Traffic Problems? ..Blame the Public!

In the past I’ve readily blamed the traffic authorities and government, for most of our problems on the roads of South Africa. Yesterday, however I witnessed the absolute stupidity of the public when it comes to causing congestion on our roads.

Take for instance this scenario, which played itself out on the motorway going home yesterday;

As we join the highway at Kibler Park going south towards Alberton, the traffic almost immediately slows down to a crawl. B and myself already discuss alternate routes and decide to leave the highway at the first turn-off at Randhart and cut under the highway, using a different route, which we’re both familiar with.

So we crawl along and finally we reach the turn-off at Randhart. I look a bit further and see that directly after the turn-off the traffic is flowing smoothly again. What the fuck was the reason for the congestion?

A truck had gone off the road at the on-ramp to the highway, completely out of site. Only a total fucknut, who just happened to crane his neck to near breaking point, could have noticed it. Now everyone was slowing down to stare at the accident.
On the top photo - Orange Arrow:Traffic. Yellow Arrow: Accident (Click on photo to enlarge for better view)

Total time wasted travelling 5km: 20 minutes.

During the past two months or so, the road works agency have installed steel plates on the M2 going East and West, and the speed limit is 40km/h over these plates. So what does the public do? They fuckin stop dead at every fuckin plate and creep over. Wake up South Africa and smell the traffic signs. They’re there for a reason.

The Accident.

How Bona!

This Taxi tried to take the slipway at a high speed and rolled in front of oncoming traffic. Scary!

Tick ,tock... tick, tock

If you wanna know when your sorry ass is gonna visit the six foot beyond, go to the link below.

Apparently I'm going to die in August, 2032. That's just way to much time to live. So I'll be there for the first Mars landing. Time travel? Or perhaps visiting aliens.

The King, of Crap Blog servers. Mweb South Africa

When I first ventured onto the blog scene, I was looking for a place to vent my anger on everything from people to politics, and everything else.

I stumbled upon Blogger, and after a few tentative steps, took the plunge and haven’t looked back. I’m no Computer programmer and my technical skills are sufficient to get things done. I liked the clean-cut pages and enjoyed the fact that No-one had access unless I said so. That was particularly relevant with advertising
(my pet hate). Should I wish to clutter my pages with crap or sell something that was my prerogative to do so.

What I enjoyed most was being able to post photos. I’ve been a keen amateur photographer for my entire life so putting it ‘out there’ was a personal pleasure for me. No more boxes full of photos and shopping for albums. The digital age was here and I was ready to embrace it with both arms and legs.

******

During December of last year I wanted to have a blog with access to local readership in South Africa and opened a blog at Mweb.co.za. You cannot for one moment imagine what hell that was. The fuckin thing hardly ever works.

They have no system to block unwanted anonymous comments and have a ‘most recently updated’ list, which leads to the most incredible phenomenon, bloggers continuously repost articles just so they can remain up top to get readership. Changing simple things like commas and full stop’s just to be able to remain on top of the list for as long as possible. Further to this they have counters, and some bloggers are so obsessed with having the highest count, they do their utmost to blog as much as possible, mostly cut and paste rubbish like jokes and poems.

Posting photos is a fuckin nightmare, the fuckin photo’s take bloody ages to load and even when they do, you’re not guaranteed they’re gonna stay on your blog for any amount of time. They keep appearing and disappearing at the will of some spiteful shit at Mweb, who clearly has no fuckin clue how to run a Blog server. Mweb also only allow the minimal amount of editing and no editing of the html at all!

On top of that they clutter ‘your’ blog with so much advertising, it totally fucks up the page diameters. And to add salt to the wound bloggers are not allowed to put advertising of their choice, or advertise anything on their blogs.

A few bloggers at Mweb really don’t deserve this kind of treatment as they run interesting blogs with good subject matter and minimal use of weird colour text or cut and paste rubbish. They’re the ones complaining the most. The rest are either ignorant or too busy pasting to notice.

Want to see what a really crap blog server is like? Go visit www.mweb.co.za and go to the Blog pages.

Technology Kills

Twice over this weekend I was witness to head-on collisions on the road to and from home. In both instances it was a luxury vehicle and a low end of the market commute.

Admittedly one accident involved a mini bus taxi, and we all know the fuckers drive like fuckin lunatics. But, it had me thinking about the safety features built in to the latest model cars and how it improves a driver’s chances of survival in an accident.

Even new cars at the lower end of the market have, at the very least, driver and passenger airbags, and crumple zones up front. Move higher up the market and you have added airbags in the doors and window frames with perhaps side impact protection. At the top of the range you have all the interior protection plus driver aids like anti skid ABS brake systems, impact sensitive Head Restraints, Impact absorbing interiors, Traction control, Electronic Stability systems, and some, even Night Vision with Heads up Display.

Top end cars also have the latest Xenon headlights that follow the curve of the road, allowing you to anticipate upcoming obstructions at the peripheral of your line-of-sight.

Not to mention those annoying fog lights that especially the BMW drivers are so fond of, even on clear evenings.

All of this makes your chance of surviving in almost any type of accident, including head-on’s, much better than the poor fucker in the Beetle you just T-boned. And that is exactly the point I’m trying to make. If you can afford it, you’re fine and dandy, but those of us who drive around in our affordable runabouts don’t stand a fucking chance, do we now?

On top of that, the fuckers that drive their expensive NHTSA-Approved Mercs and BM’s at excessive speeds, flashing their Xenon’s at unsuspecting nerve-wracked commuters, who’s only ambition is to get home to spend a few hours with their kids and make supper before passing out from exhaustion, I have this to say; Fuck you!

Carry on blaming the Taxi’s and un-roadworthy vehicles for as long as your speed control remains at 140km/h, but hear this; one day you’re going to be the cause of an accident, and although you’ll be a bit shaken and annoyed at your insurance excess, the family in the fully paid-up Corolla, on their way to the coast for holiday are not going to be so lucky.

Think about that, and if you have even the slightest feeling for your fellow man, keep your new toy in line and take it easy with the headlights. I know they’re nice and shiny and make you see the Polar Regions on Mars, but it makes it impossible for an approaching vehicle to see the road.

In my experience you can’t even see the yellow emergency lines, as a last resort to keep your car on the road.

Your luxury vehicle has a ton of added features, they just don't all have to be on at the same time.

Enjoy your 650 iesxtdi, but keep it humble.

Demons Day Jol

Fuck, but it’s been so long since I’ve been able to go to a Biker jol, never mind a Rally. So me and the missus leathered up and made a turn at the Demon’s day jol in Florida two weekends ago.

To hook up with old friends again and rub shoulders with the West Rand bikers was befuck, and well worth the effort. Since the Buffalo Rally, money has been a bit on the short side, and we’ve had to make do with the occasional venture to the local for some well deserved socialising.

The jol itself was no better or worse than any other I’ve been to, but the fact that all my buddies were present made for a great day. It was time to sit back, talk shit and down a few cold Black’s. Herbie supplied the music, and he hardly ever disappoints, with a good mix of Rock and mellow chick music. One thing can be said for us bikers. No matter how time marches on, the personalities stay the same and you never have to feel uncomfortable if you haven’t seen someone for a while. Conversation just carries on as if you last saw each other only yesterday.

Being hooked up with a girlfriend has paid due to my wild, free roaming days, but hell, I miss it so much I’m prepared to take the odd rap over the knuckles if I could do it more often.

See you at the next one. Red knuckles and all.

The most powerful No..

..in the Universe, after America’s veto right in the United Nations, must belong to parents, or so I thought.

When I was growing up in suburbia in the seventies there was no more-powerful word to be heard from a parent.
No meant No. If you asked for something and was given the No, you ventured no further. There was no back chatting or crying or even pleading. The word No meant the end of the matter, and you got on with life. Some children played parents up against each other, and often got a Yes by just asking the other parent at the appropriate moment.

For some reason or another when the word No exits my mouth, it changes matter, much like the transporter beam in Star Trek. Even when I raise my voice, add a grating rumble from my throat, and give a stern look at the recipient, it just has the opposite effect. I’ve always known this, but I continue to hope that just once the No would have the desired effect, and the person would say, “okay” and move on.

Since September last year I’ve been dating the most wonderful woman I could ever have asked to cross my path. I had my eye on her for almost two years, before she finally became single again, and I found out that she had liked me for almost as long. We hit it off immediately and I was convinced she was my soul mate. Not only is she beautiful, she also has an amazingly spontaneous personality that had me smiling silently on more than one occasion. What I had forgotten was that although my love was single, she was the mother of two young children, and things would change, dramatically.

I made a choice early in life that I do not want to get married and have children. Much of my decision stemmed from knowing that I had put my parents through hell for at least 20 of the 40 years of my life. I just couldn’t envisage myself as a good parent, and I was certain I had none of the skills to be a great parent. So for most of my life I avoided child minding, even during the briefest of confrontations.

Now I find myself living with the woman that I love, and two children. The girl is 5 years old, and the boy 7 years old. From the start I said to my love that the kids are no problem and I can deal with it. Was I ever wrong? Never was I more confused as to the meaning of the word No than ever before. I thought it would be simpler. Not dead easy, just simpler. The boy would ask me for something, and if I thought it inappropriate, I would say No and continue with what I was doing. Soon I’d hear crying come from the children’s room, and I’d go over to investigate. The boy would be sitting on his bed sobbing his heart out. When I ask what was wrong, the boy would reply that he wanted this or that and that I had said No. I’d be stymied! I’ve tried to explain to the boy that he was very wise to ask if he wanted something, but then he would also have to accept that if the answer was No, he should be grown up about it and accept that sometimes his requests will be denied.

Asking permission to do something meant there was a certain amount of doubt in one’s mind whether it was the right thing to do, hence we ask permission. For instance; if he had asked me if he could play outside, I could say No because a) His clothing was inappropriate, and I would tell him to change, or b) it was late or getting dark, and he would soon have to go bath or have supper. Also I explained that No today did not necessarily mean No tomorrow. A parent weighs the pros and cons of a given situation and responds in a manner appropriate to the well being of the child. Is it no so? The boy was strangely calm and understanding, and I thought I had finally made a breakthrough.

But by tomorrow, everything would be back to ‘normal’, and I find that migraine creeping up from around the eyebrows again. I’ve even had paranoid moments where I’m certain it’s a deliberate attempt by the kids to make me mad and thereby get me to pack up and get the fuck out. It made sense sometimes, as I move from punishment to shouting, screaming and more often lately to quiet talk. I’ve even tried ignoring them completely, but nothing helps.

For the most part I find myself feeling helpless. I cannot begin to tell you how it pains me to see the sadness in my Love’s eyes each time I loose it with the kids. I love her so much, it is indescribable, but a parent I am not. There is nothing in the world I want more than to make her happy every day, but my mind is fucked. It can’t be easy for her to see this all the time. How she does it I don’t know. The kids listen to her, and hardly ever is it even necessary for her to raise her voice even 1 decibel.

Every evening I promise myself to give her all my attention, as I do every morning, and all goes well until we pick the kids up after work, or they get up in the morning. My mind has no time to rest, to even think. Its just turmoil after turmoil, after turmoil.

I cannot stand the thought of loosing my one Love. I go back to the grindstone and try again.