Moron of the Day #4

ME: “(Company Name) Good Day Terri Speaking.”

MOTD: “Hi, I’m looking for a sports package.”

ME: “May I ask what type of package you are looking for?”

MOTD: “A sports one.”

ME: “Sure ma’am, what type of sports are you looking for?”

MOTD: “I don’t know. Just a sports package.”

ME: “We have quite a few sports packages ma’am. I would need to know what type of sport it is you are interested in watching.”

MOTD: “What is popular at the moment? What packages are getting a lot of requests?”

ME: “The Soccer World Cup in Bra…”

MOTD: “Ok. Yes. One of those.”

She then went on to tell me she doesn't actually like soccer and what other sports can we offer… I explained she could visit our site and have a look at what it is we offer… She refused and I had to go through packages on our site over the phone with her.

 Let’s discus:

1. You’re an idiot, let’s just be clear on that.

2. Phoning a travel agency for packages and not knowing where you want to go is kind of like going to a clothing store, telling them you want clothes but don’t know what type, colour or size it is you are looking for.

3. If you don’t know what sports you want to watch, how on Earth would I?

4. Getting bummed with me because I don’t know what sports you like is just stupid. You’re stupid (Refer to point 1.) and I hope for humanities sake you never reproduce.

 17 days left. 

Phobias: Mine and other people who have it worse.

So, like any normal human being. I have some fears and maybe a phobia or two.
There are however two things I am morbidly fearful of, they are completely irrational fears and yet crippling at times. One of my phobias is extremely common and the other I have been teased about on countless occasions because it’s ridiculous, I know it is ridiculous and yet I’m heart-palpitation-stomach-wrenching kind of afraid.
I did some research and it turns out, I’m not alone. There are so many other people out there with the same fears; they have given them names. BOOM! I’m NOT a freak of nature!

I am Aichmophobic and Myrmecophobic. (Big word use!) What the heck is that you ask?

Aichmophobia is the morbid fear of sharp things such as pencils, needles, knives, a pointing finger, or even the sharp end of an umbrella! In my case it’s needles. I cannot handle needles; I will throw up or pass out, sometimes both, preferably in that order. It is extremely common to be afraid of needles and people generally understand when they pull out a needle and the colour drains from your face shortly before you faint. It’s understandable.

Myrmecophobia is an inexplicable fear of ants. This fear can manifest itself in several ways, such as a fear of ants contaminating a person's food supply, or fear of a home invasion by large numbers of ants. I’m more the latter of the two. Ants freak me out like crazy, it’s ridiculous I know.

(I was going to post pictures for these but I actually got chills thinking about it. So use your imagination.)

After reading through my phobias and feeling a little better about myself that I’m not alone, I had a look at a few other “Strange Phobias” and OH MY GOSH! Some people have it BAD! Here are some of the actual phobias I stumbled across. It’s shocking because there are a large number of people who suffer from these:


Ablutophobia: The fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning.

Ergophobia: The general fear of work, working environment and work activities.

Nomophobia: The fear of being out of mobile phone contact. #FirstWorldProblems

Philophobia: The fear of being in love and falling in love. (maybe I have a bit of this as well.)

Somniphobia: The irrational fear of falling asleep.

Heliophobia: The fear of the sunlight.

Chaetophobia: The fear of hair. Human and animal.

Phobophobia: The fear of phobias or fear of developing a phobia. 
It’s hard to believe but this is literally a phobia of phobias. 
If you managed to get through this list though, you’re probably in the clear on this one.

Pantophobia: The fear of everything. It is described as "a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil" (These guys got it BAAAAAAAD!)

So, if you have any irrational fear or phobia don't feel so bad... I guarantee you have it better than other people.


*Unrelated fact: A strawberry is not an actual berry, but a banana is.

Mother Nature is trying to kill you #1

Hello fellow members of Earth.

As some of you may already know. I like to watch documentaries and read about random stuff that will probably never have any impact or use in my life. I just like to know things. One thing I find fascinating is all the different ways 'Mother Nature' has thought of to destroy predators and inflict pain on an insane level. I know about the monsters living on our door step, so I thought I would share these little nightmares with you. I'm sweet like that. Let me introduce you to five deceptively ferocious creatures I have just learned about.

Unsurprisingly, these adorably dangerous animals can all be found in Australia, the land where everything tries to kill or maim you on a daily basis. Although they are mostly found in the frightening land down under, they can be found in other parts of the world as well. (GREAT!)

Let's start.

The Cone Snail:

"A Snail? Really? Give me a break." Yeah I thought that as well.
What appears to be an ordinary cone shaped seashell may actually contain a potentially deadly snail.(A snail? REALLY!) These molluscs actually have a harpoon-like appendage with jagged edges, (Oh Flip!) which they use to neutralize prey with a paralyzing venom (Oh FLIP!) to help the snail easily consume its prey. (YUK!) Though the smaller cone snails have a sting equal to that of a bee, the larger varieties have proven fatal to humans. 
Seriously! Imagine being taken out by a SNAIL! How embarrassing. Think about that next time you take a stroll along the beach and put a cone shaped shell to your ear.


The Platypus:

Sporting a duck bill, a beaver tail, otter feet and an egg laying reproductive system, the platypus is universally known as natures mistake. Yeah, say that to the male platypus, I dare you. These odd looking creatures also come with venomous hind claws and are generous when it comes to handing out a vicious scratch or two. Though the venom hasn't been known to kill a human (YET!), it will still cause nearly unbearable pain. Mother Nature had to give it something to make up for its appearance.

Mantis Shrimp:

A general rule about nature seems to be that the more colorful something is, the more it wants to see you suffer.

The mantis shrimp is no exception. (A shrimp? Come on this is ridiculous.) Thankfully, because of their fairly small size, they can only really hurt humans via deep gashes to the skin. (Oh.) Were they any bigger than a few inches however, we could have a serious problem. (Well, crap.) The strike created by the snapping motion of these animal's claws is so powerful that the surrounding temperature can reach surface of the sun levels. They've also been known to break and shatter improperly reinforced aquariums just by striking the walls. They also have some of the most advanced eyes in the animal kingdom. Let’s just be glad this concoction of horror is really small then,ok? Great.

Cassowaries:

(Never heard of it)

Cassowaries look like nothing more than a slightly fabulous emu - turkey hybrid. Does it look peculiar and hilarious, Yes. Does it look dangerous? No.

What may not be immediately apparent is the monstrous five-inch long, razor sharp middle toe wielded by all Cassowaries. Combine that with their powerful legs and territorial attitude, and suddenly you have a natural killer. These toe daggers have been known to fatally sever human veins and arteries. Well, Shit.

Slow Lorises:

Look at those adorable buggy eyes. Wide, innocent and perpetually inviting you over for a hug. The slow loris seems to have nothing but love to give. That is, of cause, if you consider a potentially lethal toxin Love.
Many types of slow loris have what is known as a 'brachial gland' on the inner side of its elbow. This gland can secrete a clear substance that, when mixed with the slow loris' saliva, formulates a potent toxin. Being on the receiving end of one of these toxic bites from the worlds only poisonous primate may spell disaster.
It's so cute I could die! Literally!


That's all for now.

Movie Weekend: I was scared proper!

So this past weekend, I spent the whole weekend on the couch in my PJs watching movies and eating junk with a mate of mine. Ok I’m exaggerating, not the whole weekend; we took a break for about an hour or two to watch the rugby at a rad little pub. It was really awesome, I got to watch a few movies I've wanted to watch for a while but just haven’t had time for. Plus a few movies I had no intention of ever watching.(Funny enough I enjoyed them.) The weekend was kicked off with the new Carrie movie.(eeeek)While it was not an exact remake of the original story, it was still flipping good and I loved it.

We then moved onto a movie which is actually the reason I’m writing this blog entry. I thought it was going to be a load of rubbish. I still can’t decide if I liked it or not, all I know is it should have been really stupid but it scared the living sh*t out of me.

Allow me to introduce: Evil Dead

Basic Plot: Five friends head to a remote cabin, yes remote cabins… why do people still go to these when they are obviously going to die. Just looking at the creepy broken down pile of wood they were calling a cabin, I could tell this would be one of THOSE movies and I was pretty annoyed already. I think I actually rolled my eyes and bitched about it to my mate who was forcing to watch it. All he said was “Just watch” so I did. So these dumb kids are there for a drug intervention, one of the girls is a junkie and she agrees to stop (PFFFFT They didn't believe her either.) Thanks to a siff smell in the cabin and some help from their cute little dog (I like to call him fluffy, whatever you do, don’t get attached to fluffy!) they find their way into a basement which just happens to be full of creepy Exorcism stuff (the basement events are all shown in the first five minutes of the movie, extremely creepy and messed up.) while looking through the basement they discover a Book of the Dead. One of the dumb kids stupidly ignores warnings on the book and unwittingly summons up a demon. The evil presence possesses the druggy chick first as she tries to make her way back to the city suffering from withdrawals (that’s when shit get freaking creepy and kind of sick) Demon possessed druggy girl starts killing people off in some really stuffed up ways. 

Long story short, this movie is messed up and while I generally love messed up creepy horrors, this movie gave me nightmares. Seriously, I’m talking about wake up in the middle of the night heart racing fearing for your life kind of nightmares. 
So if you are a fan of that kind of terror, then this is the movie for you. If you are sensitive to scary movies DO NOT WATCH THIS! You will never sleep again. 

I had no idea that dumb poster would be this accurate. Then again maybe this movie just plays on my fears a lot more than anything else and it won’t be that bad for you. I don’t know. All I know is I will never watch it again. We ended up watching Scary Movie 5 afterwards (they rip off Evil Dead) to try and make me laugh before I went to bed. I laughed but it didn't help, I still woke up in horror early hours of the morning. 
The rest of the weekend we watched everything from Wolverine to The Call. It was a flipping rad way to spend a weekend and I suggest everyone tries it.

That's all.

Seals are just dog mermaids... Think about it.

I like that shit #4

So everyone seems to know this this artist but I only heard about Lorde a few weeks ago through a friend Monique (you can check out Monique's epic blog HERE) she played a few songs for me at roller derby and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked them. 

Decided to give Lorde another listen today and the more I listen, the more I like it! So I figured I’d share her tunes with you guys, click HERE for Lorde on Sound Cloud.

This awkward beauties real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor. She is a 17 year old singer-song writer who hails from Auckland - New Zealand, she has chaotic hair and a pretty epic voice.

PFFFFFT! SHE IS SEVENTEEN!

That’s all.

What do I call this? You asked, so I'm answering.

So I know I haven’t been talking much about work (people keep emailing me to ask why) but I have a very good reason for that. Stuff was going down that I couldn't actually talk about at the time. I will edit what I say because I don’t believe in leaving on shitty terms with a company. No matter what went down or is still to go down I’m a better person than that. So if anything I say sounds like I’m bad mouthing my company, I want to make it very clear I AM NOT!

Basically I’m being retrenched. Which for any normal person would probably be horrible news but I think we have all established “Normal” doesn't quite apply to me. Don’t get me wrong it was a shock; the way I was informed about my position becoming redundant in the company was not exactly delicately done. After a few meetings, some research and a good ol’ chat with my wonderful older sister, I saw this situation for what it really is: A push to change my life and do something I actually enjoy.

I think it’s no secret I was unhappy in what I was doing and needed a change for my own sanity. I was just too comfortable in my own lazy misery to actually get up and do something about it. Now I kind of have to but without the financial stress that usually come with job hunting.

This company has taught me a lot. The good and the bad experiences have been a lesson in life and have made me a better person. I am definitely more confident and know I am capable of handling pretty much anything thrown at me. I have also come to realize recently I am a stronger person than I had thought I was. I've never been a push over but what I now know is when push comes to shove, damn I can shove hard!

I’m going to miss some of the people I work with (yeah, only some) but I know I’ll still keep in touch with them so it’s not a total loss. It’s not like when you are mates with a boyfriend’s sibling, you break up and lose your friend as well… Although I’m still friends with my ex’s siblings… Yeah… Slowly learning how many normal rules really don’t apply to me. Not the point... Point is there are things I will miss and there are things I will be glad to never deal with again.

Don’t know what I’m going to do for “Moron of the Day” material… I suppose there are morons everywhere so it shouldn't be too hard to find another source.

I’m on day 5 of my 1 month notice. Come end of March (26 days/17 working days EEEK!) I’ll officially be a jobless bum. That means in between job hunting and interviews (I hope they come quickly) I will be skating, hanging with my fam and attacking my nephew with hugs & kisses. Looking forward to my next adventure!

Googled ‘Happy about being retrenched’ to find a picture… Apparently Google doesn't know what I’m talking about because all those people looked sad… So here, have a Sir Cat riding a Unicorn instead:

I like ellipses.

#YOLOKids: Daisy Dukes

So today during lunch, while walking through the shopping center up the road from my office, I saw what has become a fad among youngins today, the YOLO generation and their really awful “shorts” (My eyes! My poor innocent eyes!) Daisy Dukes… Whose stupid idea was that?

I do not need to see your ass hanging out the bottom of your poor excuse for shorts. It is NOT sexy. You do not look sexy… You look trashy. STOP THAT SHIT NOW! I just don’t understand it. Have you no self-respect? Have you no respect for anyone else in this world? I've literally seen hookers with more clothes on than this daisy duke generation.

I have absolutely NOTHING against short shorts, I think a lot of girls look really cute in short shorts, and it’s Durban for flip sake… Summer all year round, so go right ahead and wear your shorts, let’s just try keep your goodies inside them please.

We live in a world where you are judged on your appearance. How you dress and carry yourself is how you will be treated. I’m not condoning it, I wish we lived in a world where people were judged on their personality and who they are as people but we don’t and the reality is if you dress like trash you will be treated as trash. Why would you want to put yourself through that? Is it because famous delinquents like Miley Cyrus and Rihanna do it? 

Firstly, I hardly think you should be using them as role models. 

Secondly, not even they look good in them.

See...

People will treat you how you treat yourself. Puts some big girl shorts on and have a little class.

If you are still not sure what I mean by Classy Short Shorts here you go: