So, don’t read the red stuff, unless you are interested in some gory details of the day. Deep thoughts follow at the end, in black again.

So, I never got around to buying my little photo gadget. I spent 9:00 to 14:00 running errands (about 1.5 hours driving around, admittedly) and by that time I was too exhausted to go right to the city centre. I’ll explain what I’m looking for. I want to make a pinhole camera. I have the plans, and it should take about an hour or two. Just a couple of pieces of paper or cardboard, and some duct tape. (Or duck tape.) For reasons of insanity I want to make it as primitive as possible, but clear I do not want to produce my own film (yet). So the idea is to take a regular spool of store film, and unwind it in the camera exposing frames as you go along. Unfortunately, my plans say that I should rig this up using another, empty spool. But I discovered that empty spools can’t be opened unless you also plan to destroy them. So I need some gadget that I can roll the exposed part of the film onto. I was hoping that a particular camera store in the centre of Cape Town may have what I need, but at least it is not clear from the website that they do. So I’ll have to make another plan.

Part of the reason I was too tired to tackle the city centre was that I took my Canon compact to the repairshop in Montague Gardens. Despite the name, this is a semi-industrial area where half the drivers are maniacs who go at twice the speed limit (they problably drive the same route every single day in vehicles they don’t own or care for) and the other half are “newbies” who never visit the area and drive at half the speed limit. I tried to stay on target, but I was probably driving like a newbie, some of the time. The new transport system that the city is building will probably not change this particular traffic situation much. Alas. Anyways, after my trip to Canon, all I wanted to do was head home.

At least they were very accommodating. I had much less luck with the municipality. I’ve been using an “illegal” refuse bin that my cousin acquired while she was staying here. (I was in Finland.) For the last couple of years this has worked fine, but now the refuse collection department has stopped emptying my bin and I need to get an “official” bin. (They are identical by the way, except for the logo on the front.) You’d think that this is as easy as going along, proving that I live where I live, and paying a small fee. Oh no! The owner of the property (or his or her legal representative) must fill out the form and sign it. And it includes details such as ID number (henkilötunnus), date of birth, nationality, gender!, and details of your marital status. I never realized that refuse bin fraud had reached such a drastic level. Sigh. Oh, and there is a two-week backlog because of the great demand for refuse bins.

All this explains why today features yet another archive photo.

My German class in 1989. The dork is second from the left. The other guy is Berdo. I remember the girls, but not all their names. Mrs. Metzkes is second from the right. Wonder where she is now? Would have liked to chat to her again.

Is “metrosexual” just another term for “fop” and “dandy”, or are they allowed, as I believe, to be more emotional? I’m disqualified because I don’t care much about clothes. Half my t-shirts have mysterious little holes and, I’m ashamed to admit it, so do most of my boxer shorts. But I stand by the metrosexuals when it comes to crying and admitting that I cry. I find it very therapeutic, unless of course accompanied by an enormous stake sticking out the side of your stomach.

A circuitous way of getting to my real though-for-the-day: it has been a long time since I saw a movie that really moved me, even close to tears. Or any emotion. I don’t really go to watch movies much (bowling alone — just google it!) but the ones I hear about and watch are not doing it for me. It seems that there is a great sausage machine that just turns them out, one by one. Or thousands by thousands. Perhaps I’m just not on the right mailing lists. I’m not looking for a deep and pretentious avant-garde cinematic philosophy which I won’t understand in any case, but a little “message” won’t be a bad thing, will it? I watched “Så som i himmelen”, but I couldn’t really see the point. The last movie that I can recall that moved me (a lot) was “Goodbye Lenin”. It said something, not too profound, but original and not trivial either. I cried.

One last thing that is bothering me, speaking as we are of pop culture: why is it “Mr. Spock” and not “Dr. Spock”?