I’m enjoying it a lot even though I’m finding it quite hard. It’s partially that structured dancing is new to me, and partly that it’s a lot about feet. We were at The Reserve in town for a birthday hootenanny on Friday, and Parfles and I were throwing shapes in the church of dance (hat tip), big style. It made me realise that I “dance” (ahem) with my hands a lot, and just kind of… shuffle my feet about a bit. Unless I’m jumping around like a loon.

I’m determined to persevere, though, and get good at it. I’m getting there. Slowly, but I’m getting there. There’s a social hang around and dance thingy after each lesson, but our social calendar has been a bit hectic recently and we’ve had to dance and run (last week we shot out to a birthday thingy for jimbob at HQ (after stopping to change clothes). I am pleased to announce that HQ’s food is still excellent.). This week, we stay. Exciting!

Quick aside: the venue is great. It’s at the Roodehek Restaurant (somewhere I’m still thinking I should go for Salty Cracker.)

Foursquare is the more widely known and popular, but I find it very messy. Cluttered and full of junk all over the place. It’s also got a bit of a business bent: getting special offers when you check-in at places, which puts me off slightly.

Gowalla I found much more appealing, especially the recent reboot. The focus on stories is especially appealing: I like short form diary writing, and doing this socially, adding pictures, getting virtual goodies along the way too, felt good. Unfortunately, a lot of the appeal is in the social nature of it, and I didn’t get very connected. Gowalla sort of incorporates 4sq stuff (short version: it connects completely, but that functionality is currently partially broken), so that’s an additional bonus.

The biggest issue for me, though, and why I’m not going to persevere with either of them is the actual physical reality of it. I don’t like getting out my phone and fiddling with it while I’m out with friends. To get the most out of the check-in/story experience, you really need to spend a few minutes prodding it, maybe a few more minutes taking pictures. I don’t want to be that kind of person: the one who’s playing with their phone all the time. I also don’t want to be the person snapping pictures of everything all the time: taking pictures of an event rather than experiencing it.

[Phone-fiddling is a personal bugbear of mine. It's not that I find it rude exactly, or that I don't believe people can multi-task, it's more a matter of priorities and taking time to unplug. I spend most of my day online, and sometimes a fair portion of the evening. So when I choose to socialise, and unplug for a while, I like to make the most of that. I don't want to be checking Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, and so on. It's more important to me to interact with the people I'm with. Okay, rant over!]

(This post brought to you by my continued push to Do More, including write)

It’s a lot of episodes, though, and has kind of put me off watching TV series and movies for now.

So, I’m trying this new thing. I call it: Doing Stuff In The Evenings.

It’s pretty easy to slip into watching DVDs or playing games for the whole night, especially after a hard day of work (yes, I do work!). I keep a list of fun / creative projects that I want to do, but I’ve been struggling to find the time or motivate myself to do them. So now I do them in the evenings. I’m giving myself a little bit extra of a push to actually be productive and create stuff, write stuff, draw stuff.

I’m surprised how little of a push I needed, actually. I have a lot of projects on the go that I’m excited about, but the trouble before was getting started. It feels like I’ve broken the seal, and now doing creative projects in the evening is recharging my batteries, rather than feeling like it’s draining them.

Of course, sometimes, I still take a day off and relax. I need to be able to recharge the recharging!

A little while ago we went to Knife for Salty Cracker. Hello, salty goodness! The meal and the experience were top notch, despite the slightly odd in-a-hotel out-of-the-way location. The rump steak I had was the best I have had in Cape Town. Better than Hussar’s (solid, if sometimes unexciting) or even Nelson’s Eye (a little pricey, but high quality). If you’re serious about the meat you put in your mouth (and you should be), check out Knife in Century City.

Last week on Monday I continued my ongoing experiments in Japanese cooking. The timing was a bit off, but the four stir fries were nummy. Thank you, Wagamama cookbooks! I feel like I’m losing my spark with The Cookings a bit, hence the branching out.

Last week Thursday we went to the Dias Tavern (info on eatout.co.za) before waddling down the road to the Fugard Theatre to watch Shakespeare’s R&J (on for a few more days, go see it!). Despite being in CT for almost double digit years now, I had never been to the taverna before. It is awesome! Big, tasty, Portuguese pub grub. Word on the street is that it gets extra rocking at weekends.

Last night the Crackernauts (plus celebrity guest star, Mum o’ Doc) hit Park’s Menu (details on Dining out coza). As usual, it didn’t disappoint, but excelled in tasty Korean goodness. Sadly, we didn’t make it all the way to a Korean BBQ / Hot Pot course. We did have a couple of main course dishes for starters, then a couple more main course dishes for mains, though. Our bellies were full and happy.

And tonight: Chippies. An easy eating, very tasty, prego steak roll and chips (with barbeque sauce) as a reward for studying hard at our Tuesday isiXhosa evening class.

I like eating.

p.s. *tap tap* is this thing on?

• Sandy shoes from a morning walk on Hout Bay beach with Parfles and pup.
• Fish & chips for breakfast.
• Scenic route along the coast for the drive home.
• Crashing out and relaxing at home.

I do enjoy the Cape Town lifestyle .

This is what we made.

Happy Birthday, Robot!

Robot was stood up.

Robot waited and waited at school, but no spaceship came.

“I’m making my own from this buzzing box,” he said.

The box stopped buzzing, but it turned bright green.

“Oh,” thought Robot, “it’s finally ready.

It smells funny. That’s just not good enough for the fuel.

My underwear maes a good filter and it feels so nice, but it burns slightly.”

Robot’s original spaceship looks like a magic mushroom, but Robot was wrong.

Then the aliens came to judge the weekly galactic robotkini contest.

First, they sang. Robot cringed, then stole their ride.

Robot went for a rollicking joy ride through an unstable event horizon, but they were totally expecting that.

“Welcome to the antiverse. School without love is outlawed here.” But Robot didn’t want love.

He wanted distant event horizons and ice cream, with Camembert sprinkles.

The galactic ice cream centre had exactly what he was looking for. He ordered a sugar cone of supreme happiness.

Apart from ice cream headaches, life is good. So long as you’re a robot with a plan.

Make of that what you will.

So, rather than saying “Yes, can I help you? I think you have the wrong house,” she hit the panic button.
Paranoid much?
Or do Parfles and I really look that dodgy?
[Answers on a postcard to the usual address]