presidential speeches in the past, or string an intelligent sentence together without mixing words up and conveying a totally different meaning to the one intended by the person who wrote the speech for him in the first place.
His attempts to improvise during speeches and press conferences have only ended up in malapropisms, resulting in the word "Bushism" being associated with a long list of fau pax made by the man.
I have to wonder what his memoirs will be called...

• W. - What I've got hiding under my hat
• W. - I really am a lizard man from another dimension! They threw me out because I was too stupid to lead an army, so they let me have America.
• George W. Bush - Simple, I mean Simply Me
• George - "They misunderestimated me" (What I was really trying to say, now that I have time to look back on all my terrible speeches)

All I can say is that I'm sure George's memoirs will make a great colouring-in book.
"Colour in this picture of me with Tony Blair", right after the page with "Can you find Bin Laden, because I can't!".

Oh say can you see, the elections are over. Finally!

I don't really think the Americans can refer to the process leading up to their elections as "presidential campaigning". It's more like one long celebrity roadshow, to promote the movies Candidate Wars: Revenge of the Republicans and Candidate Wars: The Democrats Strike Back.
Frankly, I'm so glad it's over now. I was more than tired of being inundated with stories about the mud-slinging between parties and Sarah Palin scandals.

It's amazing to think that in 1962 Robert Kennedy said the following:

The Irish were not wanted here. Now an Irish Catholic is President of the United States. There is no question about it, in the next forty years a Negro can achieve the same position.

It took 46 years for it to become a reality, in a country whose civil rights movement took place from the 60s to the 70s. That's a long time for the fruits of change to ripen!
Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, immediately became involved in the negotiations to end Apartheid and became president of South Africa in 1994. Thankfully the road to democracy locally was much shorter.
Where have you been America? It's taken you how many years to elect an African American into the White House and we're about to see our third black president come into office...
One thing's for sure though, anyone is guaranteed to do a better job than George W. Bush. Thank goodness that train is out of steam, now that it's left a trail of destruction in its wake.
Obama has one heck of a task ahead of him, picking up the mess Bush's administration has left behind. Good luck to him. Hopefully he'll make some sense out of the chaos and get America back on its feet.
His campaign slogan was "Change we need". Despite the gross grammar misconduct there, I must agree; America needs change, desperately. So does the rest of the world - who has had to deal with the consequences of America's re-election of Bush.
As a friend of mine said 4 years ago; America deserves Bush for another 4 years, unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't.
Now that there's someone fresh, young and sensible in the power seat maybe we'll see some good repercussions.
George W. Bush will probably go back to working the hay with his hoe & giant stetson under the Texan sun, in between touring as a circus with the members of his defunct administration.

Like, shoo-wow Jacob bru! -puff puff-

Rule #41 of The Supervillain's Guide to Super Villainy:

• Ensure that your statements, threats & declarations of evil intent on your way to World Domination, are clear!

There are plenty of stupid people out there. And while that means an endless availability of possible minions, it also means that you are going to have to explain yourself often. Very clearly. Id est; you're going to have to spell it out for most people!
For instance, should you go public with your Super Evil Plan to induce an ice age across the planet, there are going to be those that interpret your threat as a kindhearted gesture in affording them the opportunity to build snowmen, go ice-skating, sing Christmas carols all year round!
And so while you're thinking annihilation of idiots, they're thinking winter wonderland...
As a SuperVillain, it's important to be specific, clear to the point that your words cannot be interpreted in any other way than the one you initially intended.
Let's take a lesson from one of my favourite politicians; Jacob Zuma.
During a speech at Thursday's funeral for "freedom fighter" Billy Nair, Zuma is quoted as saying that he "used to smoke zol" together with Nair.
For those international readers, "zol" is a colloquial term for cannibis and is mostly used by the smokers of the substance.
Naturally you can imagine the uproar over the statement, much like the furor over Bill Clinton's 1992 response of "I did not inhale". And of course, the ANC very quickly released a statement saying that Zuma had been referring to hand-rolled cigarettes and not cannibis. Uhuh...
Nice one Zuma!
Frankly I could care less about whether he smoked cannibis many years ago. He's still an absolute idiot for making a sentimental statment with such ambiguous and incriminating information. And even if he didn't smoke cannibis, there's always going to be that speculation in the minds of the public in future.