Disillusioned Ling

I sometimes aspire to this level of Excel excellence. My colleagues Xmas tree from graph data

2009-11-02T17:57:00.001+02:00

No she wasn't bored

She was doing it for our Christmas invite

Until I explained it would be much easier to brief a designer to do the invite for us...

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Failing at a drunk driving test

2009-10-20T10:03:00.001+02:00

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Alkotest2.wmv (2594 KB)

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Rent-free space and mentorship for creative comm start-ups: Apply @ McCanns ~ The Kiln

2009-10-05T12:46:00.001+02:00

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How to confuse bees

2009-10-02T10:26:00.001+02:00

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Paragliding media placement fail

2009-09-22T12:20:00.001+02:00

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C&H drinking problem

2009-09-16T17:45:00.001+02:00

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Community Led Animal Welfare needs your help

2009-09-16T16:44:00.001+02:00

Summer is in the air and.....it is going to get HOT!!!

CLAW does not have very good ventilation in our clinic - we are anticipating a hot year and want to try and prepare.

We always have at least 30 hospitalized patients in our clinic and during the day the treatment area can feel like a sauna. If you know of anyone with an old or unwanted fan, please contact us.

Please spread the word to collect old fans!

If I may add the other items that we are crossing our fingers for...

1. A new/used microwave for heating the oat bags for the pups/kittens
2. GPS - for helping us in locating the emergency calls. We receive many emergency calls that lead us on a wild goose chase – a GPS would save both time and petrol
3. Last but not least- our clinic computer was stolen (laptop) This had all of our pics and posters on. We are truly lost without a laptop! Please if anyone could help, that would be amazing!

Don't forget...we have lots of gorgeous pets looking for homes (http://clawadoption.wordpress.com/)

All the best,
Laura and the CLAW crew

Laura Kiemele
CLAW (Community Led Animal Welfare)
Email: clawsouthafrica@gmail.com
Mobile: 071 147 3394
Tel: 011 763 1638 – Fax: 011 672 1604
P.O. Box 546, Florida, 1710, (South Africa)

www.claw-sa.org
www.clawadoption.wordpress.com
www.twitter.com/CLAWsa

From all of the animals at CLAW, thank you!

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'Chat with Russian women" Brilliant google ad targeting: anyone up for a chat or I'll talk to myself...

2009-09-10T18:30:00.001+02:00

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Why women stay single

2009-09-09T15:50:00.001+02:00

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whywomenstaysingle.avi (3301 KB)

I knew there was a good reason...

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I'm in love

2009-09-03T15:13:00.001+02:00

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Here's the fwd'd email that I got, spot anything familiar?

2009-08-24T16:30:00.001+02:00

Clearly someone had way too much time on their hands...

Had this forwarded to me as one of those ooops-fail-pics emails that seem to do the rounds clogging up your inbox.

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Turn around... and I need you more than ever! (a good explanation of total eclipse of the heart)

2009-08-19T15:07:00.001+02:00

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Exactly how you'd expect that to go :

2009-07-31T12:47:00.001+02:00

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The reason why I hate mornings esp for @nickjackson

2009-07-28T06:38:00.001+02:00

The zombie Bart would be manageable if he wasn't accompanied by the alarm that has single handedly caused more 'wrong feet out of bed' and 'blue mondays' every morning of the week.

And yes, this is silly time to be awake.

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Memo.m4a (1469 KB)

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Our new addition to the family, yet to be named, but tres cute kitty

2009-07-16T16:09:00.001+02:00

He's already sleeping on my pillow and its only been a day. #spoiltlittlebrat :)

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Here's a clip of my cat purring. #noimnotboredhowcanyoutell

2009-07-14T11:57:00.001+02:00

I <3 my cat, and she evidently loves to purr. Loudly. Its a trick they do.

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Memo.m4a (1252 KB)

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Rained out in Florence and waaaay too many tourists (beautiful none the less)

2009-06-29T09:04:00.001+02:00

The Duomo is stupendously massive and mostly incomprehensible when you stand next to it (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral)

The statue of the lion (with nekkid David replica in the background) is circa II AD, Roman ~ where were your ancestors when that lion was carved?

The fountain of Neptune by Ammannati and the rape of the Sabine women by Giambologna both in the Piazza della Signoria

I think you need a good week to encompass the Uffizi and all the art in the city, these photos paint a somewhat bleak picture of Florence, although it is dirty and busy, but deserves the recognition as the starting point of Renaissance and being home to so many great artists. The crowds are draining and the rain was a welcome relief to hide indoors for a while... Right, I'm off to Venice now.

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In my next life, I'm coming back as an Italian (photos from Siena and surrounds)

2009-06-26T23:51:00.002+02:00

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Lake Garda, a castle on each hill and pick-a-sign photos from Italy

2009-06-25T22:51:00.002+02:00

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I'm petitioning for a less dramatic life

2009-06-25T17:57:00.002+02:00

What scenic, quiet family holiday is complete without a mad dash to find a hospital? I mean if you attract plane crashes, you may as well seek out a hospital every time you do something...

We started off in Prague, where we met some of our family to go exploring the beautiful city. They were lending us their car so that we could drive through to Italy and stay in Tuscany. We drove very slowly through Czechoslovakia and Germany as it was pelting with rain, following our little navigation system lady who was telling us to head-on, straight ahead through the rain and cold (summer = 11 degrees here), we stayed the night in Bolzano and in the morning we headed off to Tuscany through Florence and Sienna. We decided to take a leisure stop on Lake Garda and it was absolutely stunning.

From the morning on, my mom kept on complaining of a headache, but who pays attention to that kinda thing? At lunch she decided, since she's in Italy, she is going to have an authentic Calzone but because she was feeling sickly, she missed out on the wine in favour of water. Off we went on our merry way through the treacherous coastal (not really coastal just an extremely curvy, high, full of tunnels and bridges and mountains road, ask charles how much I hate these types of roads). My mom and I were freaking out because of the sheer drops on each side and although it was beautiful but we were pretty nervous.

We headed into the Tuscan and Chianti regions and my mom kept on complaining more and more of her headache and now she knew her pressure was quite high (her normal blood pressure is low, so she knows as soon as it goes through the roof) so we stopped at a pharmacy to get her blood pressure tested. The pharmacists gave us some drops for her blood pressure which was now at 156/90 (her usual one is 110) and old me to ONLY give it to her IF it doesn't come down within the next hour, after she drinks some lemon water and puts her feet in warm water. Look I have NO IDEA how thats suppose to help but apparently it does. So, at this stage we'd been driving for the last two days and were very keen to get to our resort which was apparently around yet another friggen bendy bend in an idyllic tuscan country side. We drove on, in hope that we'd get there and she can rest and feel better. This is where we were extremely wrong.

As we drove on, her pressure and now a full migraine were getting worse and worse, making my dad and I more and more nervous by the minute. The Garner GPS lady, lets call her Nancy, was telling us to turn left and right into unpronounceable Italian names (all you can say is what in goods name did Nancy just say when you hear: "In two hundred meters, turn right into Via del Sasso di San Bernardino") and when we were about ten minutes away from victory it all of a sudden told us: " Turn right onto an unpaved road" and whadaya know? There it was a ghastly gravel road, running right next to a sewage pipe, not unlike the one you see in Dainferm. I was highly skeptical that we were on the right road as a an international resort wasn't going to be down a very steep gravel road next to a sewage pipe heading STRAIGHT down a very steep hill, even if its in a beautiful surrounding and especially if its at 8pm at night. (Thank God it was still light)

My mother, who is clearly in pain by now and needs urgent medical assistance is begging me for the drops that supposed to bring her pressure down (she faints at 160 and I was trying to avoid that) my dad is worried that Nancy is leading us astray, and Im worried that my mother is about to lose consciousness and we're miles away from doctors or any civilisation and that we're about to go off a cliff on a pretty Italian country side. Surely, we come to a dead end next to a farm house which was probably built in the late 18h century and hasn't been refurbished since, one wing completely dilapidated (doubt they have heard of cars, as we spotted a cow or a horse at the bottom of the house) one wing housing a family as I spotted a my little pony, just like the one I head when I was little, outside the door. There were no signs of life besides for the horsey animals, and my mother, outside of the car is doubling up in pain, sobbing uncontrollably. I give her the drops in hope that they make her feel better, and we pack back into the car to head back up the hill. So now, we have a spooked me, trying to keep calm and the situation under control (Do not let her know you have no cell phone signal is what I'm thinking) my dad who is battling to get the car to get traction on the gravel to go up a hill and the back of the car is swaying dangerously close to the edge, and my mother, who is in so much pain she looks like she is about to start tearing out her hair, she has stopped sobbing as she is in too much pain and she now has spazms in her neck and throat (making me think her throat is about to close up) she looks dangerously like she is about to pass out, and I am hoping that she does so she can stop feeling the pain.

Oh yes, and Nancy, our dearest Nancy, is telling us " Now navigate off road" errrm, offroad into what Nancy? An idyllic oblivion? Errrm no thanks...

We eventually pull back on the main road, now heading straight for the first town, straight obviously meaning very bendy 60km/h on a windy hill one lane no emergency lane road. My mother can not even look straight in the back seat, is in so much pain she can not utter a single word, my dad and I freaked out spot an ambulance. OH MY GOD. Seriously, an ambulance? We start CHASING the Ambulance through the hills,I'm hooting, my dad is flashing, but I don't think they care, after all the Italians are full of life, and we're just celebrating life here, aren't we?

After they show no sign of slowing down my dad overtakes them and we flag them down. Oh but we're in Italy and English is not a commonly spoken language in the country side... We show them my mother, they don't know what to do : "Doctor!!" I shout, "Hospital!!" errrm, "Si, si" they answer, but they not trained, so they direct us to Monticiano a one street town 4kms away which has a first aid doctor, we race my mom there, who's struggling to breath, see and live at this stage, and is in so much pain, I doubt childbirth compares. We drive into town and head on to what looks like a green cross sign, YAAAY I spot another ambulance and we rush to find the doctor and the paramedic chilling outside. I guess not much happens in this town. We carry my mom upstairs into a tiny doctors room and they start asking me a million questions. In Italian. I T A L I A N. I can understand tres petit Francais, a bitjie Afrikaans, gosh I can speak fluent Russian, but not Italian. Ciao and Gracia is as far as my understanding goes. So now I have to explain, to the doctor that she has a had headache, ok I can act that one out, high blood pressure? Boiling blood? errrm not so much. So I start drawing them ---> and the actual pressure 156/90 and the drops (I even drew those) and what she ate and how much time's passed since I gave her the drops... 10 minutes latter a dashingly handsome tall man runs in with a paramedic and says "Whats up?" in an almost American accent. I almost melted. He had then and there saved my mother (who was still not able to concentrate or speak and was in clear pain) but she was saved as I could now tell them everything.

They put my mom on a drip, gave her some medicine to bring the pain down, brought down her blood pressure and after about an hour she was smiling and giving me an occasional giggle at my jokes on chasing down an ambulance. Apparently she wanted us to stop on the side so she could lie down in the tall Italian meadows so she could kick the bucket outside and not the car. Not so much mother. Not on my guard.

Oh yes and we brought Nancy to the correct resort, as predicted it really wasnt on a gravel road...

Beautiful Prague

2009-06-22T21:53:00.002+02:00

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Praha photos, reminds me so much of Soviet Tallinn (where I grew up)

2009-06-20T17:28:00.002+02:00

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Scubaing with Nemos in Thailand (just got these developed) and eeeeek sea urchins!

2009-06-16T19:39:00.001+02:00

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Some pics from Asia, the rest will be on flicker once I get hold of some bandwidth...

2009-05-18T10:01:00.001+02:00

Tonle Sap, Angkor Wat, fish pedi (my worst nightmare, but I'm awake), Hanoi, me as a rabbit in front of our hotel (its not easter is it, they not Christian are they? why are there rabbits in front of our hotel, beats me. They didn't serve them for dinner...) Crab dinner (Yum yum), Phi Phi islands, Kuala Limpur and sunset over Phuket.

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Untitled

2009-05-04T12:49:00.001+02:00

Catch of the day in Halong Bay: octopus and starfish yummm. like earing a hoof yum.

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Today was a great day because

2008-11-04T16:47:00.000+02:00

I spent the whole day on the phone to SAA after they cancelled my flight for no apparent reason. a week in advance. After I gave them my cc details. They don't know why they cancelled it either. Oh another great institution that doesnt work. Just like Nedbank. Oh did I mention the average hold waiting time is 9.45 seconds before someone pings you off to the next consultant?

Joe the Plummer

2008-10-29T00:16:00.000+02:00

Absolutely LOOOVE this website, updated daily: http://www.palinaspresident.us/

And all the references...

The trouble with dags is....

2008-10-28T22:36:00.000+02:00

A conversation that made me snort my coffee all over my keyboard and my mom to think I was having a seizure after I laughed so much...

18:06:42 A : whats wrong with the dags?

18:06:49 G : oh my

18:06:51 G : what a story

18:07:08 A : which dogs?

18:07:25 G : the owners dogs

18:07:28 G: of my place

18:07:45 A : what did they do?

18:08:14 G: so this morning early early my phone rang

18:08:19 G: and i was like yeah fuck you who ever

18:08:23 G: and then it rang again

18:08:44 G: so i answered it and it was the boy - and he says um sorry to wake you but we have a bit of a problem

18:08:53 G: and i am thinking ok so we were broken into

18:10:03 G: and then he says my dog is stuck in your car wheel

18:10:12 G: and i was thinking shit i ran over the dog last night

18:10:40 Gs: and so i jump up and put some clothes on and sure enough the dog when under the car and got caught under around the wheel

18:10:52 G: he was whimpering and everything

18:11:27 G: so we jacked the car and then got him out - and then he went right back under

18:11:30 G: fucking thing

18:11:40 G: so they put him inside

18:11:47 G: so i went back to bed for a bit

18:12:07 G: then got up and went to my car and found the other under the car - not suck but looking at something - must be a rat or who knows

18:12:16 G: brushed him away and got in my car

18:12:30 G: turned it on and the dashboard lights up like a fucking christmas tree with error

18:12:34 G: called audi

18:12:37 G: took it to audi

18:13:04 G: the dog broke the wheel sensor so my ABS and traction control doesn't work and the brake pads are telling me they are worn

18:13:19 G: and of course dogs in your wheels doesn't fall under the motor plan

18:13:28 G: i swear that car is cursed

Growing up

2008-03-16T13:43:00.001+02:00

So when is it that you grow up? Is it when you buy your first car? Your first house? Your get your first job? Does it need to be about a first or can it be on your fifth? or tenth? You know, perhaps by the time you moved 5 jobs you could call yourself an adult, or is it when you buy your first anti wrinkle eye creme or celebrate your fiftieth birthday?

Or perhaps its none of those or all of them combined? When should you grow up? When should you want to settle down and start a family? MAke some proper financial decisions? Not the ones that are based on a day to day expenditure and the nice pair of shoes you just walked by, the kind that make sure that you don't starve by the time you are 75 (if you don't get killed by some religious extremest in the process)

Most importantly do you actually need to grow up?

pass me the headphones please (and a barf bag)

2008-02-01T01:43:00.000+02:00

Things are absolutely manic at work, we are trying to figure out a way to handle all the projects going through while all my line managers are on holiday (and so am I in a weeks time) wooop wooop. This usually means that I don't leave the office until at least 8pm.

One of our clients was in our office and he had comps to the premier of Cloverfield. Wow. The theatre stereo was really really loud and at half the time I sat with my fingers in my ears. I love all the conversations afterwards, the comparisons and the search for the metaphorical meanings in the movie. wow its a 9/11 comparison. wow its this and that. simply, its a mix of blair witch and Godzilla. Yes you can link it back to social commentary. But coming from creators of Lost (and that clearly had no point) I think they just went, hmmmm i'm super successful, I have this huge post fx budget, I can do whatever the hel I want... Hmmm I am a boy and I like monsters. Yes a movie about a monster. I can just see this happening in their minds while they sip on their lattes.

On a lesser monster note, its about to snow. Or rather spit with horrid, putrid wet stuff while howling with wind.

I'm off to watch Hero's. Woop wooop. and its Friday tomorrow. WOOOOP!

Inspiration nation

2008-01-22T02:53:00.000+02:00

My good mate TP just started a planning job for an agency. She kept on asking everyone what inspires them.. Just came across this and this and couldn't help exploring more and more. Next time I get one of her all-friends emails at least I have something to tell her

CNN do it in 19 minutes

2008-01-22T01:26:00.000+02:00

... and my housemates and closest friends do it in 2 months. It will be two month on the weekend and I'm hoping something will change by then...

Rational vs Irrational

2008-01-20T22:33:00.000+02:00

I love it when people are not afraid to talk about their believes in rational and irrational, science vs religion vs God vs spirituality. Had an awesome conversation at Amarath (very delicious, thanks for not serving us desert tho past 11 pm, which we were dying for) about the role religion and the notion of God plays in using cre to modify genes to help find a cure for cancer. Which to me raises a whole bunch of other questions. Do we need the research? Have we humanity put an unnecessary burden on natural resources already and curbed the natural human culling process? Do we have to test the new medicine on third world countries and disguise it as 'help'? And do the researches actually do it for their passion or the pay? Too many unanswered questions too walk away with at the end of the night so made GW miss his train home, sorry about that G! And of course it led me back to this, without a god, life is only a matter of opinion.

I suppose that is a bit of a intense start of to this blog, I don't intend for this blog to make sense to anyone, and especially not me as I am still trying to figure it all out myself. By all I mean just the little bits of life that do make sense to me. And fear not that will probably be the one and only religious related post for a long long while.

On another, lighthearted front, walking home bumped into my to housemates and very close friends who had a bit of an accident with hair-dye and ended up looking a bit like a baby chick mixed with skunk option. As a girl, never do your own hair. Unless you are a super pro hairdresser with eyes on the back of your head (that would look very weird, and I am sure uncomfortable in a hair dying scenario).

Hoping to see GW again before he scoots off back to his newly adopted home country. While I ponder the meaning of life, the briefs I have to write today and a trend watch report that I'm dying to read.