Now this is awesome

Slow days at work make for interesting diversions. Like this one, from wordle.net (clicky clicky).

Basically you plug some text – an article, your inbox, even a blog URL – into Wordle and it spits out these cool word clouds. If you're a word nerd, this is like way more fun than, say, tetris. And makes for a pretty blog post too. This is my blog as a word cloud. I'm loving 'good number one' coincidentally popping up, but I also spy 'afternoon couch', 'cocktails' and 'eatbest' in there. Nice.

The Weekend in Numbers

Number of big sighs of relief heaved on Friday afternoon: one. With the annoying exception of one outstanding feature, crazymanicstressful November is officially over (workwise at least – and still two days before I have to wake up and realise it's 1 December and panic about birthday and Christmas gifts). 

Number of nights on the couch with a DVD and Woolies pasta salad: one. Friday. My celebratory feeling didn't last past about six pm, at which point me and my lame ass hit the couch to finally crash.

Number of critics-said-it-was-bad-but-I-really-quite-enjoyed-it-does-that-make-me-stupid? movies watched: one. Eat, Pray, Love. And yes, I read the book, and yes I loved the book, and yes I enjoyed the movie. So there, all you haters. Sometimes something feel good is, well, just that. Good company too (insert winking smiley here at Miss Lane).

Number of cocktails in the sun on Sunday afternoon: just one, but it was a Jack Sparrow.

Number of impromptu shopping trips after cocktails in the sun: one. To the V&A, ostensibly to Christmas shop for a friend's soon-to-be-visiting-from-the-Karoo parents, but I ended up buying another dress. Oh, Erin, how could you let me? 

Number of Eat Out's top 10 restaurants in South Africa that are in Cape Town: 7, including hat-trick winner Rust en Vrede (best restaurant, best chef, best service). Ah, good food, good wine, good scenery and good-looking people ... you want to live anywhere else why?

Number of minutes of cardio this morning: 40. Yes! Starting the week off right...

A once-in-a-blue-moon appeal

So every now and again I like to do something that I know will shore up a few points in the old Good Karma ledger (does it still work if it's self-serving in this way? I'm not sure. Anyway...)

Awesome blogger and novelist Paige Nick of A Million Miles From Normal is currently in the running to win a charity blogging event. The winner gets a whopping R20k to give to the charity of their choice. Her charity is The Bookery (clicky clicky), an organisation that builds libraries for underprivileged schools (I'm pretty sure all of us word nerds agree this is a fairly worthy cause yes?).

Right now Paige is about 40 votes behind the winner, and she really, really wants to streak ahead. So, follow my instructions carefully and nobody will get hurt:

1. Click this: click me
2. Click on the little thumbs-up icon that you will see in the top, right-hand corner of the screen.
3. Feel good about yourself.

Thanks guys, muchly appreciated.

Attention all Cape Town bloggers: you don't want to miss this

Awesome quote from bookshelfporn.com

Shoowee

It's the final push ladies and gentleman. Only two magazines left, and then this blogger can get back to life as she knew it in October, but better, because it'll be December.

In the meantime, some quickie updates:

• Boyfriend will officially be a Capetonian again as per 22 December. That's only 29 sleeps away. (Yes, I'm counting.)
• I've hung up my dinosaur costume and am the proud owner of a BlackBerry. It's white (I think they call it a Halle Berry – tee hee) and has a pink cover (I couldn't resist). I tweeted from the queue at Woolies last night, BBMed some friends on my lunch break and can check my Facebook page more often than between the Nazi-enforced hours of one and two o'clock at the office. My first grown-up phone...pleased as punch.
• Went to a wedding on an island in the Keurbooms Lagoon in Plett over the weekend. The wedding was beautiful, but getting out of Cape Town for a full 48 hours and spending time with Boyfriend was the cherry on top. Being annihilated by mutant mosquitoes was less pleasant, but my swelling has finally gone down.

I'm terrible

I really am.

What other excuse could there be for abandoning the blogosphere for such interminable periods of time?

Apart from, perhaps, ten print deadlines within two weeks of each other (and I don't mean two weeks apart, I mean all within the space of a fortnight).

No excuse, but, my apologies...

Last night's sudden pouring rain was the perfect excuse to head to Bunny's new flat for a movie night. We've decided to watch all the old Harry Potter films as a lead-up to going to see the new one (yes, nerds unite!).

While stuffing our faces with junk food we couldn't help but notice how young the movie's stars are in the early films. Makes me feel a little old actually, having literally watched them grow up on screen. And then I came home to a BBC insert about Daniel Radcliffe's new film, The Woman in Black and wow – the boy's all growed up and with the shoulders to prove it.

Exhibit (a):

Exhibit (b):

 

Anyone else feeling old? Anyone? It's kind of like when I realise that I used to watch the Olsen twins when they were ... well, about the same weight they are now.

I need an interpretor

Last night I dreamed that I was in a porta-loo with three girls form New Jersey, though they assured me their footwear (of the spiked stiletto variety) was from New York.

I've never seen Jersey Shore, but I think these girls would have fit right in.

Is there any deeper meaning here?

The weekend in numbers

Number of days at the office: one. Don't feel too bad for me though – I'm taking a long weekend on the 19th.

Number of times I went for sushi in one day: two. That brought my sushi outings for the week up to four, which pretty much meant that by last night the best I could do was nibble a couple pieces of tempura and call it a day. I never thought there could be too much of a good thing...

Yeah that's about it really. Weekend seemed far, far too short, despite its being filled with lovely things like Breakfast at Tiffany's, plenty of sushi, and tea and cocktails with friends.

Here's to a good week everyone!

Okay so I'm a total food nerd, and (at least during daylight hours Monday to Friday) a bit of a healthy-eating freak, which means I am pleasantly surprised by two developments in our offices.

1. They've returned our water cooler.
   The powers that be had it removed a few weeks ago to, ahem, cut costs. Clearly they've noticed that thirsty employees are not happy employees, especially with summer around the corner, and have therefore returned it to its rightful spot beside the stylists' desks.
   And before anyone gripes about the cost of mineral water and how we should be drinking tap water, well... you just try come drink the stuff that sludges out of our taps down here at the bottom end of town.
2. They've installed a healthy snacks vending machine next to the usual Coke emblazoned variety. It sells things like veggie chips and raw nuts and organic fruit juice. Needless to say, this is quite awesome...

Colon close bracket

• It's Friday.
• Cape Town is slowly creeping into summer.
• I made it to gym this morning (four times this week instead of five, part of a plan to be gentler with myself).
• I'm going to see Breakfast at Tiffany's tonight. I've had it on DVD for ages, but somehow seeing it on the big screen for the first time is very exciting (yes, I'm a dork).
• Had sushi for the second time this week last night. And at Minato. And Papasan (of Douglas Green ad fame) was there!

Colon open bracket

• I have about 20 pages of advertorial to write that I'm procrastinating about. Actually, it's not even that I'm procrastinating so much as the fact that other, seemingly more important work keeps popping up (and I really mean that this time, it's not one of those ocassions when 'reorganise sock drawer' somehow finds its way to the top of your to-do list).
• I'm coming in to work tomorrow.
• I still need to find shoes to match my dress for the wedding in Plett in two weeks' time. What does one wear to a wedding on an island in a lagoon? Heels? Sandals? Sandal heels? Ack...

Driving myself a little crazy

Can't remember if I beeped my car this morning. Common sense tells me that I must have, purely out of force of habit, but OCD wants me to walk back to the lot at lunch time to double-check.

Grrr.

Can it really be Thursday already? This week seems to be flying by, although that may be because Boyfriend only left on Tuesday, so Monday almost felt like a part of the weekend for me.

Probably a good thing that he left – for the past two days I've been hobbling around massaging my thigh muscles with a hand and wincing, a la Doctor House. this because of a powerplate class I did early on Monday morning. Here was me thinking I'd just stand on the thing for an hour looking silly and wobble away some fat but NAY my friends, it's actually quite energetic, made all the worse by the fact that because of the vibrations, doing one squat is like the equivalent of 70 as far as your muscles are concerned. And I am not by nature an enthusiastic squatter, or lunger for that matter.

Still, I may keep going. At this rate I'll have buns of steel within a month.

The weekend in numbers

Calories consumed: millions

Dresses bought: two

Pairs of shoes bought: two

Lame chick-flicks watched: one

I blame all of this on the fact that Boyfriend was here (as in, in Cape Town) but away (on his company's annual team-building/year-end function weekend in Elgin).

Although, on the upshot then...

Cosmo articles finished a week early: one

Alcohol units: one (or however many a shot of Jack is worth. I suspect some sadists/VBP count it as two.)