Tails’ Blography

Last night the bf, myself and two other friends went to see the Boswell Wilkie Circus: Pirate Experience at Grand West Casino. Let me first explain that I’m a huge sucker for the circus. If you’re easily embarressed, dont go with me. I clap when they ask, I sing when they ask, I probably would get up and dance, if they asked. I love bringing out the inner child in me, so I thoroughly enjoy visiting the circus.

Anyway, basically the circus was performed around an “island” which consisted of a pool of water, sand, pirate treasure chests, lanturns and skulls on poles – very authentic-looking. The ship was moored next to a jetty, on which various stunts were performed. I wish I could explain the stunts, but they wouldnt do any justice, and they were pretty strict on cameras/video footage so the photo you see here is the only photo I managed to take, and its not very explanatory either haha. The costumes were great and the various artistes were fantastic! There were no animals and most of the stunts were done from ropes and trapeze bars and ribbons.

The show ends tomorrow, so if you want to see it, book at Computicket asap. I recommend seat blocks B, C & D (or H, J & K). Leave the floor area for if you have kiddies. We sat in block E and we struggled to see what was happening on the ship itself, albeit very little was done there. I must add, the standard wasnt quite up to what I remember of the Boswell Wilkie name, so dont judge BW circuses on this particular show.

So yesterday started out as a normal day. I went to work, looked forward to a friend’s birthday dinner that night, came home (a little early…maybe this was my ‘downfall’?), got ready for gym (see, even when I’m going out I still go to gym! *proud*), and while waiting to leave I saw an auction ad on Facebook for a camera. A Canon 40D. R1 reserve. Hmm.

I’d seen one of these before, for a Nikon D90, and it went for R12,500 or so. So I thought, “lets see what this one is sitting at…” and found (to my amazement) it was sitting on R7500. Before I could stop myself, or think about funds, I signed up and placed a bid for R7750 (has to go in R250 increments). I figured, if I get it for R7750 then I’ve saved almost 50% on the camera and lens alone, forget about all the extras it was coming with, and if I didnt, well then I’m not out of pocket for any moolah…whats the harm, right? Right??!?

Well, all through gym I found myself thinking about my bid…and I even had gone to far as to make a link to the auction on my cellphone to keep watch. Got home from gym, showered, washed my hair, and off we went to dinner. On the way, however, I checked my bid and saw a few other people had bid…so I upped mine to R8500. Yes, I can see you shaking your head…you can stop that! With all the pro bidders out there, not to mention snipers or even people that actually have the funds to pay for their purchase, I wasnt going to get it. The auction was set to end at 11.30pm.

Let me digress quickly and mention the dinner. Firstly, it was utterly fantastic, and probably deserves a post of its own, but seriously, Wang Thai at the V&A Waterfront is amazing! I had two really huge oysters for starters (I can hear you asking, “only two?? you cheapskate!” and my response is that I’m still getting into them, and dont want to eat too many to turn myself off them so I’m taking it slow…I want this love affair to last, m’kay!), a couple of pina coladas (also made to my satisfaction, since I make them from scratch for myself at home), and then the bf and I ordered honey chicken and honey duck to share. Large quantities of Jasmine Basmati rice (mmmmmm!) was ordered for the table and I must say the service and food we received was amaaaazing! Well and truly! Big ups to our waiter, Shepherd!

Throughout dinner I’m ashamed to admit my conversation at times was dominated by my bid. I kept checking my bid every half hour or so, and it was solidly on R8500. With less than an hour to go, I realised I might very well win this…and started to get all light headed. I didnt think this far…I dont really have this kind of cash to spend…I surely cant really win it…can I??

By the time 5 minutes was left, most of the table was interested in the results and I was a nervous wreck. I promptly ordered a tequila, as no matter the outcome, I was in need of a shot! I refreshed my phone browser a million times and with only a minute to go someone sniped in a bid jumping the total up by R500!! Quickly I whipped into action, and without thinking of the consequences I bid R9250…a couple of agonising seconds went by and then it was closed. I had won. I had WON! I promptly downed my tequila.

I confirmed my purchase as soon as I got home and am currently sorting out payment finalities and I will be the owner of a brand new Canon 40D body kit, EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Autofocus Lens, .50x Wide Angle Lens, 2X Telephoto Lens, 8GB Memory Card, USB Card Reader, Carrying Case, Velbon CX-460 Tripod, Table Top Tripod, Lens Pouch, 3 Piece Filter Kit, Universal Screen Protector, & 3 Pc. Lens Cleaning Kit. All for R9250 (almost half price!).

If you want to know more about the Canon 40D (or any other camera for that matter), check out the stats on DPreview.com (click the indepth review link for even more info) which is only the best site for camera reviews and stats…seriously.

(yes, thats me in the photo haha!) So the day I’ve been waiting for since 2007 finally arrived, June 2: The Sims 3 Global Release Day! Of course, as soon as I could, I pre-ordered my Collector’s Edition copy and my bf was so amazingly sweet to buy it for me as an early birthday gift!

“Collector’s Edition!?”, I hear you say.
“Yes indeed!”, I reply, with a knowing smile.
“What do you get with it?”, you enquire, intrigued.
“Aha!”, I say while rubbing my hands together gleefully…

The Collector’s Edition comes with the base game (which incidently is Mac-friendly), a free download of the European Styled Sports Car (see photo insert towards bottom of this post), R114 worth of SimPoints to spend online (total of 1000 points!), a Hints & Tips Guide (not as great as I thought…they really could have done more with this), and a 2gig green USB Plumbob™ Flashdrive (check out the photo, its just toooooo cute, seriously!!!). I dont think I’ll ever use the flashdrive (I have an 8gig anyway) lest it get sratched but its my first Collector’s Item of anything (my sister bought a gold Lord of the Rings authentic ring with elvish engraving and everything for R2k which is her Collector’s Item) and its super cute and I’m so proud of it!

As for the game, well it blows my mind! I’m extra happy with all the new features and how they’ve kicked it up a notch (pun intended, those who’ve played will know what I’m talking about…if they have hungry chef-sims hehe).

After playing for a while, my sim progressed to the dating stage, and eventually got married and had a kid. However, when she went into labour, she had the option of having the baby at home or at the hospital (new feature!). I chose the hospital of course. So I expected her to call a cab (she couldnt afford her own car at that time) but instead she hopped on her bicycle and cycled to the hospital…in labour!! Shortly after she arrived (you cant follow them inside, though its rumoured to be part of the expansions at a later stage) her husband ran in after her to be there for the birth, which I thought was a sweet touch.

After her own kid grew up to the teenager stage, she was working out at the local gym (here you can follow them inside) and an NPC-sim was working out in front of the gym’s TV. I noticed she was pregnant. Well, apparently doing jumping jacks in your final hours of pregnancy is a big no-no as she promptly went into labour. Other sims gathered around to watch, and I offered to take her to the hospital (also a new feature, and there’s me and that hospital again hehe) which I did…but this time in my car haha. Shortly after we went in, the father-to-be dashed in and my sim stayed to watch the birth (after which she had a happy Moodlet for the next while for Witnessing a Birth).

Other weird but funny things that have happened include a sim dying at my sim’s birthday party – talk about a mood killer! People kept mourning! But I guess thats what happens when you invite someone who’s on their death-bed haha.

There are so many cool things I just cant think of them all right now and it would take a bunch of pages for me to elaborate on anything (if you have questions, just ask!) but a few favourites are:

:: Ever-changing neighbourhood – really makes you feel a part of a community. Sims get married, move out, have kids, etc all around you all the time. (tip: read the newspaper daily for neighbourhood updates!)
:: CAS (Create-A-Sim) – this has been revolutionised and you can now make your sims as thin or as obese as you want. You can also customise everything from muscle tone to the shape of the tip of your sim-nose!
:: CASt (Create-A-Style) – this is what we’ve been waiting for FOR EVER! Everything is customisable! You can make matching furniture, clothing and shoes, wallpaper and flooring! Everything! I even made pink appliances!
:: New placement options – this bugged me quite a bit in TS2. If you had a couch that took up three squares, and a TV that took up two squares, you couldnt centre the TV with the couch. You could either have the TV aligned with the first two squares, or the last two…but now, you can work in half-squares, allowing things to be centred and you can finally place items at an angle to make a more pleasing layout!
:: Age control – you can choose whether your sims have short lives (25 sim-days) or longer lives (1000 sim-days)
:: New work options – during your working hours, you control how your sims spend their time. Choose from Word Hard to Suck Up To Boss to Slack Off. Each option has its own reactions and consequences, so choose wisely
:: Faster loading times – huge plus! Loading saved games are quicker as well as entering CAS/St within the game and this makes the whole purchase worthwhile on its own!

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Of course I miss all the stuff I had in TS2, like weather and vacations, but I’m uber happy with TS3 and how they’ve created it! Very happy! Very, very happy!

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Sim! Hehe!

This month I finally participated in my first OC. OC stands for Organised Chaos and is a LAN held at the Bellville Velodrome. If you’re unfamiliar with what a LAN is, its pretty much a place set up for people to bring their PCs/laptops and play games against each other and share files etc. It runs from Friday evening (6pm I think) until Sunday afternoon (12pm), and lots of people bring mattresses and bedding to stay the nights. Tournaments are held and prizes can be won, and some months they’ve held spot prizes, where if your seat number is drawn you win a prize. Its great!

Booking is done online or on the day, and is R140 per seat. If you’re just spectating you dont pay, which is normally what I do. This time, however, I brought my PC and stayed the weekend. I participated in some Call of Duty 4 games, and sucked haha. I was sitting at 26 kills where everyone else was at around 80 haha (I wont even mention my kills:deaths ratio!!). Its a hard blow to my ego because I used to kick ass at Unreal Tournament a year or few back hehe. But I’ll get better…oh yea, I’ll get better.

Also at the LAN are food stuffs. There’s a burger place, pancake place and this month there was a chip place that sells those chip twister potatoes-on-a-stick things. Pancakes are R4 each, and burgers range from R14 (single plain burger) – R37 (a double meat and chicken burger with chips). Coffee is R5 and there are various chocolates, sweets and cooldrinks aslo for R5 each. Scooters Pizza* delivers to OC if pizza is more your meal of choice (oddly, whilst searching for the Scooters’ website, I came across the Epic Scooters Pizza Delivery site – really, what next!!). You can bring your own food and booze (if you drink responsibly and are not underage) if you’d like. I brought snacks (pretzels & doughnuts! yum!!) and wine (and was told I look “too classy” for a lan because everyone normally drinks rum/brandy & coke from a 2l coke bottle haha).

Unfortunately, for about 3 hours on Saturday at around noon, the power went out and left us high and dry. A lot of people gave up pretty quickly and went home (losers!), but we stuck it out and once it came back on again, we had a good 10 more gaming hours (we left at 3am on Sunday morning). In fact, a lot of people thought the break from gaming was a nice change. All in all, a great time was had and I cant wait for the next one! Seriously, I’m hooked!

If you’d like to participate and bring your PC, go to the OC website* for booking information (you can book online), prices, and rules. Its definately worth it! The site also has some great photos (April’s pics will be within the week I’m sure) or check out their Facebook group. Do remember to game safely and, especially since someone at this month’s lan had an epileptic fit, remember to get enough sleep and eat a decent meal. I was unaware but apparently too much sugar and sleep deprivation can induce fits if you’re prone. I enquired after the guy and turns out he was ok, the fit was minor, and he was collected and taken home to recover. Poor guy

Some pics of our little corner of OC:

About 1 min after the power had gone off (lights were running on generators)

A better view of the disgruntled lanners

The bf…unimpressed about me taking a photo of him. Thats our friend, Ferdie behind him, and behind him you can see some of the mattresses people have set up for sleeping

A disgruntled Steve hehe

My PC (yes, I like my grey mouse and keyboard, ok! ) next to Michael BIIIIIG 26″ monitor and sleek black keyboard (the silver machine behind my monitor was huge and very expensive! People kept passing by to admire it haha)

I’ve never been interested in politics…ever. I think I’d like to blame our schools for that, since they never really made us, or rather, helped us understand the importance of it and the basic structure of politics. Or maybe they did and I missed it?? As what seems to be “the norm”, our polititians are also fairly corrupted, with the leader of the ANC (and next in line to be president) having 700 cases against, which include among others, a long-ranging list of corruption, money laundering and fraud based on a mult-billion-dollar arms deal. Although, believe it or not, these charges were dropped…conveniently before election.

So, unfortunately, I’m not very patriotic about South Africa (I’m more patriotic about America – their attitude towards their country is fantastic!!). I believe we’ll probably end up like Zimbabwe, but I’m still hopeful that we might just scrape through.

However, tomorrow I’ll be voting for the first time! And I’m proud to be doing so! I know of a few people who are voting for the first time, and, what if this was the election that many who had never voted before did? Think about the results! I’m disappointed, though, and maybe its a little high-and-mighty for me to be disappointed considering I’m voting for the first time ever myself, but I’m disappointed at those who are not bothering to vote tomorrow. It’s important for our country to do so, and I wish there was a way to make businesses and schools involved with getting their employees and scholars (of legal voting age) registered, and making it a pro-active thing to vote. Too many people I know are just sitting on their asses tomorrow enjoying the public holiday…its just disappointing. Sigh.

Anyway, with elections coming up tomorrow, here are some interesting events going on in our media with regards to the elections…of course, they’re all aimed to amuse