The Coffee Blowjob Continues…

This mail just in from one of my readers.  I lolled.  Maybe the Jenkin sisters can advise this young lass a little better.  Feel free to chip in too, even if you’re not a Jenkin!

So I was reading your blog the other day (which is something I actually do on a regular basis – it is hilarious, insightful and very well written!) and I came across the Coffee Blowjob. Now it was mentioned that this is only to be used when drowning in shit. Well I am! And I just wanted to confirm that my assumption that its just like a regular one but with coffee is in fact correct.

I realise that this is both a random and vaguely weird thing to be asking you but, let’s face it, desperate times call for desperate measures!

I hope that you are as well as your blog makes you appear to be. You seem to be very happy and to have made quite a success of your life – I’m happy for you!

If you are confused, refer to the comments section of this post.

To My Boyfriend Person.

As you know, it’s Jon’s 30th tomorrow. I’m so excited, I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because I can now legitimately tease him about his grey hairs, creaky knee caps, aging person, slower reflexes, achy back being older than me. Not that it bothers me, I’ve always had older boyfriends, but he’s my favourite one. Truly.

So, here is a Dear Jon letter, because it’s his birthday:

Dear Jon,

Happy, happy, humphrey bumphrey my boyfriend person. You really do make my life so much more interesting. I love that we can argue over movies, simulgeek together, laugh for hours at each others’ silly antics and generally just stay amused with each other.

I promise now that you are old aged wrinkled a coffin-dodger more fragile, I will be more gentler with you and make sure that your feet are warm at night and that you have the softer pillow that I always end up stealing when you’re asleep. Oh, and I promise to try and not steal the blanket any more. But no guarantees on that.

I love you a lot and like you even more,

Your long-suffering, ever-loving, young and nubile girlfriend,

Sheen.

xx

In summary: Happy birthday my love. I really hope your 30th year is the start of a whole new life to come. One filled with even more laughter, happiness, and love. I will do my best to make sure I have a hand in trying to ensure all of those things.

Jon’s 30th [Jon I forbid you to read this]

It’s coming up this weekend. Well, he actually turns 30 on Thursday, so today and tomorrow are the last days he can call himself a young spring chicken.

But I need advice.  I’ve ordered his pressie ages ago, but it looks like it’ll only be delivered after his birthday which is very fokken annoying.

Anyway – what can I get him in the mean time?  Something small but epic and cool, just so he has something to open on the day.

This is what I have a blog for people, lend me your ears.  And assvice.  Discuss.

I would like to state…

…that I officially hate, with the most vigorous of passions, that lesbian 12 year old, Justin fucking Bieber!

I made Jon watch him perform on Idols last night.  We were amazed at how the girls screamed, cried, waved their underwear and basically all but passed out.

What a toss pot. I was never that in love with some famous person.  Sis man.

Also, see lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.com.

That is all.  Happy Friday!

WTF is the KIA Experience?

It’s this:

The Kia Experience is a global campaign that will see 12 bloggers from across the world visit South Africa for 4 days of absolute adventure. This includes attending a 2010 FIFA World Cup ™ game and test driving Kia’s newest – hot off the production line – “mean machine” to Magaliesburg.  Figure you have the testicular fortitude (or the ovarian audacity) to take a crack at The Kia Experience?  Hell, they made it easy as pie.

All you have to is join the Kia South Africa Facebook Fan Page and complete The Kia Experience quiz to enter the competition. This should put you in line for the Grand Prize, which is joining those 12 global bloggers from 18 to 21 June 2010 in their stay at the new Rosebank Holiday Inn Hotel, attend one 2010 FIFA World Cup ™ match and go on a day trip test driving the All New Kia Sportage.

In addition, you are automatically in on the give-aways, which are a 2010 FIFA World Cup™ South Africa PS3 EA game and a Sony Cybershot camera. The competition will be live on the Kia South Africa Facebook Fan Page from 20 to 25 May, a panel of judges will select the best entry and the winner will be announced here on 2 June 2010.

For terms and conditions (you know there’s always T&C, don’t look at me like that!) check out the Facebook Entry Form.

For more exciting news about what’s happening during The Kia Experience, follow Kia on Twitter at @KiaMotorsSA, and no matter what anybody tells you, keep it locked onto Kia and you will know exactly what cats be saying when they talk about “Kia Motors. The power to surprise”.

And now for the next step. Click here if you want to WIN!

The truth about Social Media

On NerdMag a few days ago, I received an anonymous email containing a post on the disadvantages of working in Social Media.  It highlighted so much of what I’ve learnt that it compelled me to think of my version of the topic.  Even though I’ve been busy as hell, I couldn’t seem to shake it, so I decided to sit down and get it off my chest.

It’s midnight as I write this, sitting down after returning home from an average day at the office.  Agency life is legendary in its expectancies of long hours, coffee addictions, beautiful people and high-pressured deadlines seldom being met.

I think, of most professions, agencies hold the banner of being on par to living the rocker’s lifestyle.  Long hours, loud music, alleged drug abuse and the competitive snarks and snypes from people in the industry make up for the clichéd opinion of how we roll.  Everyone has a different method and the opinion that their way is the better way.  Aside from the drug abuse, I can testify to every one of those things being accurate.  Except what you don’t hear about is the creative vibe we live, eat, breathe and sweat in.

Never in my life, or through friends’ tales, have I ever experienced such an awesome working environment.  Yes, the hours are long and there are the usual office politics and the industry is harsh, incestuous and cut-throat but that only serves to make one do better, go bigger, be competitive, monitor everything and make damn sure that one’s skin is tougher than rhino hyde.  But what they don’t talk about are the funktastic décor in our offices and studios, or the replenished on a daily basis bar, or the kiff support system we have in place just by having a collection of powerful, creative oddballs all under one roof.

Social Media, on the other hand, is perceived to be a lah-di-dah “profession” in which someone gets paid to sit on Facebook and Twitter tapping away at their keyboard, LOL’ing with internet friends and challenging people on Mafia Wars or fertilizing their crop on Farmville, all the while tweeting what lunch is about to be consumed or streaming their #NowPlaying boring as fuck play list on iTunes.

Let me tell you something; you couldn’t be more incorrect than if you assumed Michael Jackson still belonged in the black racial demographic.  On second thoughts, considering he’s no longer dwelling on earth you probably could be more incorrect, but you get my point.  I wish I knew how Mafia Wars worked, let alone got the opportunity to play it for five minutes.  My Google calendar is so booked up that my Outlook calendar wants to run and hide – and that’s full too, believe me.

I work 10 to 12 hour day’s minimum, and I still don’t get three quarters of my workload done.  Because, when I’m not in strategic meetings I’m running online campaigns.  I’m facilitating conversation for brands, monitoring stats, comparing case studies, compiling reports, populating presentations, doing online reputation management for our clients, answering eleventy million emails at once (on a good day) and still trying my damndest to maintain a level head to answer the sixty calls I get during office hours and of course, providing insight on Social Media to help my colleagues keep my profession and services in mind when they get on with their projects too.  And that’s not even touching on the conceptual work in between all of these things to tie all of the above together in one nice, neat and tidy little bundle to feedback to the client at the end of the day.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am unique.  Anyone in Social Media does the same things I do.  It’s just that some of them are fortunate enough to only do this for one account, not like an agency that has at least five or six major corporate accounts running consecutively.  But none of this gets me down.  That’s the easy part.  That’s the part I love; the drama and intensity of it all keeps me on my toes and always striving to improve and impress.

The shit side to my job?  The really trying, needing patience and loads of STFU part of my job?  It’s all out there in the open, for anyone to see, laugh at, criticize and think they could do it better.  Of course you could do better, it’s always easier when you’re on the outside looking in.  It’s always easier to speak your mind, sans a bit of tact, when you’re hiding behind your MacBook Pro and sipping on your coffee that was made with a spoonful of bitter, immaturity and no professionalism.    It’s always easier to criticize someone else’s work and method when you should actually just be focusing on yours and your clients.

Combined, Social Media and Agency life is a bit of a bitch if I’m honest.  No one tells you how challenging it is to work along side names you’ve heard of on Twitter, spoken in awe and adoration, or how disappointed you’ll eventually be when those people transform from a famous name on a screen to a timid and over-weight little haus frau in person.

Also, there is a constant drive behind you to make sure that everything you say, everything you do, everyone you associate with will tie in with people’s expectation of the person you should be and the way you should behave, just because of your title at the bottom of your work signature.  When all you actually want to do is sit on explosm.net, fmylife and textsfromlastnight.com laughing at people’s lives on the internet while maybe catching up with that friend you have overseas that just signed in on Skype.

So what keeps me here when I sound so disillusioned and unimpressed?  Well, wouldn’t you want to be part of a revolutionary industry where anything you could possibly imagine can come true, providing you have the right resources and capacity?  Wouldn’t you want to be the person that everyone congratulates at the end of a campaign that convinced 15 000 people to paint their faces a ridiculous colour in support of a ridiculous cause for no other reason than they were offered a shitty little bi-product as incentive and would, therefore, bend over backwards and blow blue bubbles out their arses just to win?  Let me not lie to you, it is powerful, man.

But more than that, it’s given me the opportunity to stay true to my crazy, to interact with brilliant minds on a daily basis and it’s made me constantly challenge myself and others and push my imagination to the limits and then some more.  Never once have I been bored or thought that my daily tasks go by unnoticed.  I play a very small part in how the internet is innovating itself.  And every other person in Social Media does too.

I feel like I’m part of something bigger than me.  Part of something global, exciting, innovative and alive.  And it’s all so very, very worth it.

Even if I still occasionally want to tell the haters to go and fuck a mulberry tree.

Steri Stumpie – fun, funky & fulla flava!

One of the things I love about Social Media is that you can be crazy and get away with it.  One brand that has completely covered that is Steri Stumpie.

Their radio adverts crack me up – they’re a play on the South African judicial system and politics.  With cries of “Vote Marshmallow!”, demands of “more space for Bubblegum!”,  chants of “uStawberry-wam, uStrawberry-wam!” it’s an ad that makes me giggle.  Their Social Media skills are fantastic too, on Facebook they have over 22 000 followers and they use their platforms wisely too – not only are they spreading brand awareness, but people are interacting with them too.  For the twits out there, here is their Twitter handle where they host Steri treasure hunts and they have a blog too, which always impresses me.

A while back I got a mail from Anika from Steri Stumpie, and just her writing alone got me excited about whatever she had up her sleeve.  She was very secretive and wanted my delivery address.  Over the years I’ve gotten used to having free stuff sent my way with the unwritten condition that I eventually blog about it, and mostly I do – if it’s a brand or product I believe in.  Steri Stumpie is just one such brand. They send out a freaking marching band to embrace Unofficial Official Ambassadors around the country, for goodness sake’s!

Not only are their flavoured milk’s divine, but they’ve got character.  Unique to South Africa, this little package arrived for me this morning.  6 flavours including chocolate, banana, strawberry, bubblegum, marshmallow and creme soda.  But what made it more special is the kiff Steri passport that came with it stamped from the following places:

• Space
• Mount Olympus
• Atlantis
• The Twilight Zone
• Bermuda Triangle
• Dark Side of the Moon
• Transylvania

Plus things like a yellow show ribbon supporting the Flavour Nation, a bumper sticker, a Steri styled South African flag and a pack of customizing steri face stickers to customize your Steri shakes!  I’ll be using those to add to the character that is my Mac, but the idea behind this PR campaign is brilliant:

Have fun with your Steri Stumpie milkshakes. Cause havoc, don’t take shit, enjoy your Steri Stumpies filled with your personal favourite flavour, make a noise.  Spread the word.

I think the guys up at Stump Towers doing all the hard work deserve a medal, they’re rad. And I’m stoked that I can now be part of the Steri Nation too.  If you guys wanna join in the fun, click on their website and tell them why you deserve a Steri stumpie drop.

Well done guys, I’m sipping on a marshmallow steri right now and I’m loving it.  Keep up the good work, I’ll keep buying your brand, it’s the best tasting flavoured milk out there anyway.

uStrawberry-wam! uStrawberry-wam!

* Pictures stolen off Steri’s blog cos I don’t have my Blackberry with me anymore.  May it RIP.

I want to have a bloggerversary.

Because over the years, everyone else has done it and I can’t remember if I ever did, aside from a few yearly posts saying “I’ve been blogging for X years now! Woohoo, me!”.

So, um, ja. This is my 795th blog post. I started blogging in August 2004, a few months after my daughter died. It was an emo blog if there ever was one. The saddest, dullest, most boringest blog on the internet, fact. Oh em gee, not even I could stand the writing, so I used to write it and publish it and go back a week later to read it. It was so bad, it was private. No public readers, whatsoever.

After joining up on an international chat site, I started a new blog and for the first time in my life, I let people read what I’d written. Rob Dashwood was my first ever commenter, with Australian Amy a very close second. She’s still with me today, and I her. Except she has fish on her blog header, so I don’t ever click on her actual blog and comment – I keep her words safely away tucked in my Google Reader.

My first South African commenter was Glugster and then HardSpear, I think. Angel came soon after that and she’s never left me, through rain or snow or even the blogging drought I seem to have every March, Angel has been there commenting away.

This was my first ever public blog post. I sincerely hope my writing has improved since then. Looking back, I didn’t realize at the time that this particular post would pave my future blog’s drive way. Humour. Who would’ve thought? I think it was the reaction I got from the original readers* that blew me away and made me realize something: I am much more likeable when funny. Which is kak for a blogger, actually. Because I’m not always funny. Being funny is hard. And the pressure! It’s unrealistic man. So I decided I can only be funny when I can be funny, which isn’t very often. So imagine my surprise when I was in the running for funniest South African blog a while ago…

I started writing when I was a little girl and although they were letters filled with spelling errors and no punctuation, my mom loved it. And she still does to this day; she’s my no. 1 reader. If I haven’t blogged I get a call asking why I haven’t blogged, when am I going to blog and can she check my blog to see if I’ve updated my blog (see what I mean? Pressure!).

Being a blogger has opened many a door for me. It’s first or foremostly allowed me to meet my current circle of friends: Cath, ExMi, Heidi, Angel, Megan, Briget, Bergen, The Two Richard’s, Justin and Jess.

I’ve laughed over my blog, I’ve been excited, I’ve fallen in love, I’ve fallen out of love and I’ve cried over my blog.

My blog has been hijacked, my blog has been stolen. My blog has changed servers, my blog has changed domains. It’s changed looks and it’s stayed the same.

My blog gave me NerdMag, it gave me Twitter. My blog gave me awards, votes, interviews, radio shows, other writing gigs and it’s given me a few jobs too, my current one included.

But most of all, my blog gave me Me. I don’t know who I would be if I wasn’t SheBee. It’s changed so much of my destiny, and affected many of my choices.

One last thing my blog has given me. You. All of you. Without you, days at previous jobs would’ve been dull. Nights when I couldn’t sleep would’ve been long. Days when I couldn’t smile would’ve been bleak. You guys have made me want to carry on with my blog.

So basically what I’m saying is, I may have written just short of 800 blog posts, but I guarantee you that 92% of them were written with you guys in mind.

I know I certainly have enjoyed the ride, I hope you have too.

*This was imported into my current blog post after my last one was hijacked, so it lost all its original comments. What a sad fact.

Being an adult…

On Friday night Jon insisted on dragging me away from my laptop so we could go to dinner and a movie.  I tied up my hair, put on some shoes and pronounced myself ready.  Ten minutes later as we arrived to wait in the queue for parking, I grumbled about this being a bad idea, work needing to be done, not in the mood for people, blah blah blah.

Jon has a miraculous way of turning a blind eye and a deaf ear for things he doesn’t want to acknowledge.  It’s quite annoying, but at the same time – he knows that’s the best way to handle me when I’m in a mood.  Just ignore her until she’s ready to talk, then it’ll all be okay.

We walked into the movie cinema, found our seats and for the first 15 minutes I watched Kick Ass with a long face and didn’t bat an eyelid at the gory opening scene or a few ones after that.  I was determined to savour my grump, embrace the inner sulk and not giggle.  Until I giggled.  All of a sudden, Jon was closer and snuggly and was enjoying my laughter so much that my heart and mood melted until I was properly cheerful once more.  How irritating.

After the movie we took a walk outside for a smoke and I entertained my beloved Jew by narrating the millionty seven teenyboppers outside enjoying their social lives.

“Look at me, I’m 12 years old but I’m determined to walk in these heels”

“Puff, puff, I’m not even inhaling this cigarette but aren’t I so “hip” and “cool” with this smoke dangling from my lips?”

“Oh, see you later guys, my mom’s here to fetch me before my curfew kicks in! I’ll Mxit you after I’ve done my homework!”

They were so loud, and young, and busy, and crowdy.  You know, not once have I ever missed being a teenager.  It as a horrible time of puberty, confusion, hormones and far too many rules and regulations.  Being an adult is way more rewarding and fun.

Especially since Jon and I were both yawning before midnight at the dinner table, after being seated in the corner that was way too loud, frowning at the entertainers use of slang, gaping at the young people’s fashion these days and requesting the waiter to hurry up with the bill so we could go home and get to bed.

Yeah, being old is way more fun. And rewarding.  Um…