Carlisle isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He keeps making these idiotic statements, but nothing ever comes of them. He is the one who mooted the reduction of speed limits to 110km/h from 120km/h on the grounds that it would save lives. When asked how many lives it would save, and how many deaths he considers acceptable, he had no answers. It seems he is immune to logic of any kind. One hopes the DA perceive his uselessness and drop him from the next administration.
The problem with raising secular kids:
My eldest is visiting for the holidays from varsity and resides in the cottage on the property, he went out partying with his buddies from school the other night and returned rather late and in a not-too-sober state. Realising he left his keys inside the house, he phones up his younger brother to come open up for him.
Now, we’ve installed an alarm system after the robbery recently and to make life easier for ourselves, we’ve chosen a code that is easy to remember, logically, it contains the “evil number” 666.
My youngest got up, stood in front of the control panel for a a couple seconds trying to remember and then punched in his code, then proceeded to open up for his brother. Which resulted in a screaming alarm system, flashing lights and my cell phone ringing with the security officers on the other side demaning a status report…
It also resulted in two adults tearing out of the bedroom in a blind panic with my S/O carrying an axe (dont ask).
My poor boy… the child was white from fright and shaking with the unexpected adrenaline rush.
After re-establishing some form of control and silence I asked him what went wrong. His response:
“Ma, I know the code contains the evil number, but when I tried to think what that was I could only think of fractions, but fractions are’nt evil, just difficult. I then just guessed and typed in 999…”
A religious kid would have remembered…
I would’ve thought the problem with secular kids is to get the other mommies to let their kids play with your kids.
Possibly, I dont recall it being a problem due to the fact that the world at large assumes we’re all religious nuts. it only became an issue around 11/12 years old when the kids themselves started vocalising their opinions.
My S/O’s five year old nephew (goes to Catholic school - its private) attempted to bribe my S/O a couple weeks ago as such:
Nephew: “If you love Jesus you’d give me my ice cream now”
S/O: “I dont love Jesus”
Nephew (true horror on his little face): Maaaaaaaaaaa!!! He doesnt love Jesus!!!
Gotta love it. I ended giving him his ice cream, his parent’s idiocy isnt his fault.
Nephew: "If you love Jesus you'd give me my ice cream now" S/O: "I dont love Jesus"
L.O.L!
Can one use a USB dongle and a laptop as a telephone and have internet? Telkom’s got a deal on 8ta for R1449 of unlimited calls to all networks. This would be ideal for the lady working for me, but if I have to now add the cost of a ADSL line it is not so cost effective anymore. Why I want do do it is that she work out of her flat and she move every few months. The number change every time plus I have to carry the cost of moving the line. The monthly cost for the phone is on average R1500 so that would be the same but now the number would not change.
The Dongles just does 3G as far as I know. But what you could do is use a smart phone as wi-fi hotspot. So the PC connects to the internet thru it and you can still make calls. Does the 1500 include 3G bandwidth?
I don’t see the package on their website. Does it include data and voice? In my experience it’s easier to just use any old phone as a modem. That way you can have a phone and also have a modem for data. If you really want to use the notebook and USB modem as a phone, I suggest you look at Skype for the calls. Will the phone calls be mostly to the same number, or is it more like a cold calling thing?
I’ve been using the 8ta 60GB+60GB Promo for a while now. They ask you where you stay before they sell it to you, since it can not really roam like the other cell providers. If you move around in a specific neighbourhood it should be fine, but if you move from one town to another there’s a good chance it will stop working. Check out the coverage area before you get it. www.8ta.com/coverage/
Don’t know if it include bandwidth. Will find out. You use the phone then to make calls and use the laptop/internet at the same time? Big hassle to move between devices? This is a technology challenged person (like I am)
Only two or three calls to the same number per year.
For the last six days certain suburbs of my town has been without electricity. This is due to non-maintenance of equipment and natural deterioration and of course, the inevitable happened, the substation blew itself to high heavens with a “poof” and a sigh and a token little puff of smoke curling too prettily against the backdrop of the graffiti marked walls.
Being part and parcel of the new SA, most people took the expected (in this bright modern century of the fruitbat, nothing is unexpected anymore) in their stride and hung in there for a day or so, but this time is different. No word of it in the news, no word from the council or the electrical suppliers. There were those that bothered to call the call line and had the patience to hold on for three hours before being cut off – I’m certain they do this out of sheer boredom and looking for an additional thing to complain about – I mean, really people, what did you expect? A happy little human voice assuring you in perfect English that the very able electricians are working on it and it will come on very soon now???
Anyhows. My route home from work every afternoon takes me through the older business district of my beautiful little town and since I had business to do at the bakery, I was cruising relatively demurely with my window open down the road. I heard the roar about 300 metres away from the nearest robot (dead – now a 4 way stop) and as I got closer and moved past the first few business’ (mechanics, radio installers) and more towards the centre of the one street town, I could start to distinguish different levels of hum and white noise produced by who knows how many generators, it changed as I moved past every shop, the butcher (BHAARRAAGGGHHHHMMM - Cacophony – must be all that red meat), the bottle store (Whuheeeee!), the bakery (BRRRrrrmmmmhhhhmmm), and lo and be, on the corner as one exits this busy little hub of noise, there is a heavy duty DYI equipment rental shop, this man parked a motherf*&*r of a gennie mounted on a trailer on the corner advertising it for sale – his shop though – well it was dark and silent in his shop.
Maybe he aim to sell this motherf*&*r of a gennie and go the coast on holiday while waiting it out.
Neil Diamond would find rhythm to spare. 
Rigil
I’m disgusted with my eldest son. I spent the last 20 years and 11 months raising him to be a liberal with outspoken opinions and tried my level best to keep him from cultural trappings, kitch fads and my extended idiotic family. I succeeded to a degree, only to have all that damn hard work destroyed now that he’s almost 21, made friends with a group of Afrikaans speaking kids and decided that he likes their lifestyles more… ugh.
Anyhows, he submitted his wish-list for his 21st biffday coming up…
He wants a key and a violin. The key revolts me and the violin is too expensive (also, if I get him one, he’s going to expect lessons, of which he’ll take perhaps 2 or 3 and then the bloody instrument will become a wallmounting or perhaps a online auction item when he runs out of booze).
So he’s getting a decorative axe, mounted into a miniature door with his name and “21” engraved onto the blade. He can go hack the bloody door to the future open, Im not about to go handing him a bloody kitch key.
Well, an axe is certainly original.
My folks threatened to get me a key for my 21st as well, and so they did. But luckily it turned out to fit the ignition of a little second hand BMW coupe. I loved the car, but somehow managed to roll it over on a gravel road not three years later. Bugger. :’(
Rigil
The youth of today has it easy. When I turned 21, I was a conscript in the army. Kids who turned 21 in the base were grabbed and had their pubic hair shaved off (us Afrikaners are such cultured people). So I saw to it that I took my ten days of leave so that my 21st would fall in it. By that time both my parents were dead and my brother a dirt poor student, so we couldn’t do anything more than have a bit of a party.
I didn’t mind, really. I after all managed to dodge the pubic shaving, and I have never really been one for big birthday parties. I am now slowly getting on towards the kind of age where I no longer want to be reminded of my birthday, and year after year I wish people would forget. Alas, they never do.
The truth.
I was married and had a child by the time I was 21 and my folks deemed it suitable to give me a sewing machine, which eventually came in handy as I flogged it at a pawn shop a couple years later to buy food with - I utterly detest sewing. My ex forgot my birthday, so that was ok. ;D
I would just shave myself proactively. 
Rigil
Then you would be considered weird. And in that culture, it was best not to come across as weird or different in any way whatever. Bullying frequently crossed the line into brutal assault. It was in the army that I become rather cynical about my fellow humans.
S’pose you’re right. I didn’t do military training so I missed out on the opportunity to meet large groups of people with such totally diverse senses of humour. It’s one of my minor regrets, believe it or not. 
Rigil