Kids Are Creepy

Out of the mouths of babes… A Reddit thread was started called, “Parents of Reddit, what is the creepiest thing your young child has ever said to you?” HOLY FUCK! After reading some of the comments on this thread, i’m almost convinced that all children are demons, and the reason teenagers are so moody is because the demons are being exorcised.

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Here are some of the best worst:

I was tucking in my two year old. He said “Good bye dad.” I said, “No, we say good night.” He said “I know. But this time it’s good bye.”

 

While changing my daughter in front of the open closet door. She kept looking around me and laughing. I asked her what was so funny. She said, “the man.” To which I replied, “what man?” She then pointed at the closet and said, “the man with the snake neck.” I turn around and nothing was there. I’m afraid to look into the history of my house to see if anyone hung themselves in the closet.

 

My five year old son asked me last week “what do you see through the black circles in my eyes when you’re controlling me when I’m at school?”

 

I was on a bus recently and we were stopped outside a walk-in clinic. A little girl in the seat in front of me turned to her dad and said, “Death is the poor man’s doctor.” And that was that.

 

I jokingly asked: “What’s the best way to get a girlfriend?”
7-year-old’s response: “Tell her to be my girlfriend or she’ll never see her parents again.”

 

“Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were ok when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn’t!” He was maybe 5 or 6 years old? It was totally out of the blue..

 

I was sound asleep, and at around 6am I was woken up by my 4 year old daughters face inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, “I want to peel all your skin off.” The backstory here is I had been sunburned the previous week, and was starting to peel. In my sleep addled state however, it was pretty terrifying for a few seconds.

 

My 5 year old at the time had night terrors and would scream in her sleep. One night I said “mama’s here its okay”. She looked right at me still asleep and screamed “mama? But who is that behind you?”

 

5 year old: “Mommy, when you die I want to put you in a glass jar so I can keep you and see you forever.” To which the 6 year old responds: “That’s stupid. Where are you gonna find a jar that big?”

 

A friend of mine’s child told him, “Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want.”

 

I don’t have kids, but once, visiting some friends on a farm, my buddy’s youngest girl (5 or 6) at the time, was afraid of the chickens. I tried to explain to her that the chickens weren’t there to hurt us but she wasn’t having it. So I’m sitting around the fire pit, looking at one of the chickens a few feet in front of me when I feel hot breath in my ear as she whispers: “See. He’s always watching.”

 

Walking through a graveyard to “visit” some departed family members, we walked across the grave of a baby boy who died shortly after being born. There’s a family relationship, so we know for a fact the mother is still alive. My 4 year old son turned to my wife and said “Why is that baby crying? Why won’t his mom hug him?”

 

My daughter said to me that there is a woman who watches her watch movies in her room and sleeps on the ceiling above her bed when she sleeps. She also says it does not like me and wants to eat my heart. My kid watches Elmo and fucking Dinosaur Train. Where in the hell did she get this from?

 

“My three-year-old daughter stood next to her new born brother and looked at him for a while then turned and looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, it’s a monster we should bury it.”

 

 

 

 

Red Bull Illume 2013

Red Bull Illume, the world’s premier international photography competition dedicated to action and adventure sports!

It was created to showcase the most exciting and creative sports photography on the planet and the good news is that submissions are still open! You have until April 30th to enter, so around 6 weeks left.

How rad would it be if there was a South African in the Top 50, maybe even the Top 10? We have some pretty amazing action & adventure sports in South Africa with some of the most beautiful backdrops in the world. RIGHT now – the Absa Cape Epic is underway, i’m sure there are loads of great photo opportunities there!

The Image Quest 2013 will be the 3rd edition of the competition after 2007 and 2010. From tens of thousands of entries, 50 images in ten categories are selected by international judges and photo editors from renowned publications.

© Chris Burkard. Overall Winner, Red Bull Illume 2010

The top 50 Red Bull Illume finalists will be invited to attend a grand ceremony in the city of Hong Kong where the winners will be unveiled. Once the winners have been announced these 50 finalist images then travel around the world as a unique and stand-alone photo exhibition. To showcase the illumination, the exhibitions always open at night-time only.

The overall winner of the 2010 Image Quest was Chris Burkard (USA). His image (above) of surfer Peter Mendia riding the waves off Chile’s West Coast won universal praise from the judges.

Keen to enter? Check it: Red Bull Illume 2013

Here are some of the finalists from 2010, across a few of the categories:

New App – iMadeFace

The new iMadeFace app, available in the Apple Store, helps turn your face into a cartoon! Here are some that have already been created of celebrities you might recognize:

Flogsta Scream

Flogsta is a neighbourhood in the western outskirts of the Swedish city of Uppsala. Most of its inhabitants are students attending Uppsala UniversityEvery evening at 10 p.m. the “Flogsta scream” may be heard, when students scream collectively from windows, balconies and roof tops. There is controversy over how the tradition started. Some locals say it was simply a stress reliever, which started during exam times and then became a daily occurrence. Others say it started in remembrance of a student who committed suicide in the 1970s.

However it started, or whoever started it – it’s damn strange. I like the idea of screaming to let go of stress… but as someone who has lived in Cape Town her entire life, the noon day gun still gives me a fright! Can you imagine what would happen if people started screaming at 10pm every night? AND What happens if you’re really in danger and you need help, everyone would think you were just playing along? It’d certainly be a good night to murder someone…

Remembrance Day – What Should We Remember?

Remembrance Day, also known as Poppy Day, is a memorial day mostly observed in the UK and some Commonwealth countries. Just in case this is all news to you South Africa is, in fact, a member of the Commonwealth. So what/who are we supposed to remember? The day has been observed since the end of World War 1 to remember the members of the armed forces who died in the line of duty.

We live in a country where we have so much of our “own” recent, and not so recent, history to celebrate, commemorate and remember… people that died fighting, not in war, but fighting for change. I saw a couple of tweets yesterday (11 November) about the relevance of a day remembering people who died in a war that had nothing directly to do with lil ol’ South Africa.

The thing about World War 1 was that it really was a world war. It might not have happened on our doorstep, but i can guarantee you that our doorsteps might look a little different if the Allies hadn’t won.

When World War I broke out in 1914, the South African government chose to join the war on the side of the Allies. General Louis Botha, the then prime minister, faced widespread Afrikaner opposition to fighting alongside Great Britain so soon after the Anglo Boer War and had to put down a revolt by some of the more militant elements before he could send an force of 67,000 troops to invade German South-West Africa (now Namibia). (wiki)

In total, more than 146,000 whites, 83,000 blacks and 2,500 Coloureds and Asians served in South African military units during the war, including 43,000 in German South-West Africa and 30,000 on the Western Front. An estimated 3,000 South Africans also joined the Royal Flying Corps. (wiki)

What kills me is this: the total South African casualties during the war was about 18,600 with over 12,452 killed – more than 4,600 in the European theater alone.

Remembrance Day went by in South Africa with hardly a nod to those that died. So here i am, for what it’s worth, remembering them. They were a generation that had courage and bravery in excess, they went and fought a war in another country with the knowledge that they might never come back and enjoy the life they were fighting for. World War 1 has almost completely dropped out of living memory, as far as i know, the last living veteran from World War 1 died in February of this year.

If another World War broke out, and the call came for all able-bodied men & women to step forward and sign up to fight, would we? Scores of 18 – 25 year olds jumped on a boat to go and fight to protect their families and homes. Something tells me that the response would be less than overwhelming. Sacrifice isn’t something that our generation knows much of.

Justin Bieber was the top trend on Twitter on Remembrance Day. 

Lest we forget.

Instagram Is Turning Into Facebook

Instagram’s new Web profiles just changed everything. Expect cries of “Instagram is ruined!” and get ready to lock your account.

You’d be forgiven, if at first glance, you thought you were staring at Nike’s Facebook page. You’re actually gawking at its Instagram Web profile, a new feature that’s rolling out for all Instagram users over the next week. It’s the first major “un-Instagrammy” change since the service was acquired by Facebook, and it’s probably going to leave some users grumbling.

 

via: Buzzfeed

I’m not sure about you, but Instagram’s attraction was that it was purely mobile driven and that the photos we were uploading weren’t easily viewed by anyone with access to the internet… and *gasp* non-Instagram users!

And surprise surprise, brands seem to be the driving force behind this move. “We believe this is a big step in allowing brands to have an Instagram home on the web where they can share recent shots with just about anyone. We’re obviously very excited by the adoption of Instagram by the world’s major brands and we’ll continue to build products that suit both them and users alike.” - Instagram chief Kevin Systrom

“If your photos are set to public, anyone will be able to see your profile,” said an official statement. “You do not have to be an Instagram user to view a public user’s profile on the web.”

You can check if your profile is live by typing in: instagram.com/username

If your profile isn’t one of the few that has been converted just yet, have no fear, all 100 million registered Instagram users will be online by the end of this week.