What’s a Beefcake?

So you might be wondering at this point what a beefcake is or if there is even such a thing. Well there is. Beefcakes is a small yet vibrant restaurant and bar in the heart of Greenpoint on Somerset Road. I before the 22 April 2011 had never heard of such a place but that all changed when my friend decided to go there for her, well this is ironic, twenty second birthday.

When she first mentioned the restaurant I was so intrigued that I looked to Google to help me find out more. Well as the name might suggest they specialise in mainly burgers and have any type flavour or topping you could ever want on a burger...and I mean anything. Also, the name might give this away as well, it’s mainly a gay hangout with hot waiters serving the food wearing tight tank tops, some even wearing no tops at all! The decor and mood of Beefcakes is pink, fluffy and full of activity. It is the perfect place to go for a bachelorette, in fact the table next to us had a future bride celebrating her last night of freedom...she even took a body shot off one of the hot waiters (for those that don’t know a body shot entails one sipping a shot of some sort of alcohol out of someone’s bellybutton), I don’t think it’s my kind of thing but it was fun to watch.

So for those of you who want to try something a little different I suggest Beefcakes for a fun night out that won’t disappoint...and the food and cocktails are pretty great too.

Wedding cake in the middle of the road

This topic actually brings up quite a sore point in my life and that is that I have never been to a wedding before. How sad is that?! A lot of people don’t believe me when I say I haven’t been to a wedding but it’s a sad but true fact.  Maybe that is why weddings fascinate me so much.

I think weddings are so beautiful, not just the bride, but the whole ceremony. To me a wedding is the ultimate show of love that you can do to show the other person you love them, it is a commitment for life. I can’t wait for my wedding day, one day far in the future that is. Imagine how exciting the whole thing must be from the planning to the actual day you say ‘I do’. I think it is especially exciting for girls; we get to wear the pretty wedding dress and get our hair and makeup done.

I know my best friend’s sister is getting married next year and hopefully due to the fact that we have been friends for sixteen years will mean I get an invite but I’m not going to get my hopes up, who knows maybe the first wedding I attend will be my own.

Strange Creatures

So those of you that don’t know by now I have a love and interest in all the unusual animals in this world. Sure I love cute puppies and playful little kittens but my true love lies with the animals that people don’t probably know much about, so today I shall show and tell you about some of the unusual animals I like.

One of my favourites is the Anteater, for some strange reason this weird looking animal is so cute and I would love to have it as a pet. Anteaters eat ants, termites and soft-bodied grubs. Using the long, sharp claws on their forelimbs, they open insect colonies and tree trunks. They then use the tongue to collect the eggs, larvae, and adult insects. Anteaters have no teeth and their physical digestion is aided by the pebbles and debris that they consume when they ingest insects. How fun would it be to have one as a pet?

Another animal that I love is a platypus. They are so unique looking and can swim too. The platypus is a semi-aquatic mammal. They are the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The body and the broad, flat tail of the platypus are covered with dense brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air to keep the animal warm. They are also a protected species that were once hunted for their fur. Who would ever want to hurt such a cute thing?

Ok the last animal I don’t really find cute, in fact it is rather ugly, and I don’t think I would like it as a pet but this animal looks so intriguing that I just had to get some information on it. The star-nosed mole is a small mole found in wet low areas of eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States. Star-nosed moles are easily identified by the eleven pairs of pink fleshy appendages ringing their snout which are used as a touch organ with more than 25,000 minute sensory receptors with which this hamster-sized mole feels its way around. Adults are 15 to 20 cm in length, weigh about 55 g, and have 44 teeth. The mole's most distinctive feature is a circle of 22 mobile, pink, fleshy tentacles at the end of the snout, from which they derive their name. These are used to identify food by touch, such as worms, insects and crustaceans. So that’s a little bit of information about this weird looking creature.

So there are some of the strange and weird creatures of this world that if you didn’t know about, now you do.

Is it a poor idea to lie to yourself?

I actually think the opposite; I think that it is a poor idea not to lie to yourself. In life we often don’t like to face the truth so I think we lie to ourselves as a way of dealing with the things that happens to us. In fact if we didn’t lie to ourselves I don’t think we would survive.

When we lie to ourselves it allows us to do or continue to do things we wouldn’t usually do if we had to be honest with ourselves. This chocolate won’t make me fat, I know he will never cheat on me again; he only hit me that one time and promised he would never do it again. These are just some of the things as human beings we refuse to see the truth in. Imagine we didn’t lie to ourselves about these things; we would never make it out alive.

When we eat a chocolate while on diet we say to ourselves that it is not a bad thing - lie, when a guy cheats once we tell ourselves he will never do it again – lie and when a guy hits you we say we know he won’t do it again because he promised – lie.

It’s a sad but true fact, that to make it through life we sometimes have to turn a blind eye and lie to ourselves.

Panchos Party

So what and where is Panchos? Let me tell you, it is an amazing Mexican food restaurant that is situated in the heart of Observatory. The vibe is awesome and don’t even get me started on the food and most importantly... the margarita jugs that come in a 1litre jug and even a 1.8litre jug!

After graduation, my friends and I decided that Panchos was the place we wanted to go to celebrate. What a great night it was, filled with lots of food, such as nachos, chilli poppers and quesadillas and most importantly the delicious margarita jugs, a combination of strawberry and lemon flavour. We, being the lovers of margaritas that we are, managed to easily get through not one but two 1.8litre margarita jugs. I think it’s fair to say we were a little worse for wear after that.

Overall it was a great evening spent eating, drinking and catching up with friends – three of my favourite things to do. Panchos provided the perfect setting and it didn’t hurt that our waiter was really cute either. So anyone that is looking for a good time that won’t break the bank, I would highly recommend PanchosJ

The sound of one hand clapping

This honestly has to be the most random topic EVER! I don’t even think it is possible for one hand to clap never mind the sound that it would make. Ok so to break it down, to hear the sound of one hand clapping it would mean that you would have to have only one hand, right?

So I’m sure we can all agree that having one hand is rather unfortunate but what about those people who pretend to have only one hand? Do those sick people exist...the answer is yes they do. I actually got to witness this the other day. I was driving in town, up Buitenkant Street to be more specific, and saw the strangest thing when I happened to stop at a red robot. There was a lady begging for money with only one arm...or so it seemed. On closer inspection, actually it was quite obvious really, it was clear that her arm was just tucked into her t-shirt and that she in fact was a fully-abled woman.

Honestly how silly can you be to think that that kind of lame trick would work? Anyone with two reasonably working eyes would be able to see that she was faking it. Maybe this badly done trick works for her but it sure didn’t fool me.

Goosebumps...

So who remembers the books called Goosebumps? If you haven’t heard of these books before you might not understand the name or what they all about but I’m here to tell you. The Goosebumps books were the best books ever, when I was younger that is. They told of horror stories that were so imaginative and scary that it gave you...well...goosebumps.

They were my favourite books to read and I remember how my friends and I would sit around during our break times at school and discuss which Goosebumps book we were reading. OK so I might have been 10 years old and naive but I guess that’s why the books seemed so scary. Even now at the age of 22 I can still remember what they were all about and how scared they used to make me.

My favourite Goosebumps stories of all time were about a blob that ate children and an evil ghost dog. Now it sounds silly and pathetic but back then it was the most interesting and exciting book I had ever read, I couldn't bring myself to put it down.

So if you as a child never read a Goosebumps book, you missed out. I still have a few of the Goosebumps books I read when I was younger, so anyone that wants to see what they all about...I’m more than willing to lend them out.

Not all who wander are lost

I often find myself wandering about the people that wander. When I see homeless people or beggars, often known as the wanderers, I always think how did they land up the way they did, what went wrong in their life to get them where they are because I am sure that no one would voluntarily choose that kind of life for themselves. I’m sure God didn’t put them on this earth to be homeless, hungry and poor.

All the homeless people do all day is walk around with no place to call home; they are almost like the lost people of this world. It is hard to imagine that we all started off our lives equal, as little babies that could have become and had the potential to be anything we wanted. But as we grow older our situations change and what we see and who we interact with, I believe, is who we become. So maybe the homeless people of our world just hang out with the wrong crowd, maybe they just couldn’t catch a lucky break or maybe they didn’t even try to be anything in life. I am not sure what the answer might be but I do know that not all homeless people are lost.

So the next time you see a homeless person just spare a thought of how they might have gotten there and what their life must be like.

How do you step from the top of a 100 foot pole?

Let’s put it this way it would no easy task, do you even get poles that high? And if so I doubt you are meant to be standing on it in the first place. But let’s say for some unknown reason you find yourself in that situation, exactly how do you step down from a 100 foot pole?

While unless you are secretly a ninja or have amazing spider man abilities I doubt you would get down from a pole that high in one piece. You would have to be rescued or take the risk, for those that like living life on the edge, and jump from the pole, although I would go for the first option as death would more than lightly be the result of the second.

At least if you had to try jump it you would quite literally end your life with a bang and just imagine what the newspaper headlines would read, ‘Stupid fool jumps from a 100 foot pole – and dies’  at least you would be remembered for something out of the ordinary. With all this being said I still can’t see how anyone would be able to or want to get onto a 100 foot pole in the first place but maybe that’s just me.

Blogging successes!

So I am only beginning to understand the world of blogging but there are some bloggers that have been around a lot longer and have hundreds and in some cases thousands of followers. There are three blogs that I will be looking at in my blog...drum roll please...

The first well known blogger I will be looking at is the famous, or in some cases, infamous Perez Hilton. He is a well known Hollywood blogger who lives in LA and blogs on all the celebrities and the crazy things they get up to. No one is untouchable to Mr Hilton, something that has caused some controversy in the past such as when Perez Hilton called Will-i-am a f*ggot. He later apologised for what he said.

His blogs are all about celebrities which can be a good thing as it allows one to stay up to date with who is doing what in celebville. His blogs are also straightforward and hard hitting, Perez Hilton isn’t afraid to go after anyone which means that any celeb can be targeted no matter their stature in Hollywood. His website is also colourful and helps add to his image, of being ‘out there’. Perez Hilton also doesn’t restrict his blogs to just words; he adds relevant videos and photos. So if you want to be in the know of celebs, follow Perez Hilton at http://perezhilton.com/

The next blogger I will be looking at is Seth Rotherham, real name William Mellor, is a well known blogger that is based and originates from Cape Town. He started out small and is now very big with a large following on his blog. He slogan, “work is a sideline, live the holiday” sums up what he is all about.

His blogs are mainly lifestyle related and up to date with the latest news that is going on which means that if you read his blogs you are up to date on the latest going ons. The brand he has created also draws people in as he is living the life most people dream, like companies paying you to wear/ advertise their stuff. Not only are his blogs intriguing but so is he as a person, he is witty and arrogant, characteristics that usually wouldn’t be seen as a positive but in this case they work! Seth also allows for advertising and promotions on his blog and this brings more people and ultimately more money to him. Seth has managed to work and play at the same time and used his blog to widen his horizons to a radio station and property leasing, so follow him at http://www.2oceansvibe.com/

Urban Ninja is the last blog I will be looking at for now. Little is known about the guy who writes this blog except that he is based in Cape Town. His blogs are mainly about active/ sporty topics such a cycling, triathlons and other sport races. His blogs speak about sporting events that have happened and that are upcoming. He himself is also a sporty guy into cycling, which perhaps explains the blog topics, and is sponsored by Puma for all his gear.

His blogs are perfect for the type of people looking for good sporting events and what they are all about. He also gives first hand experiences of the events he has taken part in which gives a personal touch to the blogging experience, it makes it easier to relate. Like Seth, he allows the brands that sponsor him to display and promote their brands on his blog. Also by using a name such as Urban Ninja it draws attention and has a better chance of getting noticed as opposed to someone who uses their ‘normal’ name, by using a name like Urban Ninja is adds mystery and people want to know more. So if you want to know what sporting events are hip hop and happening follow the Urban Ninja at http://www.urban-ninja.co.za/

Me, myself and I...

Monday morning started off with a great blogging workshop by Sheena Gates and the assignment we were given is what got me to write what’s below...

So I have been given the task to blog about...well...me! Who am I and what am I all about? To be honest, I don’t really know. It changes from day to day and depends on what mood I’m in. To take some time out of my day to reflect and look at myself is trickier than I first thought. But I will give it a bash and see how it goes.

 I am not the type of person that from a young age knew what I wanted to be, in fact to this day I’m not too sure...and in a world where everyone else around me seems to have their lives sorted, it can be a bit scary. In my short time on earth, I’m only 22 so I haven’t lived a lot; I have seen and encountered many things that have shaped me into who I am today. I am claustrophobic, energetic, fun, silly and I love to talk A LOT! I sometimes think I’m too realistic and because of this I miss out on certain things in life but I guess that’s just me.

I love my family, including our dog, my amazing friends, who have gotten me through some rough times and my boyfriend, who came into my life and stole my heart. I believe that without family, friends and love one can’t exist, these are core elements that we need in our life to make us happy and whole.

When I look back in my past and into my future I am happy with what I have and done and where I will go. No one has the secret to living a ‘perfect life’, whatever that might mean, so I am just excited to see where the adventure, called life, is going to take me.