I was tagged

I know the originator of this was back in the distant past, but I'm blaming moonflake for tagging me. Unfortunately I was feeling a little morbid while writing this. So it's not filled with very many bundles of joy. Also, each point starts with "I". This was not deliberate.

1. I hate working in all it forms. Homework, actual work, house work etc. I just can’t connect effort with reward, there’s a short-circuit in my brain. I can see the logic, but the connection never sticks.
2. I’m a raving soccer fan. I’ll drop just about any other engagement to watch my team play.
3. I’m an idealist. I wish the world could be a better place. I wish that corruption and nepotism weren’t the rule-of-thumb in most of the world. I wish there were better systems than democracy and capitalism. I feel guilty I’m perpetrating the problem.
4. Connection to point 3. I’m a cynic. No idealist with more than a few points of brain power could be otherwise. Barring asteroids (or something else) from space, mankind isn’t likely change.
5. I’m a cured epileptic. I was diagnosed in standard 1, and was the guinea pig for half a tonne of drugs between then and the end of standard 8. The drugs messed me up proper.
6. I wish I could draw. I would love to be able to turn the images in my head into images on paper – instead a stagger around using words in a medium that doesn’t entirely suite it. Part of this problem drawn from the aforementioned medication – I shake, and when I try and focus on fine motor control, I shake more.
7. I hated school. Not unusual in my demographic, but there are very few things I take from either my prep or secondary school that could balance the negatives. I still hate St. Stithians and just about anything associated with it. It’s irrational.
8. I hate bugs. I’m scared of some, others seem to annoy me to the exclusion of others. The fear part is based not so much of the perceived damage they can do, but rather to “finding them in your shoes” etc. Unfortunately this has been proved a valid fear for me.
9. I’m scared of the dark. More a 1 point phobia, but I blame my imagination. You catch yourself lying in bed thinking “there could be someone there, I can’t tell”. You can rationalise those thoughts away, but sometimes I have to check.
10. I enjoy playing sports. Specifically soccer and squash. I’m no good at them (pathetically so with soccer), but I love playing. If I could find a Sunday football league, I’d probably actually get fit. The problem is finding them.
11. I’ve done my stint with the mind shrinkers. When I left UCT I was at the bottom ebb of a nasty depression. I went to joburg to find myself. I haven’t seen my shrink in a year, and am mostly clear.
12. I’m good at doing nothing. If a rich relative fell over dead and left me a house and a small bundle of money, I while away the hours reading, playing games and doodling with crap fiction – boredom is no object.
13. I’m not a great copywriter. I don’t think I ever will be. But on the other hand, it’s a first, small, step on the way to become a proper professional writer. As opposed to technically a professional writer.
14. I have no idea how to talk to women. Sadly it’s not the typical movie character “I don’t understand women.” No, I just don’t how to deal with them as anything other than the Platonic friend. (Short) relationships I’ve been in have been accidents or initiated by the female. At the moment this is my worst angst item.
15. I lie with great ease. It’s a talent, but I’m not certain if it’s something to be proud of.
16. I hope to return to university and actually do a theoretical physics degree. My inner idealist feels I should be doing something constructive to help world “blah”.
17. I’ve never had sex. Partly overblown romanticism, partly self loathing, partly aiming to high, and mostly lack of opportunity. Moral excuses just don't factor into it.
18. I’m a morbid drunk. Usually I’m far to worried about losing control of my mind that I focus on not getting silly, so I get drunk but not daft. Occasionally, though, I’ll suddenly be struck by the feeling that all the fun has gone, and all I’ll want to do is go home.
19. I love stories. Whether in movies, role playing games, comics, anecdotes, books or my head; I just love a well told story. The plot can be cliché, the characters predictable…I’ll eat it up.
20. I’m not brilliant at grammar. Unfortunately it’s part of my job description.

Joy.

Do you have a permit for that Pyramid?

Two points today:

First, a retroactive commentary on the Government's ludicrous "No car day". Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea - or rather, it's good to see they are responding to the problem, but the response wasn't great.

You see, it's the simplist response to the massive overcrowding of our roads: too many cars on the roads - why don't they use public transport instead. And that's where the idea falls down.

I was going to go into an indepth examination of the whys and wherefores, but to put it simply: the main problem with public transport is in Joburg, where the combination of no non-taxi transport networks combined with Joburg's massive suburban spread has reached proto-LA status (eg. bad).

But their solution was, well, daft. Nevermind that it was mostly ignored, but that they encouraged people to use the minibus taxi system. (In Joburg, you can't use anything else, really.)

Nevermind that the taxi industry is not public, and only services the most profitable routes to the exclusion of all others. That's crazy enough as it is, but you see: the government's "No car day" encourages crime.

To start with: something like 50% of drivers in South Africa don't have licenses, and a scary number of those that do, bought them. (Unfortunately I can't link you to the appropriate article, I hate IOL's search engine, and it hates me.) And then add in the totally unfounded opinion that the Taxi industry is more likely to have illegal no licenses than your run of the mill motorist.

And the government knows this.

Then you have the taxi's themselves, they're falling to pieces. Take the steering wheel out, whatever. They're unroadworthy in many instances. But it's okay, you can bribe the police and keep rolling. Again, the government knows this.

And the taxi industry? They take in millions of rands of profit a year (they are cited as the most impressive most apartheid business story). And they pay no taxes. The government knows this too.

So basically, "No car day" was asking you to aid in a plethora of different illegal industries (for the slow: the driver license fraud, bribery of police officials and dodging of taxes. Not to mention that rather "curious" justice the taxi unions exert on any rivals.)

All hail our wise and noble leaders.

Right, and now to totally break from crazy theories (warning, sarcasm), I bring you Europe's first pyramid. The dating proposed sounds a little weird, but hey: cool.