Pictorials From Around The World

Mother...you left me/but I never left you - John Lennon, Mother.

Event: A Supporter from the Ivory Coast before their match against Ghana during the Afican Nations Cup.

Location: Angola.

Picture by: Reuters

 They say in the East they will move anything on two wheels.

Two guys, a cell phone and a live & kicking water buffalo going to the "market"

Location: Vietnam.

Picture by: Mark Armstrong from Wales

If you follow me obediently I won't have to use this noose

Event: Emperor penguins following a researcher on sea ice

Location: McMurdo Sound, Antarctica

Picture: James Pinchin of Barnstaple, Devon, England

Oh Really! An interesting concept for men.

Location: Interstate 95 in Florida, USA

Picture by: Peter Hoyles

Just a minute boys! Hang on! I really don't like water and prefer trees.

Event: An orangutan near the village of Bukit Lawang in Sumatra being moved back to the forest from a rehabilitation centre. Sometimes orangutans who have been set free are caught sneaking back to the centre in search of human food.

Location: Sumatra

Picture by: Pete Andrew from Wirral, Merseyside, UK.

This is so applicable for the northern hemisphere winter of 2009/2010 when the weather was very unpredicable.

Location:  Eastbourne

Picture by: David Lees

 

 Alexandra Hotel: 5 star accommodation, newly renovated just in time for the Soccer World Cup in South Africa.

Location: Alexandra Township near Johannesburg, South Africa

Nearby attractions include an open air barber shop and a streetside games room for dominoes.

Location: Alexandra Township near Johannesburg, South Africa

While visiting South Africa please make time to experience the local version of a poolside BBQ.

Location: Somewhere in South Africa (certainly not everywhere)

And finally

The poster says it all!

Location: Bequia, Caribbean

Picture by: Alex Michaelis

The Feathered Hat

When I saw this picture of Queen Elizabeth with all its earthy colors and the feathered hat which looked like someone squashed a big fat hairy spider on it, I wondered:

1) Was she pissed off because someone in a high pitched voice, while frantically pointing, made a remark about a spider on her hat?

2) Was she walking her beloved dogs and just realized she stepped in a pile of dog shit and is afraid to look down?

3) Is that how President Zuma dresses for a visit to England? For God’s sake it’s winter here!

4) Was that last fart a wet one?

Where Are The Kangaroos?

Does anyone have a few brain cells they can do without to sell to Miss Kirsten Bell?

Don’t try to ring her bell because I don’t think anyone will answer.

Miss Bell, the starlet in the movie Couples Retreat, rated a dismal 15% only by the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, just returned to the US from a trip to Australia and in an interview she expressed her disappointment by the lack of kangaroos at the airport when she arrived in Australia.

Well Miss Bell, have you ever considered how disappointed Australians are when they arrive in America and find there are no grizzly bears at the airport to welcome them?

Damn! How inconsiderate can we Americans be by not ensuring foreigners are welcomed by our wild animals? Damnit twice!

Now I have to admit it is not just Miss Bell that holds these views of wild animals in public streets. I personally have been asked if there are still lions in the streets of Johannesburg, to which I usually answer: "Yes, in Johanannesburg there are many (referring to the Lions Rugby supporters), but not that many in Cape Town. I also recently read in an Internet forum where someone asked if visitors to South Africa for next year's Soccer World Cup will be safe against attacks from wild animals. To that I will also say: Yes, you are safe from the four legged animals, but watch out for the two legged kind.

Also see this article and what the Australian press think about Miss Bell's non-encounter with kangaroos.

What's that thing they say about blonds...

New York’s Annual Diplomatic Circus

The friendly get together of world leaders in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly's 64th annual country fair looks rather like a tea party of rich bitches of the Divided Nations.

How much you have to take what these guys and dolls are saying serious, is an unanswered question. And it could even be answered with another question: “Who cares?”

There was Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who continued with his Jew-bashing and holocaust-denial and 12 countries stood up and walked out during his speech. If you look at the list who walked out one might think they had prior meetings scheduled to discuss more interesting topics. The possibilities are endless. The Costa Ricans could have been interested in selling tropical vacations to the Germans and Danes, while Australia, New Zealand and Argentina might have strategize how to introduce the Pumas into the Four Nations rugby tournament in 2012.

And if you look at the picture, I don’t know why there is such a fuss about the walkout. It seems many countries didn’t even rock up in the first place to listen to Ahmadinejad. The place is half empty before the walkout.

France’s Nicolas Sarkozy took a swing at America and Britain with his “the behavior of those who still continue to grow indecently rich, after leading the world to the brink of disaster.”

Pardon Monsieur! You’re wrong…But you’re also slightly right!

Wrong, most Americans aren’t growing rich, certainly not indecently rich, any time soon, and right, about leading the world to a banking disaster, rather than to the brink of disaster. Isn’t a brink of disaster more like standing on a precipice of a ginormous sinkhole that gets bigger and bigger, you staring open-mouth, unbelievably, until you eventually realize the world is falling through its own ass.

After this I don’t think the US and Britain wanted to talked to France anymore, but then most Frenchmen would have shrugged their shoulders, gave a Mona Lisa smile and said “Vous savez…politiciens.”

And the Americans weren’t talking to their best buddies the Brits in any case because Barack Obama snubbed Gordon Brown…again. He snubbed him in March 2009 too. This time it is more like a diplomatic cold-shoulder, but not too far away from a slap in the face with an aristocratic riding glove.

[No, I don’t think Obama has one of those.]

President Obama has refused five separate requests from Prime Minister Brown for a private meeting when Brown will be town. Five times? Wow! That’s close to begging! Rumor has it that the snubs came after President Obama expressed how pissed off he is at the Brits for releasing the Lockerbie bomber. The release is a sore point for many Americans.

Talking about Libya. What’s up with Gaddafi? Setting foot in the US for the first time in 40 years, (I have no idea why he was given a visa in the first place) he was really the clowning jewel on the fairgrounds.

Looking like a cross between Mr. T with all his medals and someone who is having a bad hair day and tried to cover it up under a pill-box hat, Gaddafi wanted to pitch his tent in New Jersey.

[His tent?]

Eventually he was demonstrated out of the idea by a feverish local Jewish Rabbi and many of his friends. Gaddafi then crossed the Hudson River and tried to pitch his tent in the backyard of Donald Trump’s joint north of New York City. But the local council blocked it because he didn’t get a permit to put up a tent.

[Gee, I didn’t know you had to get a permit to pitch a tent in your backyard?]

And couldn’t anyone in Gaddafi’s entourage tell him that New York is actually a concrete jungle and not a sandy desert. Putting up a tent? I’m sure they could have found a reasonably good hotel room, redecorate it to look like a tent, and even put some sand on the floor. Hotels will allow anything these days to get clientele.

[Doesn’t seem like they have any bright lights in that entourage chandelier.]

All that was missing from this circus was Robert Mugabe. Well, he actually was at the Assembly, and he even gave a speech, but there was no silly, stupid comments like “We are not hungry... Why foist this food upon us? We don't want to be choked. We have enough.”

[Yeah Right!]

This would all change again on Friday morning, after the circus packed up and moved south to Pittsburgh, when Obama, Brown and Sarkozy became big buddies once more and presented themselves as a united troika to announce they caught Ahmadinejad with its hands in a new and “previously unknown” nuclear cookie jar.

An interesting week in politics can be a very long or a very short time! So much depends on which way the wind blows and on which side of the fart you are standing.

The Ultimate Outsourcing Strategy

More American Workers Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas

The World's Longest Yard Sale

Once a year, from the first Thursday in August to that Sunday, Joe and Mary Public, merchants, junk dealers or anyone else that try to make a quick buck, drag, push or carry their junk to US Highway 127 for the world’s longest yard sale. This is so “Only in America.”

For 654 miles through five states from West Unity, Ohio, in the north to Gadsden, Alabama in the south, the US Highway 127, which also runs through Danville, KY, become one big flea market and parking lot.

From in front of their houses (those located on the 127 where it is a single lane highway)

to any open field

the vendors will try to sell their old wagon wheels, home-made preserve, any other junk or fake antiques,

or old movie characters or Coke memorabilia,

or an old disused tractor

and the tools to fix it

so buyers, some dressed up for the occation,

can haul it back to their garages or storage units, which already contains so much junk they can't get their car or anything else in there.

Oh, and pity you if you are on that road, maybe in a hurry from point A to point B and not interested in anything for sale, and you get stuck behind a bunch of drive-by-I've-got-all-the-time-in-the-world-yard-sale-shopping-lovers.

Photo credits: Yahoo and Google images

South Africa's Version of Google Earth

Google-letu

Halloween Dogs

I know dogs hate the 4th of July,

but I wonder if dogs enjoy Halloween as much as their owners?

The Trick or Treat Dogs

The Extraterrestrial Dog

Darth Vader's Dog

If ever there was an expression that said it all, it must this one.

Superdog

The book worm...uh..book dog.

The Last Crusader (in Highlanders colors.)

The Junk Food Dogs

But not to be outdone by the Banana Boys.

And lastly...

"Pink toe nails and dirty with the money" (Mark Knopfler)

What if McCain Dies After Being Elected

This is hilarious.

Updated daily:

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

The Mole Hunt

When I started out to redesign the garden it was not the long term planning or the hard work of transplanting plants or the heavy loads involved in building stone edges that worried me, it was the moles. I said then I will have to find a way to stop the moles from turning my new lawn into the catacombs of Rome.

That is exactly what is happening now. There seems to be one in the very back of my property, tunneling in their usual stomping ground, but this fall he, she or it, let’s call it it because I don’t know the sex, has also moved closer to the house and into the newly planted lawn. Off course moles love a soft, watered lawn, and after tilling the soil and sowing the seeds one has to water to make the seeds grow. Not so? Exactly what the mole doctor ordered. So what am I to do next?

Internet research tells me I have many choices but the tools available on the market produce little or limited results. Great! I have already tried the granules that are supposed to chase them away with the smell to an area I don’t mind them living. But that just infuriated the mole and it invaded another area of my yard and he dug twice as many tunnels as before. I am now trying the poison peanuts, but I have already noticed that after you killed one in a specific area another comes along a day or three later and claims the territory. Moles are very territorial. A few years ago I tried the mole traps, unsuccessfully I might add, my cat had much more success catching them than I, and research tells me moles are mostly too clever to get trapped by unprofessionals like me. So, it seems I either live with them or I turn into a Carl Speckler (Bill Murray), the obsessed golf-course-lawn-loving greens attendant in the movie, Caddyshack.

I don’t mind living with wild animals in the yard as long as they are beneficial and don’t give me additional work. I rather have a mole digging tunnels than picking up shit after a dog. Moles certainly are beneficial and good for my garden. They eat all the grubs and worms and other bugs that would normally attack plant roots. They are good for aerating the ground beneath lawns. So they are beneficial, but it’s the extra work they give me that I don’t want. Hell, that’s why I changed the garden, to have less work. I have noticed in the past that there where moles dig their tunnels the grass dies and moss or weeds take root in the open patches. But I don’t want a patchy looking lawn either so I will have to continuously seed and water (extra work) or fight them, which my logical brain tells me is rather futile because if I succeed this fall, they will be back next spring again.

In the mean time, I don’t know when to give up and I still have some fight left in me. So, Mr. or Mrs. Mole, I am not going to become Carl Speckler, but I am going to give you my best shot.

To be continue…

PS: January 10, 2007, East Germany.

A 63-year-old man's extraordinary effort to eradicate moles from his property resulted in a victory for the moles. The man pounded several metal rods into the ground and connected them - not to household current, which would have been bad enough - but to a high-voltage power line, intending to render the subterranean realm uninhabitable. Coincidentally, the maneuver rendering the surface of the ground uninhabitable as well, electrifying the very ground on which he stood. He was found dead some time later, at his holiday property on the Baltic Sea. Police had to trip the main circuit breaker before venturing onto the property.

Rumor has it they figured out the time of death by looking at his electric bill later.

Courtesy: http://erictrickster.blogspot.com/.

2008 Financial Bailout

This is suppose to be historic times we live in.

Strange how history seems to repeat itself.

Especially in the political arena.

Cancel Your Credit Cards Prior To Death!

Be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die!

A lady died this past January, and ABSA, (the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa) billed her for February and March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been R0.00, is now R60.00. A family member placed a call to the ABSA Bank call centre:

Family Member: 'I am calling to tell you that she died in January.'
ABSA: 'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member: 'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'
ABSA: 'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'
Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'
ABSA: 'Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!'
Family Member: 'Do you think God will be mad at her?'
ABSA: 'Excuse me?'
Family Member: 'Did you just get what I was telling you . . . The part about her being dead?'
ABSA: 'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
(Supervisor gets on the phone.)
Family Member: 'I'm calling to tell you, she died in January.'
ABSA: 'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member: 'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'
ABSA: (Stammer) 'Are you her lawyer?'
Family Member: 'No, I'm her great nephew.' (Lawyer info given)
ABSA: 'Could you fax us a certificate of death?'
Family Member: 'Sure.' (fax number is given )
(After they got the fax)
ABSA: 'Our system just isn't set up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help.'
Family Member: 'Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care.'
ABSA: 'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'
Family Member: 'Would you like her new billing address?'
ABSA: 'That might help.'
Family Member: ' West Park Cemetry, 12 West Park Road, Johannesburg, Plot Number 1049.'
ABSA: 'Sir, that's a cemetery!'
Family Member: 'Well, what the &%$# do you do with dead people on your planet?'

What Was He Thinking?

It is not unusual to get oddly dressed odd balls at any musical award ceremony.

Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards was no exception.

While Britney Spears sparkled in her “silver-wear”

And T-Pain made an over-the-top entrance on an Elephant.

(Check out the elephant's necklace.)

DJ Fatman looked abhorrent in his underwear.

What kind of party did he think he was going to? A pajama party?

Maybe Nirvana’s Come As You Are was playing in his head all day long.

Maybe he was late, wanted to make a timely entrance and just didn’t have enough time to put on all his clothes…

LMAO. The dress socks and sandals though is hilarious.

Britney: photo by Jason Merritt/FilmMagic.com

T-Pain: Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

DJ Fatman: photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage.Com

On Top Of The Blogs

It is not everyday that I have something to "brag" about, but September 1, 2008 starts of with my blog as the top blog in SA Top Sites ranking under the Personal Blogs category. See rankings here. Overall, In The Shadow Of The Baobab has climbed to #116 of all the listed blogs. Not bad for a part time blogger!

But blog hit parades are no different that musical hit parades. Today you're on top and next week it is someone else's turn. I won't let it go to my head. Ha-ha. Nevertheless, I will savor the "useless" moment and "celebrity status". Ha-ha!