The oval ball bounces straight for us.

It is indeed a sunny day in Tshwane (petoria). The locals woke up as World and Super14 champions, had a winning team over the week-end and were comfortable in the knowledge that they couldn't lose in the week coming up. But weather is all relative and it's getting remarkably Stormier in the near future for our boys in blue over the Jukskei. They have a bye coming up, have already surrendered the S14 trophy (even the Stormers already have more points than they can mathematically get) and Dangerous Dave is joining the ranks of their tax paying/avoiding residents (the fact that my darling sister is leaving the town for good on the exact selfsame day has not gone unnoticed).

Dan's the man

The contrast was hard to ignore (these days are distant memories, WWSD-what would Steve Do?). Loftus was empty, Newlands packed. The Super 14 is getting very exciting as the Crusaders wait on who'll be joining them in the semis. There's four weeks to go and the Sharks and Waratahs are sitting in second and third with a bit of breathing space to the pack of six marauding for fourth. The length and nature of the tournament means that they're all in with a shout and there's a bit of dice throwing required to predict the make-up of the final four.

Which is exactly what we did. Here are the crunch games with some bone tossing for the results(winners in bold).

April
25 Crusaders vs Blues Christchurch 9.35am
26 Waratahs vs The Sharks Sydney 11.40am

MAY

3 Vodacom Bulls vs Waratahs Loftus Versfeld 3pm
3 Vodacom Stormers vs Brumbies Newlands Rugby Stadium 5.05pm
9 Hurricanes vs Western Force Wellington 9.35am
9 Vodacom Bulls vs Brumbies Loftus Versfeld 7.10pm
10 Vodacom Stormers vs Waratahs Newlands Rugby Stadium 7.10pm
16 Blues vs Hurricanes Auckland 9.35am
16 Western Force vs Brumbies Perth 1.05pm
17 Reds vs Waratahs Brisbane 11.40am
17 The Sharks vs Chiefs The Absa Stadium, Durban 7.10pm

The bones are clearly from the Table mountain area as they see the 'Tahs and the Sharks stumbling ever so slightly in the difficult run in with the Stormers and Cane's pulling through with mostly homeground games. Using a lovely excel sheet we can fathom a 'Saders vs 'Tahs/Canes in Christchurch and Sharks/Stormers (venue TBA) final four. That's my cock on a block, but anything can happen, except a Bulls title defence.


Whilst we're on the subject of rugby, and have got the boring talk of results/matches out the way, it's time to look at some pivots. Dan Carter is the best.
Just look at him, and you'll see why Jeannie D didn't come home the night the 'Saders played in Cape Town. The bone structure, the 'gee shucks' countryboy attitude and the fact that he's pretty darn good all makes him a top prize for any girl. But since he's currently injured we do have to look elsewhere and luckily it's not a far travel to find his worthy replacement.
they all want their hands on him



He's reserved and down to earth, pretty good with the boot and (according to our XY chromosoned sources) bloody hot too. Yes sirree, Peter Grant has it all, and if those bones are to be believed an appointment with Mr Carter come May 31st.

Pete always scores

world's biggest foam party

not what you thought. the dudes from Sony Bravia went a bit wild downtown Miami.

now imagine if they left it on at night?!

Who's got a new flag?

Hey they threw this thing up the other day. Now Blue Flag means cool beach in municipality language.

Nice

I think to celebrate we should hold a surfing beach braai where we get mortared. Bring your dogs

the figures are all skyrocketing

So all the numbers are going up. Petrol is like it's linked to some internet dating scheme. I still shudder when the joggie tunes me it's over four hundred bucks to fill up my thriteen hundred. They must be laughing, as I'm sure their tips go up proportionately.

Eskom is pushing at getting their price tariffs upped by hefty margins, bye bye cheapest tricity on the planet, tough takkies if you run a factory on slim margins (but not if you have an aluminium smelter and it's all at cost anyway).

Tito has just reminded us that he's not forgotten about us. Take that 50 basis points and find another whole in that belt of yours.

Then I stumbled on a graph for Zimflation. Wahaaa. you can see it all here, but for the record it was a staggering 585 in 2003% but due to the scale hardly it even registers a blip.

So as we might have realised not everything is going up (definitely not renumerations), and this one is a moniker of note. 5 years ago, a bottle of the tried and tested Chateau Libertas was about twenty bucks. I picked up some at a Tops the other night on special for...twenty bucks. Hmmm, somethings fishy, because you can be rest assured the price of Tassies has doubled in that same time frame

cruising parking lots to pick up chicks

You have to ask WTF is going on here?
Look at the hands
It's mulletboy XC racer boerie stander and road princess Cherisé Taylor. Now Cherisé is the Angelina Jolie of south african cycling, she pulled a silver medal at the world juniors whilst still in matric last year. She was one of the four Konica Minolta ladies, undoubtedly the hottest team to hit local tarmac EVER and got rewarded as SA female cyclist of the year for her troubles. Unfortunately MTN picked her up this year and gooied her on a Raleigh, but not even that could stop her from winning the Argus.
Go princess, go!
Well Boerie is our top rated XC lap racer from Port Shepstone. He's also a yungsta, but came 5th in the under23 section of the worlds in Scotland last year. He's off to Beijing for sure, and turned some heads already at the Epic this year racing with world champ suzie before his knee exploded on day three.

Dirty boy
Pity is, he's tappit to the core. The mullet, the gold chain and the terrible hat selections make him a little bit parow-noord for my paranoia. So we had to do some sneaking (ie. Go to his open to the public facebook profile) and it appears our worst fears are confirmed. He's bonking (off the bike) our princess. Never before has such a hottie been so quickly Federlined, I'm only consoled by his profile

Activities:cycling.cruising parking lots to pick up chicks, hangin wid peeps in the ghetto
Interests:penguins
Vrooom
His car isn't much better, definitely from the wrong side of the tracks

bikep0rn

okay, now that's out the way, lets get back to my ruminations and the original subject title.

So I'm really battling to crack it into the local adult entertainment industry. Before you go on about performance, hardware, lack of german accent etc. let me just say it is purely down to my cycling tan. No amount of self-tan lotion or coconut oil will ever neutralise that solid line on my thighs where one side is slave to the african sun and the other porcelain princess locked up in her castle. It's just as bad on the upper arms, and the hard to hide sockline. They have all sorts of experts on set, with all sorts of lighting rigmarole trying all sorts of things, yet it's all come to naught......

then at a low-point (just before i considered giving up riding to pursue this career more seriously), it hit me.

BIKE PORN

Yes, I know what you thinking, get your fixie off those fixies i showed you earlier. If those top-quality movies can all have female stars wearing their high heels, why can't we have some bib-shorts and helmet scenes? A bit of off-trail roughriding? All we really need are some good titles, the rest will come. What they normally do is take a really good blockbuster and wangle the name around:
For Your Thighs Only
Forrest Hump
Full Metal Bikini
Ghostlusters
Gonad the Barbarian
Good Will Humping

and that's just F and G, what we need are some saucy bike related titles. here's a start:
head tube
seatpost in seattle
top tube gun
the tale of nippleless wheelbuilding (does that sound like nicklaus nickleby??)
the texas chainstay redesign
cleat and present danger
XTR