20 October 2008 by hamfast.

Earlier this week I turned a corner in my car and was confronted with a rather common but still intimidating sight. - A truck transporting Coke from the nearby Peninsula Beverage Company had rounded the corner and lost a few cases of the 5 litre coke bottles. About a dozen of these bottles were scattering across the road and rolling amongst the traffic. Some had already burst and were spinning around wildly foaming. Already the truck had come to a halt ahead of me and about half a dozen of the packers riding on the truck were jumping off to retrieve and collect the lost bottles. Nothing strange so far…

I had already slowed down to a crawl and was weaving my way in and out of the scattered bottles trying to avoid crushing or hitting any of them. It was certainly too dangerous to stop and lend a hand - it was a main road and very busy for that time of the morning!

However other motorists didn’t think so. On the opposite side of the road a couple of cars had come to a screeching halt and several occupants had already jumped out and were sprinting across the island to our side of the road to retrieve and “loot” the Coke bottles that had fallen off the truck. In my rear view mirror I already saw how the uniformed packers and the “looters” trading blows as they fought over the bottles. The packers were trying to wrest the bottle back from the looters and the looters were putting up some resistance -all in the middle ofthe morning rush hour.

I am sure that in the past, a decade or so ago, if the same had happened, the motorists would have stopped and helped retrieve the lost bottle and return them safely to the owners. There was some sense or right and morality that guided most, but these days it seems that there are opportunistic vultures in every car and around every corner ready to steal, rape and pillage.

It made me ashamed to be a South African. Have we been reduced to such an level of regression, were the law of the pack rules?

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1 September 2008 by hamfast.

I saw an advertisement for a particular brand of bullbar. The payoff line said something like this: “Bullbars that say “Don’t mess with me!”

All too true, if bullbars are supposed to intimidate other motorists driving normal cars, without the extra chromed penile enhancers, then they are succeeding. I am totally scared off by them and if I see a 4X4 sporting bullbars approaching my car from any direction I do my best to get out of the damned way!

Last week I am driving down an avenue near to my home in my little old Toyota Corolla. In front of me is a large rather dusty looking 4X4 with epoxy coated bullbars, front and back. This person of the male persuasion stops at the stop street and indicates that he is turning right which he then does. I then come to a halt at the stop street and then continue across the intersection. He is already three-quarters into his turn.

The anal sphincter then decides that he wants to try to do a u-turn in the middle of the intersection, but his tank with sexual enhancing features doesn’t have a small enough turning circle and he puts it into snappy reverse and reverses smack into the side of my car. I did manage to get of a hearty blast on my little old hooter, which had no effect. The result was that the rear side door of my car is stove in so that the door barely closes, and the window won’t wind down, and the middle support pillar between the doors might need replacing. R6500 worth of damage and I have to pay R2400 excess.

What really makes my blood boil is that his pickup doesn’t even have a scratch. His sodding rear bullbar did the damage and doesn’t even show any visible damage!

If I was to put bullbars on my Toyota, I’d be the laughing stock of the city, but these A.S’s can do it to their 4X4s and bully all other road users.

Perhaps this cartoon depicts the only way that there will be payback:

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25 May 2008 by hamfast.

Aah, the joys of modern English! A word that meant something in the last century (the 20th) means something completely different now and you can get into a lot of trouble if you use these words in conversation.

Last century, "Gay" meant happy and carefree. Now in this century, "Gay" means homosexual, referring to either gender, but most often used to refer to male homosexuals. I referred to a local South African actress recently in a conversation as a very talented "Thespian". This is a recognised word meaning an actor or actress or one who pursues an interest in acting. I was greeted with a moment’s shocked silence and then the woman to whom I was talking said: "How can you be sure of that, she is married and happily too! A person’s sexual orientation shouldn’t be used to judge them! Shame on you!" After a moment’s pause I realised that either this woman was hard of hearing or hadn’t had the best of high school education. She obviously heard "lesbian". I had to educate this poor woman but it wasn’t much use, she had obviously already judged me.

Mind you I can use this 21st century-speak to my advantage. I can call a woman a bitch and not mean it in a nasty sense! Or can I?

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16 May 2008 by hamfast.

I don’t get it… I really don’t get it! Why do the devolved mutation of the chimpanzee - Homo sapiens - so intent on making their living environment something that only cockroaches and flea-infested rats - the only living things lower than them on the evolutionary ladder, would benefit from?

I like to watch people, not in the voyeuristic way, but as a passive observer - akin to watching monkeys in a zoo (and there are a lot of similarities) and I observed a rather odd interaction in the past week in the car park outside a shopping mall.

Enter a young black youth, well dressed, munching on the remains of a toasted sandwich. He struts along - acting like he is king of the world - and overtakes an elderly white woman dragging her wicker wheeled-basket with her week’s groceries. He doesn’t even see her. About 10 paces past her he has finished the fast food and licking his fingers of the one hand, scrunches up the wrapping and throws it down on the ground without even flinching! It wasn’t a simple realease of the fingers and letting gravity do the work, but a deliberate throwing action to the ground, almost defiant!

Up comes granny - now she is old and not very steady on her feet and one gust of wind and she would topple over! She stops to where the crumpled paper wrapper is lying and without even a moments hesitation bends down, which is not easy and it takes her a few seconds, picks it up and totters over the a trashcan that was barely 10 meters away and throw the litter in it. She sees me sitting in the car observing the incident and simply shakes her head and totters off.

The difference in attitude amazed me. The young litterbug who is destined to "inherit the Earth" seemed to have as much concern for the environment and the mess he was causing than one would have for squashing an ant, yet the aged citizen took ownership of the problem and cleaned up after the litterbug without som much as a second thought.

We live in a sad, sad world. What is one piece of paper, you might think? Or perhaps you think that there are people to clean up the mess. I had a horrible thought that one piece of paper multiplied by the population of a moderately-sized city amounts to a small mountain of litter!

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10 May 2008 by hamfast.

Response to a woman who accidentally walked into the men’s restroom:

Please don’t feel bad. It wasn’t you entering the men’s washroom that caused that guy to pee on the guy next to him. Hell, we do that all the time. It’s rare for us guys to ever hit what we were aiming for. Sometimes I go into the washroom, start to pee, and then just start spinning around — just so I’ll make sure I hit something.

You see, something you ladies should understand by now is that men’s penises have a mind of their own. A guy can go into a bathroom stall (because all the urinals are being used), take perfect aim at the toilet, and his penis will still manage to pee all over the roll of toilet paper, down his left pant leg, and onto his shoe. I’m telling you those little buggers can’t be trusted.

After being married 28 years, my wife has me trained. I’m no longer allowed to pee like a man - standing up. I am required to sit down and pee. She has convinced me that this is a small price to pay. Otherwise, if she goes to the toilet one more time at night and either sits on a pee-soaked toilet seat, or falls right into the toilet because I forgot to put the seat down, she’s going to kill me in my sleep.

Now another thing us guys don’t usually like to talk about, but because you and I have become such good friends and you think I’m a classy guy, I might as well be candid with you because it’s a real problem and you ladies need to be more understanding. It’s the dreaded "morning wood." Most mornings we guys wake up with two things: a tremendous desire to pee, and a penis so hard you could cut diamonds with it. Well, no matter how hard you try, you can’t get that thing to bend, and if it don’t bend you can’t aim. Well hell, if you can’t aim you have no choice but to pee all over the wallpaper and that damn fuzzy toilet seat cover you women insist on putting on the toilet. And by the way, when you use those damn fuzzy toilet seat covers, the stupid toilet seat won’t stay up by itself. So that means we have to use one hand to hold up the toilet seat and the other hand to try to achieve that perfect aim.

Now sometimes, when you’re newly married, (and I know the guys in here will back me up on this) you think you can get the toilet seat with that damn fuzzy thing to stay up. You jam it back and compress that fuzzy thing until the seat stays there. OK, so you start to pee, but then that compressed fuzzy starts to decompress and without warning that damn toilet seat comes flying down and tries to whack off your weenie. So us guys will not lift a toilet seat with a fuzzy, it’s just not safe.

I tried to delicately explain this morning situation to my wife. I told her, "Look, it won’t bend." She said, "Sit down like I told you to do all the rest of the time." OK. I tried sitting down on the toilet with "morning wood." Well, it’s is very hard to get it bent under the toilet seat, and before I could manage to do it, I had peed all over the bath towels hanging on the wall across the room. Now, even if you are sitting down and you can get it forced down under the toilet seat, when you start to pee the pee shoots out from the crack between the bottom of the toilet seat and the top of the bowl. You pee all over the back of your knees and it runs down the back of our legs on to that damn matching fuzzy horseshoe rug you women keep putting on the floor in front of the toilet.

I have found the only effective maneuver to deal with this morning urinary dilemma is to assume the flying superman position by simply laying over the toilet seat. This takes a great deal of practice, perfect balance, and split time precision but it’s the only sure way to get all the pee in the bowl during the first morning pee. So you ladies have to understand that us men are not totally to blame. We are sensitive to your concerns about hygiene and bathroom cleanliness, but there are times when things just get beyond our control. It’s not our fault, it’s just Mother Nature. Now, if it was Father Nature… there wouldn’t have been a problem!!!

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27 April 2008 by hamfast.

I hate cats!

I like dogs, but the more I learn about them the more I think that dogs and us me have something in common:

• Dogs will spend all day sprawled on the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house.
• They can hear a can of food opening from the other side of the street, but are as deaf as a post when you are in the same room.
• They can look goofy and lovable all at the same time.
• They growl when they are not happy.
• When you want to play, they want to play.
• When you want to be alone, they want to play.
• They leave their toys everywhere.
• They do disgusting things with their mouths and then try to give you a kiss.
• They go right for your groin as soon as they meet you.

My conclusion:

Dogs were men in their previous lives!

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27 April 2008 by hamfast.

Nothing broadcasts to the world louder that your testosterone is flagging and middle-age spread is setting in and you are in serious need of validation as “the male of the species” more than going out and getting yourself a 4X4 pickup (or SUV). See a big flashy 4X4 chuntering along the highway, with bull bars and not a sign of dirt, mud or off road debris and you have found yourself a dude who is compensating for an area where he is now sadly lacking.

Granted sometimes when you see the floral printed hippo they are married to, then I can see that the purchase of a 4X4 will be the only thing that will rattle his headboard and give him a long lost boner!

Once they get the 4X4 to make their mark as a vital and fertile male - just in case society missed it - then reality kicks in and they realise that they cannot afford the petrol to keep this guzzler going, so the wife inherits it.

Now the only time that this 4X4 will go off road is when she drives over the pavement edge when she picks up the kids from school!

The testosterone-depleted male should rather save himself the money and get a t-shirt printed with the words “Be kind to me - I am going through men-o-pause!”

Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause — you get to date young girls and drive a 4X4!

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19 April 2008 by hamfast.

Like it or not, the basic moral laws laid out in the Judeo-Christian religion in the 10 Commandments has a lot in common with most human moral laws, and there was a point when I felt that judges and courts should have a copy of those laws put up on the wall to remind those of these basic moral codes…but putting “Thou shalt not steal.”, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery” up on the walls in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians will create a very hostile work environment!

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26 March 2008 by hamfast.

Not an apostasy-inducing set of questions and nothing that will be answered “42″ by the Deep Thought computer, but here are the 10 top questions I’d like to ask the Almighty one day.

“Why do you want to know?” might be the question that is in your minds right now…The answer: “I’m just curious, that is all!”

• Why does the slice of bread always land butter-side down?
• What do women do when they all go to the “ladies room” together? It couldn’t be the conversation. When I go I want to point Percy at the porcelain or pinch a loaf not to have a conversation with my fellow inmate on dick-holding methods or the art of wiping one’s rear end!
• Why do we have to close our eyes when praying? Does Santa Claus suddenly appear and make a rude gesture in the direction of the crucifix? Is this the only way the priest/pastor/reverend can get a private moment to dig in his nose or scratch himself inappropriately.
• Did Jesus ever fart or break wind when He was on Earth, and if He did he do the right thing and not blame it on the dog?
• What’s the story about dinosaurs and apemen? Did you create then and then wipe them out because you had a better idea?
• …and If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
• Why do children spend their entire childhood mimicking adults and dream what they will be like when they are “grown ups”, yet as soon as they are adults they either act like children or try to reverse the aging process?
• If you created everything did you create diseases and germs too?
• What is the use of the appendix?
• Why did you make women emotional and hormonal yo-yos and guys mostly are the same day in and day out and month in and month out?

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10 March 2008 by hamfast.

Somewhere in our country there is some fatcat raking in the shekels for importing and selling books. I like to visit a “specialist” book store in a local mall - Exclusive Books. There I came across a wonderful book containing the artwork of the Victorian artist and designer William Morris. Only 44 pages long but it had some beautiful full colour plates in it. The price was a staggering R389.00! (that’s $49 in the USA!) When I questioned the sales person about the price, the stupid bint assured me that that was the correct price and that this was an extremely rare and specialised book and said that it was nowhere else to be found.

I didn’t buy the book just then and decided to rather see if Amazon.com had the book in stock, so that afternoon I checked. Amazon.com listed it as an import from Europe and listed it as $14.00. R114 in South Africa. Problem is that the postal delivery from the USA takes an eternity. I am sure it is given to some dude in a dingy and he rows with it from New York to Cape Town and takes 3 months to get here!

I returned to my old favourite Amazon.co.uk and there was the book I was looking for this time selling for 5 Pounds!

Currently the pound is worth R16 so the exchange rate was against me, but even with the postage and normal 10-day delivery AND with the sales tax I would have to pay when the book arrived, I would be able to land the item in South Africa for R112.77!

Out came the credit card and less than 5 minutes later the book was ordered and paid for.

Delivery to my door from the UK took 8 working days!

So off I go - now thoroughly pissed and spoiling for a fight with Exclusive books. I asked to speak to the store manager and I took him to the book (still sitting on the shelf and now marked down to R375.00) and then showed him my invoice from Amazon and the Post Office receipt for the sales tax.

“How can Exclusive Books justify a 240% markup on a book that is available from the UK?”, I asked.

“Well sir we have a lot of tax to pay and imported books are very expensive!” came the formula answer, and then came the clincher, “and it your sort that drive up the prices, going overseas and buying books instead of supporting local industry…”

So it is my fault that book prices in South Africa are so high because I shop around and get it from another place that happens to be overseas… I am still trying to get my head around the logic of that.

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