have you got a minute? of angry fog and steve mcqueen

- The South African Rugby team just won the World Cup. This is basically like Canada or Finland winning the Ice Hockey World Championship. There are like 5 nations in the world that take it seriously and even in those countries it is a 2nd tier sport. Don’t want to rain on the South African parade, but hey...

- Maybe we’re just bitter because the weather hates us. It’s been 48 degrees for the last 48 hours. It is almost summer. To make it even more pleasant, there is this driving, mega-drop fog rolling around. We’ve all seen fog roll in, but this is a new animal altogether. This is like huge, painful pellets of rain just punching people (while cleverly disguised in cloud form).

It’s pretty incredible, actually. We live a few hundred yards from a 600 ft observation tower It is like the Space Needle in Seattle or Tower of Americas or that one with the roller coaster in Vegas or Reunion Tower in Dallas. It’s called the Sentech Tower or Brixton Tower - Google it. Anyway, we really live in the shadow of the thing, only we haven’t seen it in 3 days. Clever fog...


- Stef looks pretty small (smaller than normal) against the backdrop of an ancient volcano that has become a game reserve. Lucky me.

- Did I mention that I may have given away my North Face jacket a little prematurely? Beauty has it in the squatter camp, so I have no regrets. It is her new best jacket and it is another blanket for her kids at night. Still funny that I believed that the summer was upon us (a month ago).

- Can you believe that it is almost November?

- I have been thinking about using an entire post (and an entire chapter of the book that I am trying to piece together) on somewhat obscure movie lines that absolutely make me smile.

For instance, in the Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt”, McQueen looks at a woman whose heart he has recently trampled on. She is doubting him, doubting them, and generally inconsolable. He pulls her close and says, “Time starts now baby.” What?!? Classic line. Makes no sense. Insults the girl. Somehow it all works out.

Or in Jurassic Park, Samuel L Jackson (I think) says “Hold onto your butts” right before he’s about to turn off the electric fences and allow the chaos to begin or something. Hold onto your butts? What?!? That sounds like something Jim Carrey would do in one of his early, irritating movies (Pet Detective, anyone?).

There are certainly more. And I’m not quite sure how any of them fit into any larger picture, but certainly there is something there. My big question concerns the screenwriting abilities of people writing major Hollywood films.

- Stef’s Deal or No Deal Interview went so well. More about that soon.

- A few more Canadians (mounties and eskimos mainly) rolled through here recently. They wanted to have some “South African food”. After several days of intense meetings on the subject, we came to a conclusion that there is no such thing.

- On the subject of cuisine, we ate dinner at the home of a Pakistani/Indian family from the church on Friday night. We had biryani (Google it) which was very good. We also avoided nuclear war, which was good. Seriously, an Indian and a Pakistani? Pretty interesting.

- All for now... Enjoy some coffee for me.