Why the cheese goes on top

There are small things in life that people seem to forget about in the chaos that is living; things that can make life smoother, richer to unimagineable degrees, if only we knew them. This post is dedicated to them.

I don’t mean things like turning on your indicator when you take that corner, or hooting at red robots. No, I’m thinking of things like slowing down a while before the red robots so that you get there a little bit later, a little bit closer to it turning green, and maybe, just maybe, you won’t have to stop completely. It’s actually quicker to slow down this way… and saves a fortune on petrol. Smoother. Richer.

I’ve heard some things, I don’t know if they’re true and consequently I normally wouldn’t put them in a blog. Some are pretty disgusting. There’s one that obesity is the number one cause of death in America, another that obesity is more caused by the things we drink than what we eat.

Here’s the reasoning for that last one (I read it in a Men’s Health magazine, I THINK. I like their magazines): There is a substance in the brain, damned if I remember what it’s called, that pretty much tells us how hungry we are. Its amount changes depending on how much we eat, a byproduct of evolution such that we didn’t eat too much or too little back in our primal stages. What makes humans fairly unique amongst most creatures in our gorgeous animal kingdom (and you’ll be surprised how very few things there are that differ us from chimpanzees, bonobos) is that we, as human beings, adapt culturally rather than physically. If it’s cold, we wear more coats, we don’t grow more fur.

So when a couple decades or whatever ago, a relatively minute speck in the history of time and evolution, someone came up with the idea of adding flavours (and consequently fattening products) to what we drink. And after thousands of years of drinking water, our bodies were confused.

Let’s explain this with Coca-Cola, it’s a great example. When you drink that Coke, you’re not eating, and it’s not filling you up (well, not nearly as much as it should). That is because our bodies haven’t yet evolved to understand that drinking can be fattening; evolution is a slow process. Coke’s loaded with glucose and caffeine, so you want more… and when it makes you crash, you’ll want more to stop the crash. This is also because it tastes good! Mmm yummy! See my point?

So I hope it’s clear how the world would healthier be on average, how the lives of the non-corporate giants would be richer and smoother if they knew the Coke was worse than the BigMac it came with. Oooh, BigMac…

Speaking of food, there’s an old bowhunter’s trick to tell where you hit an animal, that is, you sniff the arrow after you’ve found it to tell if it’s a gut wound. But before you take that whiff, you spit on the arrow, or if you’re a little queasy you can add some water to it. This heightens the smell, making it easier to identify the scent of guts from the scent of clean fresh yummy blood (Chix dig vampires, right? Edward Cullen you say? Okay, cool..).

This, mixed with the age old wisdom that the scent of taste is really mostly the scent of smell, and voila! If you are thirsty and thus have a dry mouth when you eat, food is less flavoursome… Wait, that wasn’t obvious??? Richer? Smoother? I say.

There are plenty of these little tweaks and knowings in life, but my favourite, most important one, is cheese! When making a sandwich, with cheese of course, the cheese always goes on top.

See, the thing with cheese is it blocks the flavours somehow if it gets between the food and tastebuds. And most of the tastebuds are on your tongue. So you want your cheese as far from your tongue as possible; don’t worry, you’ll still taste the cheese, other foods don’t really block it… but now you can save on tomatoes, and ham, and cucumbers, and gherkins which are really cucumbers, and salami, and salt and pepper, and if you’re eating pizza there’s mushrooms and onions and all those colourful peppers! And hell, if this doesn’t make your food smoother, it certainly gives it some texture…

The Park with The Train

This may be a bit of a rant, an outlet if you will. We have this park down the road from our flat; when we first viewed the flat, our landlord-to-be Nick pointed out that “there’s the park down the road where you can walk [the dog]“. If only I had known.

I don’t blame him, I doubt he knew.

For anyone who knows Cape Town, this is Belvedere Park… Or better known as The Park with The Train. It’s like some kind of secret cult thing, or a Cape Town residents’ initiation; you’re not a memeber until you know The Park with The Train. Because everyone knows it. It must be the only park in the world with an old train propped in the middle of it to be used as a jungle-gym.

And now my dog knows the park too. I have a Jack Russell; for those of you who don’t know them, the best description of a Jack Russell I’ve ever come across is that “they just keep going and going and going…” such that, when they like something, they don’t stop. They beg for belly rubs until your hand is sore then look betrayed when you stop.

But set them on burglars and the crooks won’t know what little missile hit ‘em. They can be incredibly loyal.

My fourteen year old mutt has an interesting build as well; perhaps he is part bull dog or something, I don’t know. All I know is he has short legs and knows how to get out of a harness; and his neck is wider than his head, so he walks backwards and out of collars. Escape is easy as pie for him. And he loves this park.

Walking with him is a matter of luck and his self-containment that he stays at my side; if he wants to run away, I can’t stop him. Literally, since lately I’ve had this cut on my foot. Now when I walk him to this park, self-control goes out the window and he sprints to it, with me limping behind like a comic (if I walk him any other way, like around the block, he looks… wait for it… betrayed! It’s his favourite look. Eventually he just starts to go alone and I can’t exactly stop him).

The park is square, the corners are (for ease of reference) NE, SE, SW, and you guessed it, NW! The edges are North, East, South and West… There are gates at the NW and SE corners; when we enter, my dog likes to look for trash around the bin at the NW corner. Yeah, there’s more trash around the bins than in them! I mean, come on guys! Why throw your stuff half a metre away from the bin? Is that one little step so hard? Anyway, my dog likes eating trash, so I fight with him to stop him.

Then he runs, or at least used to – it seems he’s stopped, thank goodness – along the North edge to where these politically correct folks hang out, throwing their old scraps of food on the floor. Yeah, I can’t call ‘em anything bad or it gets political; ‘cos I’m white, see my pictures if you don’t believe me. But if I could say bad things about them, well, I’d get hoarse. I fight with my dog about these scraps on the ground here, in front of these people as they call me Jim Carrey after The Mask (for those of you who have never watched The Mask cartoons or their film counterparts, Jim Carrey in the first movie has a dog. A Jack Russell. Somehow this is funny to them).

These folks like to ask me for stuff, as if they honestly believe I’ll give them something (the one guy is absolutely convinced I’m a demon because I’m an Atheist and don’t celebrate Easter. Only Christians have ever called me names, funny that… but that’s a rant for another time), in that sort of I-deserve-your-hard-earned-clothes-and-money-more-than-you kind of way.

Then my dog runs South along the East edge, doing his business as he goes along. If there’re any bones or foodscraps here I can’t stop him anymore. Then sometimes I’m lucky here and we cut through the middle of the park, past one trash can surrounded with litter, and out and back home. Sometimes I’m half-lucky and I can guile my dog into going out through the SE gate and around the park along the South and West edges, then back home.

But sometimes he likes to go along the inside, the South edge where all the water gatheres and it’s just sloshing through mud, and the West edge with all the swings and seesaws, jungle-gyms, merry-go-rounds, slides and the train.

And the benches where people eat.

And litter.

Now for some strange and unbeknown reason, parents and older siblings, sometimes teachers, still like to take their younglings here. Some people still walk their dog here, but many are just passing through to quickly get to Keurboom Park, which involves crossing many streets which sadly ain’t easy with a Jack Russell smaller than a tire and no leash. This park is the kind of park where you expect to buy drugs, or see strange men in long trenchcoats and no underclothes. Not a place for children.

But they still bring their shrieking, scared-of-dogs kids here. At least the kids don’t come alone. So ther’es the screaming and the yelling and the telling on me to daddy for invading their lives and the screaming and the laughing and the running around and the running away… and sometimes, a cute little boy or girl takes their mommy or daddy’s hand and says, “I want to play with it.”

As far as I know, my dog hates children. He hates the loud, he hates the bouncy, he hates the energetic, he snaps at my little half-sister and how am I supposed to know if these kids know petting from hitting, stroking from pulling fur? So I have to turn these annoying little cute heartwrenching children down, the only ones that actually behave like they don’t need to run under a steam-roller to do the world a favour. I don’t hate children, I hate loud things, energetic things, presumptious things and rude things. I hate stupid things. So I just hate most children. Or something like that…

And then sometimes he wants to go around again…

On Free Will

These are my own ideas, I don’t care if I’m wrong, even fundamentally, I like to think about this stuff.

First and foremost, there are two extremes: libertarianism and determinism. For the sake of this post, I care not for the middle grounds, and I support libertarianism.

Where libertarianism holds that one has free will, the ability to decide in the moment, determinism holds that everything is somewhat predetermineable; some would venture so far as to say that a hypothetical super computer, with all the details that there are, in existence, that can factor into one’s actions, stored within in, would be able to accurately calculate one’s actions before they happened.

A man is crossing the street. Why? That’s determinism, the answer ‘why’ is looking for. This hypothetical computer would then compute that he wants to get to the other side. Because he’s hungry and the foodstore is on the other side. That he has pathological tendencies to go to that very store. That he has already drawn his money from the ATM… and so forth. The reasons that could lead to his decision seem infinite, but what is significant is that with all the seemingly infinite information, his action would be pinpoint predictable. Not so?

Many who don’t like determinism, or oppose it simply academically, argue that there may be random variables that we haven’t accounted for. What neurons fire when is argued, for example, to be entirely random. Another is photons of light, that randomly change quantity. Nevermind the examples, the point is that it takes one, simply one, barely noticeable random variable to dispute determinism entirely.

But these variables can likely never be proven without first discovering the formula which they follow; thereby negating their randomness. So this oppostion is somewhat akin to a fundamental aspect of many atheistic oppositons to deism; no god exists untill you prove otherwise…

And this is obviously useless on the part of libertarianism, as randomness is not free will. The ability to positively decide, and having things randomly decided are two very different concepts.

Therefore, they, these random variables, are useless for the sake of academic progression.

My first-year philosophy lecturer once presented us with an Identicle Twin Hypothesis. Two worlds, exactly the same, each bearing Tom. Tom of world A is exactly the same as Tom of world B, Tom A and Tom B for ease. Their entire lives have been exactly the same. they have always made the exact same choices, had the exact same things happen to them. Wished on the exact same falling stars et cetera.

Now, Tom A and B have been studying law. But, on his 23rd birthday, Tom A decides to become an architect instead of a lawyer. Both Tom A and Tom B had been thinking about it, but for no reason whatsoever Tom A decided for it, and Tom B against it.

Probable? Even possible? Part of me, and I believe everyone, screams ‘no’. And I would give into that part of me. When deciding between two different but relatively measurable choices, the decision can be predetermined.

But my point, the point of this blog, is to say that when the choices are not relative, when they cannot be weighed up against each other, that is when free will occurs.

My position is that there is no way one can ever measure money against hunger, or happiness in one’s career against a desire for more money. Such that, when one decides that an item of food is too expensive for satisfying their hunger, that is free will. Free will is the only thing that makes them choose money over food.

One could say eating habits, or an upbringing where money is valued, could play a role. True, but one still cannot ever predetermineably measure eating habits against the value of money. It is indeterminate and decided by free will.

Readers and Writers

Raymond E. Feist included in his blog post “The essence of the emotional narrative or how to make revenge work for you” the concept of writers thinking in the narrative. I suggest you read his post first.

To sum up my understanding of it, writers get lost in thought, following tangents and pathways of the stories in their minds that they themselves create. I compare this to my concept of extreme readers, those who prefer the paths shown to them. A writer might watch a movie all the while thinking, if I was Superman, I would have done this, or that. Why wouldn’t that have worked? A reader is more capable of watching the movie and appreciating what happens in it at face value.

Another example, a writers may find themselves frustrated with the inconsistencies in a show because they’ve developed a rational plotline that is broken by said inconsistencies. In Supernatural (see the IMDb website or official site), at the end of the second season, Sam’s visions, along with people having powers, become quite a dominant factor in the show. But, by season four, the essence of those powers, what they do and how they work, has completely changed. What happens with these powers in season four seem largely inconsistent with the boundaries created for them in seasons one and two. And so when this happens, it is frustrating to the writer who has already developed several potential plotlines in their minds eye based on what they saw in season two.

The reader would see all the really cool powers and smile.

This doesn’t mean that either writers or readers have differing degrees of imagination, just that they use it differently. A writer would picture a situation and think about what would happen next, a reader would picture the same situation and think about what is currently happening.

Ironically, this may still mean readers are more inclined to prefer a good movie to a good book, whereas writers may prefer books that are fast-paced and not overly descriptive. Robert Jordan, for example, wrote descriptive books in his Wheel of Time saga. He would spend paragraphs describing white hilts and chipped stairs, knotted chords of leather and such and the writer reading this would think why doesn’t he just wrap that cord around someones neck, or why doesn’t she pull the bloody knife out by the hilt. Too descriptive, and it affords the writer’s imagination a chance to wander. This can be pleasant or frustrating depending on us all. The reader, however, appreciates the artistic work and each image as it is created. The writer focuses on the space between each image, the progression.

Now movies and shows create the image in full, the reader doesn’t need to read and imagine to see the fantastic images. The writer can look for the mistakes that all movies will have; why doesnt Sam just stand at that tiny entrance to Mount Doom and say, “No Frodo, I’m not letting you past till you throw the bloody ring in!” But surely in the book, Sam would not have been able to stretch out his arms and block the entrance. I haven’t read the Lord of the Rings books, they are too descriptive for me, but I doubt Tolkien wrote “…such a size that Sam could have stretched his arms across and blocked the entrance. But he didn’t.”

27 Roodebloem Road

Monday morning, Candi’s second day of weekend with me. 07:52, I’ve had about seven hours of sleep. It’s winter, it’s cold, it’s a damp morning. I’ve spent most of my last day exercising, tweezing eyebrows and trying on make-up, shaving, even buying things I lacked for the next day… The scene is now set for my first photo shoot: to develop my portfolio.

On the morning of the 25th of May 2009 I reach across, shove a Centrum down my throat and use its placebo kick to throw me out of bed. Into the shower, via the chin-up exercise bar, the day has now started. I rush up and down the stairs looking for clothes to wear that aren’t part of my planned get-up: I still had to get my hair done, don’t want my clothes a mess. Finally it’s my black Luca t-shirt, black and red Markham hoodie, charcoal Identity jeans and Ffly belt. And my ankle-high Converse All-Stars. Product placement anyone?

Everything’s packed, with Candi’s helpful emergency ‘touch-up’ kit, extra belts and shoes. It’s almost 9, Candace is up and making me delicious scrambled egg breakfast, and Weet-Bix. I couldn’t finish it, not enough time, before Candi rushes my dog to the gate for a shortened walk (what a doll!) and I’m carrying my formal get-up and Selborne College togbag to her car.

We’re just late for her haircut, just early for mine. I get this cool Syrian guy, Abdul I think, who shows me a tweezing trick with a piece of thread, and my head loses a few pounds of curls.

Seattle cuppachino, back home and Candace paints me with foundation. Jog with my dog, and off to an old stone church turned studio, 27 Roodebloem Road. On the way Candace points out that the weather improved, I joke that I’m typically this lucky, that I’ll get a free outdoor shoot despite having not booked it.

We’re there a little early, driving around the block finding a place to park. Finding a way in, then coming back out to get my clothes. Then we wait.

Not very long; before the photographer arrives, Mitch Wong Ho from idophotography.co.za. He shows me the coffee and starts to set up his kit. We move the couch across to in front of the pretty lights and flashes, I don my white Oakridge t-shirt for the casual look (scrap the blue jeans? okay) and I sit down and start getting comfortable, talking to Candi across the room. Then the photos start, we’re still talking, she’s pulling funny faces and making me laugh.

Next is my dressed down look. Signature tan chinos and a red Oakridge golf-shirt – there’s a small cubicle toilet down the short passage outside where I can change. For the sake of decency. These pics are taken all over the room. Still talking to Candi.

Then the formal look follows. Cignal black suit, Anton Fabi shoes, Markham tie, and a red Truworths shirt. These are my colours, and wow I look so comfortable in formals don’t I? He thinks so. She thinks so. The light outside is great, so many pictures are taken in that passage to the toilet (Outdoor shoot. What did I tell you?!).

And I find my sunglasses are broken, I loved those glasses… We used them anyway.

At the end I find out I can’t do a scream of rage look (I’ve never screamed from rage, has anyone?), not yet at least, I’m more solemn.

Oh, I was also contemplating having a shoot with Candace one day. But I’m lucky, aren’t I? So the next few, Mitch suggested, are with her. They were the most fun of them all.

And that’s a wrap. Then we pack up, carry stuff back out to the car, and head out to Cavendish Square. Mitch stays behind to do some computer work, packing up and all that.

Oh, and I left my waterbottle on the roof of Dinky, Candi’s car. So we were driving down the street with it there. Until it fell.