This article begins a new series recounting my trip to South Africa in 2008. I travelled there, then, to visit Maria, my wife, as she worked with a small orphanage-type organization in rural Durban. We were dating back then. With the World Cup and all that I thought this would be an excellent time to give a little peek into my, and our, time on the African continent. Enjoy.

Just getting there was a pretty intense experience. Since flights out were about $600 cheaper flying out of the States than out of Canada, I bummed a ride off my parents to the airport in Buffalo, New York. It wasn’t a early morning flight, but I had been up late the night before, scrambling to copy DVDs and CDs to add to a collection I had been creating for Maria, and to do some last minute packing. I didn’t get much sleep, so even an early afternoon flight out, after the long drive from my parent’s house in Newmarket, I was already beat by the time I got to the airport.

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So I grew up in the 90′s, I couldn’t help it. In this new series I’d like to explore some great music from the 90′s. It does exist, of this I’m sure. Somewhere in my parent’s basement exists a CD titled “Absolute 90′s” and while the bands on that album, acts like Elastica and White Zombie, are exactly the kind of talent that I have in mind there was some good music to be had amongst all the, well, other stuff.

I Mother Earth, remember them? Remember the think metallic-beaded necklaces and the spiky, bleached blond hair? That certain way of holding the microphone that Fred Durst later made popular. These were the 90′s and it was all fair game. But I Mother Earth did some things right. Hailing straight out of the grunge movement, and trying to look the part, they mixed in just a touch bit of World Music and interesting percussion into their compositions to make them stand out. Not necessarily their singles, but certainly their b-sides, were often very cleverly composed and interesting-sounded pieces full of heavy toms and light bongo drums and if you can get past the machismo vocals they’re not so bad to listen to.

And so I present to you, readers, I Mother Earth. Love children of the 1990′s, born of the grunge movement and firmly planted in the memories of adults just about my age all over this great country. They’re not so bad.

Used to be Alright (1996)

I’ll surely be hung for this but allow me to outline why I think the Oranje will take it all the way to the end of this year’s FIFA World Cup.

Heading into the tournament the Netherlands were ranked #4 in the world of international soccer. Ahead of them? Brazil, Spain and Portugal (in that order). How have these teams, ranked better than the Netherlands, performed?

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Well, if the bad guys deserve some bad press then certainly the good guys deserve some good press, too. This Adventure in Customer Service is a good adventure. The tale of a company that’s clearly doing things right and that’s something we can all appreciate.

With some of the windfall from our October wedding, Maria and I brought a dish rack from simplehuman. This brand, which I haven’t really heard of before, seemed to be pretty prolific in many of the houseware chains that we visited. All of their products whether it was trash cans (which we also bought), storage units, kitchen tools or, in our case, dish racks, were priced fairly steeply but we figured that the mantra you get what you pay for might be true. So we bought a dish rack, an expensive one, and we were pretty satisfied with our purchase. At our house the job of doing the dishes is mine—Maria does the laundry—and this dish rack had everything I could’ve ever wanted. It was spacious, sturdy, fit dishes and cups of all sizes perfectly and even had a place to hang two extra glasses off the side and a slot designated for cutting boards or baking sheets. This dish rack was amazing.

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I don’t know a lot about The Jayhawks but I do know a few things. First of all, they seem to have just arrived, to the present, from the past. Seriously. Their music, their sound and their appearance is that of a band somewhere in the early 70′s, don’t you think? Their vocal styling, the way they’re recorded and captured lived, and even their harmonies are reminiscent of something much farther back in musical history. But this track is from 2006. It’s hard to believe.

The other thing I know about The Jayhawks is that this song is killer. On top of all the aged beauty of The Jayhawks style it’s simply a really good song. It’s simple and yet interesting. It lulls and soars and seems to be exactly the right length. Those harmonies do sound so good and the guitars, especially in this live version, are so crisp and clean and give the entire song a twangy kind of feel that I really dig.

Finally, I know that this song is perfect for a rainy, stormy day like today.

Save it for a Rainy Day

So if you haven’t gathered just yet, I’m a big fan of the World Cup.

Even if you aren’t a huge fan though, Twitter’s World Cup coverage is nonetheless very interesting to follow. They’ve set up a very ingenious website which displays soccer-related tweets from both countries while their teams play. Presently, I can watch live tweets from Greece and Korea, displayed head-to-head, as these teams play their first World Cup match. It’s neat seeing the tweets roll by from the two countries. Less interesting because neither of these teams, and therefore countries, speak much English so most of the tweets are in languages that I don’t understand.

Still, it’ll be interesting to see how things look for the USA v. England match up this afternoon. Should be very cool to see opposing tweets from either side of the Atlantic.

Another incredible use of this kind of technology.

I can’t wait!

I switched from primarily using an electric razor to a manual one a few years ago after finding that my face was constantly irritating—and shaving was no fun. I guess I have sort of sensitive skin and dry running an electric razor over it was an unpleasant experience bordering on painful, at times. So I switched to manual and with the shaving cream and all that it became a pretty enjoyable experience to shave a couple times a week. But there was still something left to be desired.

I got a Badger Hair Shaving Brush and a bowl of shaving soap for Christmas last year and this, for me, has truly capped off the whole shaving experience.

I didn’t know what kind of difference it would make from using my fingers to rub shaving cream around on my face versus using a brush but, let me tell you, the difference is worth the switch. There’s just such a pleasant feeling of having a warm gentle brush lathering on the shaving soap versus your boring old fingers. Not to mention the brush helps to open up pores on your face to make for a better and closer shave—and it shows. Using the brush, I get a much more comfortable and enjoyable shave, plus a closer shave and I find that with the brush there’s much more control over how much shaving cream I use and where it goes.

And there’s something to be said for shaving soap, too. The kind that I’ve been using since December is very natural and seems to last a really long time. It’s enjoyable even just to lather up the soap in the bowl. It all feels so much more natural and organic versus something that comes shooting out of a cold can.

If you’re on the fence, just try it. Now that I’ve tried it, shaving with a badger hair brush is definitely something that I swear by.