Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Beware Of Snakes

This is a sign I photographed at Maropeng, in the Cradle Of Mankind in Magaliesburg. It's a museum dedicated to the history of evolution in the area. And boy, do they have snakes.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sugar Packet Patterns

An Itchy Head Kind Of Day

Our receptionist - if you can call her that - is off sick again and I have been helping out answering phones. I am really crap at that. I am a chronic daydreamer, so I won't hear the phone ring until it's been going for aaaaaages. But I have an amazingly fancy phone voice, you should hear me. If you judged me from my fancy phone answering voice, you'd think of me as supremely well groomed and respectable. I am neither. I can just fool you with my fake phoneline fanciness. 

Really, I am just writing this to break up the monotony of this day. We have been so busy. All I do is churn out jobs at this is gut-wrenching pace with no lunch breaks, no time to rest my aching head, no time to sort out those stupid things I have to sort out, like bills I have to pay. 

Sometimes a bit of goofing off can make you feel good about work again. I wish I was more like our receptionist. Every time our boss is on a shoot, she gets this mysterious recurring "Throat Infection". Shame. She can't even call anybody to let us know she isn't coming in. Again. It also causes temporary paralysis of her fingers so she can't sms anyone. Poor thing.

I wish I was more like her sometimes. Get a few extra days off, you know? But I am not. I take life quite seriously. Being alive and involved is important to me. Being a wet sack is such a waste of life.

Says me. Taking ten minutes out of my day to amuse myself with a bit of blogging. 

What a slacker.

Okay, I am going for coffee now. I really do love that coffee machine. On my way to work this morning I was thinking back to how much money I used to spend on that morning pre-work cappuccino every day. I mostly stopped when the boss brought the coffee machine over. I can't drink that fucking instant stuff. I am a bit like the princess and the pea when it comes to coffee. Or just a plain old snob. In a way, I kind of gave myself a raise. Which means, if I really wanted to, I could go shopping RIGHT NOW and get myself another super soft little round neck jersey from Woolworths. 

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

In The Traffic

Stop starting through the traffic, I was handed this pamphlet by some beady-eyed guy, in a secretive green envelope. (The pamphlet was in the green envelope. Not the beady-eyed guy). Of course I took it. I had to know what kind of advertising had to be concealed in an envelope.

That was very sneaky, Sangoma-Man.

I scanned in both sides. And please, Mr Sangoma-Man, don't be cross with me and curse me. This is free advertising on the world wide web! Go speak to your ancestors. They are sure to tell you this is a great idea.






























Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Useless Freelancers

Wow. That guy I hired yesterday was like a bucket of poo in usefulness. I had three meetings in one day (it was four, one moved out to whenever) and needed some assistance. I called Joburg's most obvious freelance supplier to the world of production. Editors and researchers storyboard artists and writers and whatnot. I asked for someone who could print and mount pictures. Beautifully.

"Oh yes" said the stupid man who sends people. "I have just the person."
For the sake of not being a complete bitch, I shall call him Poopi, and not by his real name.
Poopi arrives, and by eight I had already been at work for an hour (eeuw to waking up early) and had printed all the pictures because I am a multi-tasking monster goddess. I give him the pictures to mount.

He takes fucking forever to CUT THEM OUT. I mean, come on. Does he not understand SERIOUS DEADLINES? Finally he gets it done, after my nervous running up and down the stairs many times to chase him politely along. He chops two pictures in half by mistake and I have to reprint. Finally he finishes with the cutting and starts to stick. And I am now convinced he has never actually stuck anything down on a board with sprayglue before. What a shit job. Skew, and grubby. Dirty fingerprints on so many of the pictures. The worst part is that we had no time to reprint and restick, so off my poor director went, with crappy skew and grubby presentation boards.

Fuck.

He was so crap, that I didn't even ask him to do the rest of the pictures for the next meeting. I did them myself. And left him in the office looking for video reference, because he made it quite clear that that was what he wanted to do, and hell, he was so crap with the sticking anyway. What choice did I have? Then the chatting started.

Freelancers - or freelance researchers anyway - have this irritating habit of chat chat chatting. I hire a freelancer because I am really busy and need somone to lessen the load. I don't hire them because I am lonely. I have a theory: Most of these retards are from film school and want to be directors. So when they finally get a chance to work at a production company, they are dying to prove how cool they are. To the detriment of my workflow. Here are some really awesome quotes from Poopi:

After telling me he studied writing and directing at film school, he ACTUALLY said: "You know, living the dream." He may have pulled a fist and dipped his head in reverance. I almost puked.

"I take my movie watching very seriously." There was no doubt he disapproved of my Harry Casual attitude towards movies. He even frowned at me.

I tried to chase him away at 4, so I could get some work done in peace. He said "No, I don't mind staying longer and helping out. It seperates the men from the boys."
"Oh, so you're calling me a man?" I asked in reply.
Then he left at 5. Ha ha. Big deal.

And on his way out the door he said: "Yes, I have to go and work on my script now." And then he hovered there in the doorway, begging me with his eyes to ask him about his script. I did not. I said "oh cool. Well, enjoy. Good bye."

The sad part is, there are too many Poopies in this world. Who have gone to film school thinking they will become hotshot directors, all of them with big attutudes and little talent. They are rude and irritating. With no concept of how being rude or snotty to one wrong person can end your career before it even starts. Not that I am in any way suggesting I have that kind of power. I just know it happens. And my opinion is to be friendly and respectful to everybody I meet. You never know who is going to teach you something amazing. But if you already think you know everything, how the hell are you going to learn anything?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

This was a blank space . . .

What, did I really post a blank blog?
Am I blonde?
Ridiculous.
I blame the internet.

Loading Photos



This was a really beautiful piece of pie from my holiday destination.


This is a burnt out car I came across in a small neighborhood park whilst walking my dog. I was taking photos of it and a cop car stopped and asked me what I was up to. HELLO! I didn't burnt the freaking car! Do I look like a . . . person who'd burn cars?

Back At Work And Trying

Sheesh, but starting up this year has taken a long while. It's Wednesday, I have been back since Monday, I HAVE work to do. A lot of it, actually. But I am just dicking around. Facebooking, blogging, emailing, skyping.

I have a really fun job. I have no reason to be dodging it. I just wanna.

Is everyone having the same problem? Is it because last year was so damn hard?

I am in my slip slops and my wafty summer clothes, I feel like heading off to the beach. Taking my afternoon nap. Drinking beer all day. (I could probably get away with that on the job). Anything but sit here indoors, staring at the day through a dirty window. (why is my window so fucking dirty?)

I think I'll watch a movie. What do I have here in my office?

Crooklyn - An utterly crap movie.
The Transporter - Awesome fun.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Brilliant. But I don't feel like watching that.
Gleaming The Cube - Remember that movie? It is still awesome.
Pi - Yes. I think I'll watch it. A beautiful film.
 
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