Liposuction in Pink City

The sight of a buffet of finger food at a plastic sugery clinic in Green Point was one of the last things I'd ever expected to see, taste or smell. A large video screen transmits images from a nearby theatre room where a guinea pig is undergoing a new laser-assisted treatment that apparently makes recovery easier. The Egyptian surgeon comments that, "it's like playing the violin" as he swings his laser-tipped rod in an out of the women's stomach, while melted fat drips from the incision. Morbidly-fascinated observers around me chomp on cocktail sausages and keish while squishy sound effects blare from the speaker as the Doctor swings his fat-busting wand around the stomach. The combination makes me quesy.
Many of the people in the room appear to be experts on the matter as they praise the magician on the screen for the quick results he yields. Their faces seem tight and pinned, in a permanent state of glee. The surgeon's laser light shines through the thin skin as it hunts for fat to melt. He places the rod down on the woman and offers it to his colleague to try.
And then the vacuum comes out and sucks away unders the loose skin that appears suspended off the skeleton.
At this point the stomach looks like a deflating baloon.
The camera swings away and 400 mls of fat liquid is dispalyed in jug.
The women's frame begins to show. Hip bones that weren't there before appear from below.
The surgeon says she'll be very happy with the results on her right.
We are told that she could be back at work within a few days.
I wonder if they'll give her a DVD copy of the surgery?

To tweet or not to tweet...

and if I do am I a twit or tweeter or a twitterer? I once had this conversation with a friendly sub (what an oxymoron) back home. She insisted that I was "twit". You can't argue with them. I suspect they have secret fraternity meetings about style and convention in their spare time but let's not let my imagination run away with me.
I think the most shocking thing to me about the twitter phenomenon is that now even my 50-something-year-old father has an account He claims he has been enjoying keeping in touch with people who have similar interests to him around the world. What next Dad? Surprise me.
I'm a Mafikizolo (Johnny-come-lately) to twitter. Seriously. Compared to my facebook abilities, twitter is still very much a learning area for me. Having so much choice in terms of who to follow and who not to leaves me befuddled. Do I follow hundreds or thousands of people, or just a few interesting ones? And I'm finding the site rather difficult to navigate. Eyewitness News flood the page with updates, and searching and adding other people is becoming quite a mission. Let's hope I get it right before Natasha Joseph's next blogging seminar on Friday.
Speaking of Ms. Joseph, who reckons that only women can multitask, her Friday seminars are proving effective in shedding light on the gloomy darkness that is savvy SNS use. Well, minus the slow Internet and blocked sites, but that's not her fault.
The art of tweeting news stories appears to be strikingly similar to blurb and headline writing. I can barely tell the difference. I guess it's all about grabbing people's attention.
I'm pretty sure that if I get my tweeting skills right, I'd be able to effectively use it in the newsroom to be more er... efficient. You know, get information quicker etc.
But, there is still one major burning issue I have with this.
I feel Durban newsrooms are far more competitive and I've experienced encounters with people saying that you have to be careful about what you say in public forums about your work and stories because you not supposed to tip off your competition. They talk about things like exclusivity and scoops. Gives me the shudders. It's a tough issue, but I'll have to strike a balance.