Supervillains shouldn't use Windows

I haven't worked with Windows in about 10 years & now I'm trying to help a friend out by 'fixing' his desktop pc for him.
What has been reinforced during this trying time is that Winblow$ is not worth the hassle at all & every supervillain or supervillain-in-training shouldn't use it!
It's about as steady as Paris Hilton's intellect & as secure as Lindsay Lohan's career. The only thing reliable about it is its unreliability!
If you're planning world domination, you don't want to store your To Do List on something that is easily compromised. Any half-wit minion could hack it & get access to Things To Say At First Press Conference When The World Is Mine.doc.
If you're going to be a successful Supervillain, you need something far more reliable & secure - so install Ubuntu instead!

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away

So it's been almost a year since my last post & the answer to "What have you been doing all this time?" is simply this: procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate!
There's also been plenty of travelling to & fro, working, a fleeting enthusiasm for soccer (on account of the World Cup being hosted locally), laughs, tears, trying times & some photography.
During last year, I have given the occasional thought to this blog & how I should start it up again, so I've decided to go ahead with it again & make another effort at posting regularly.
I've been doing a lot of writing for clients - which tends to take the joy out of the process a lot, so I've decided to make this my creative outlet again & a place where I can renew my love or writing, ranting, raving & the opportunity to reveal my crazy inner-workings to the world.
Please be warned, you read this blog at your own risk...

Chicago is a looooooong way from here

WGN is Chicago's very own broadcasting station with its own news.
Clearly the journalists over there need some geography lessons, judging from the screen cap I was forwarded.
Of course, it's very easy to confuse South America with South Africa, what with both of them being south & all that stuff.
I suppose if you flip South America on its vertical axis, it'd look just like Africa - which means that maybe the person who is responsible for this gross geographical blunder, is dyslexic...
Unfortunately for the poor news anchor here, it looks like he's the dufus responsible for the mistake because his mug is right next to the offending picture.
Way to go WGN!

I'm sorry Your Honour, the dog ate my evidence

So Jackie Selebi was supposed to bring receipts to court today to justify how he & his wife had arrived at their expenses budget they had previously submitted to the court.
Unfortunately for Mr Selebi, his very silly wife had conveniently 'discarded the slips' the day before because she apparently found 'better evidence' to back up their budget.
Not only did she throw the slips away, she also had the foresight to tear them up into little pieces before she discarded them, just in case someone would use them for fraudulent purposes, or perhaps incriminating evidence in a trail that is now a joke.
Obviously Mr Selebi has the same opinion of prosecutor Gerrie Nel (& the residing judge), as many school children around the world have of their teachers: one that assumes the person in authority is devoid of any intelligence & stupid enough to believe the old 'the dog ate my homework' tale that's been spun a million times before.
Clearly Mr Selebi is confident that he will get off scot-free, otherwise he'd be spinning more convincing lies.

The Supervillain Guide to Super Spending: Get a job in government & then ask for ridiculous armounts of money

So according to Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, government need to spend R23 billion over the next 6 years to fix the country's 'network' of waste water treatment stations.
Apparently most of the plants need to be refurbished & the R23 billion is merely an estimate...
Frankly - while I don't deny that we are seriously lagging behind in terms of infrastructure in this country - I do wonder at the R23 billion figure.
Its a lot of money. A heck of a lot! Probably enough to buy out Zimbabwe & some other impoverished African country ruled by a corrupt dictator who flits over to Dubai regularly for shopping holidays.
Of course, I'm sure that the costs of redoing the country's waste recycling plants will be a huge expense, but I can't help think that there's a few fancy BMWs stashed into that budget on the contractor's side.

People Are Gullible & other such proof that Darwin's theory of evolution is true...

So according to a poll by Reuters 1 in 5 people believe aliens exist & that they live amongst us, disguised as humans.
In a survey of 23,000 adults in 22 different countries, it was found that more men believe in aliens than women (22% versus 17%), most skeptics are women & that the percentage of believers is higher in more densely-populated countries.

"more than 40 percent of people from India and China believe that aliens walk among us disguised as humans, while those least likely to believe in this are from Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands (8 percent each)"
Wow! Clearly Sculley was of Scandinavian descent while Mulder had Chinese in him somewhere.
So it seems that if you live in a crowded country, you're more likely to be suspicious of your neighbour. This also means that the more space you have to yourself, the more likely it is that you are still in possession of your own brain & it has not been fiddled with by your lazy-ass, beer-drinking, late-night-tv-watching, bum of an alien buddy Mike (or in the case of the believers in question: Abdul).
Of course, with all that stupid around its a miracle the human race keeps on going.
Incidentally, there are numerous accounts of "alien abductions" online should you feel in need of a good laugh. Either that, or you could listen to David Hasselhoff's music for a pick-me-up.

April Fool's - how to make fake geeks panic

There's been some great April Fool's jokes over the years.
My favourite is definitely Sir Richard Branson's:
Although he was a day early - a mistake on his part due to being blown off-course (so the April Fool's joke goes both ways) Branson landed in a UFO-shaped balloon in a field outside of London in 1989 & emerged in a silver suit - freaking out the police & the crowd of onlookers who had gathered.
Brilliant & hilariously funny in the spirit of the day.
IOL's report of Somali pirates holding the internet for ransom by hijacking the Seacom cable, not as brilliant.
Of course, there are still going to be people who fall for it & panic about the end of the internet as we know it.
I'm still debating whether their report about Steve Hoffmeyer trying to play the hero by chasing 6 armed men down after a robbery, is an April Fool's joke. Unfortunately the article was published on the 31st of March...

How to steal money from South Africans & Other Such Handy Tips from the National Lottery Board

So the National Lottery Board has finally admitted what we've all known for a long time now - the CEO & other such pompous Suits do backstroke every morning at work in the company's olympic-sized swimming pool filled with R200 notes.
Either that or there is 6 BILLION RANDS worth of funds lying around somewhere instead of being distributed to NGOs & charities!
That is an insane amount of money!
We could pretty much buy Zimbabwe with that money, or at least give it out to the charities & NGOs that it was originally intended for... Which, incidentally was part & parcel of why the lottery was set up in the first place.
So since staff at the company have conveniently failed to bring this discrepancy to light looooong ago, I wonder what else has slipped their minds?

"Spend MORE money on my lavish lifestyle to ensure tourism please"

King Goodwill Zwelithini has officially requested that the government refurbish his palaces & display his portrait in public places (in KZN) during the Soccer World Cup. Apparently this will attract tourism to the province of KwaZulu Natal.
I highly doubt that seeing a poster that says 'This is the Zulu king' is going to make foreigners go: "I must return to this sacred place, because there is a king here. I will spend my hard-earned money to return here so that I may journey to the far reaches of this province, & pay homage to this great king of the Zulus."
More likely it is just another attempt to get millions from government to spend on his expensive lifestyle.

Malema-isms or Julius-isms? I think I'll go with JuMa-isms

If Julius Malema were the ANCYL's superhero mascot, his spandex outfit would be appalling.
On the right is the ANCYL's logo, which is fine, but we all know how well those colours look on outfits (think of those awful tracksuits our athletes have been forced to don through the years).
But as far as superheros go, Malema is doing a sterling job in the same way that George Bush did: outlandish claims and some serious misapplication of the English language.
Of course, his superhero name would be something deemed trendy by his PR team. Something like JuMa, & so, for the remainder of his political career, that is what I shall refer to him as. Some people refer to him as Juju, but this sounds far too much like a chewy sweet that a five-year-old would appreciate.

But now for the supervillain rant.

The latest fiasco regarding his lavish lifestyle certainly has him pissed, hence his attempts to distract our attention by shouting loudly about something or the other. Kind've like Jeremy Clarkson does when he's unimpressed with the handling of a sports car round the Top Gear race track.
Unfortunately Clarkson & JuMa will never learn that shouting at or about anything will not bring about some magical change.
Fortunately for Clarkson (and Top Gear fans), that is where the similarities end.
JuMa, however, continues down the "if I point fingers, maybe you'll forget about my dirty laundry" path.

And so, we now move on to the so-called "intelligence document" that "intelligence officers" apparently handed over to him recently.
(Please note that the word "intelligence" will always appear in inverted commas in this post, for rather obvious reasons...)
And according to JuMa, the police have also verified the validity of the "intelligence" document.
I can just imagine the verification process now:

*JuMa walks into his local police station with his entourage, usual pomp & ceremony and a piece of paper in his hand. Scanning the room to see if anyone is admiring his tailored suit, he prances up to the counter and grabs the attention of the nearest officer by slamming said piece of paper down on the counter*
JuMa: 'Officer! I want you to verify that document!'
*Officer blinks back at JuMa for a few seconds before examining the paper*
Officer: Well sir, I can verify that it is a piece of paper & that there is writing on it. It seems to be list of names.'
JuMa: 'Exactly! *gestures triumphantly to his entourage* It is a list of names!'
Officer: 'Yes sir, it is. Would you like me to officially verify & stamp it?'
JuMa: 'Yes!' *nods enthusiastically*
Officer: 'Ok'
*The officer hands back the paper when he is finished*
Officer: 'Now sir, if you can just sign here *points* & here *indicates again* & then we are good to go.'
*At the instruction, JuMa proudly signs in the alloted places*
JuMa: 'Right, now we have the evidence of a political plot!'
Officer: 'You know *examines signatures* that writing looks familiar...'

Frankly the claim smells fishy to me, along with the numerous other claims & accusations JuMa has made of late.
The SAPS has not confirmed that the document has been brought to their attention.
How convenient that this is brought to our attention by the man who is under a immense public scrutiny right now?
It also begs the question: if (& that's a really big 'if' there!) "intelligence" officers handed the document to him, what the hell are National Intelligence Agency operatives doing handing out "intelligence" reports to political parties?!?!
It makes me wonder what kind of reports the KISS Party & the Soccer Party are getting...

Further details of the claim can be found on IOL's site.