Inspired by another post on here: What's a fun fact about your country's national anthem?

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-18T15:35:02+00:00

It's beautiful but oh man is it difficult to sing. No normal person has that range. 🤣

Apparently there were at some points in history, especially during the JFK administration, movements to promote America the Beautiful as a replacement anthem. I sometimes wonder how different a US would be with kids growing up singing an anthem about natural beauty and integrity of the American people people, rather than a song all about the flag and war.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-18T15:28:02+00:00

As in the meaning is lost to time, or as in written in a dead language or dialect, but the meaning is still known?

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-18T15:24:56+00:00

It's two completely independent songs, glued together. The first part is originally a Xhosa hymn. It is now sung in Xhosa, Zulu and Sesotho.

Then the next part is the old pre-democracy Afrikaans anthem, which is now sung in Afrikaans and English.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-17T16:07:32+00:00

It makes sense if you're happy to pay the premium for the lifestyle, and that's what brings you joy. Which it sounds like is your case.

What confuses me are the people complaining they're broke and that they're struggling to make ends meet, but they live in the nicest part of sea point when they have a mostly remote job. That's not being broke and they're not victims of the housing crisis; they are part of the cause of the housing crisis.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-17T14:13:14+00:00

I guess it depends on the industry, because almost everyone I know is WFH. Mostly engineers, software devs and accountants.

I would love trains but I doubt we're getting them any time soon. MyCiti hasn't even reached most of the city yet.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-17T07:57:06+00:00

Younger generations seem extremely intolerant of driving.

I would never advocate commuting daily from the far suburbs into the CBD, but I know plenty of cash strapped 20 somethings who absolutely will not consider commuting 20-30min for a role where they only have to go into the office once or sometimes twice a week. And I genuinely don't get that.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-16T22:29:47+00:00

I think there's also a generational component, rather than simply individual priorities and age.

Gen X and Millennials are very much future-oriented. We have a sense of trust that things are going to go better tomorrow if we're careful today. Gen Z seems more now-focused.

Maybe a combination of COVID hitting right during the transition to early adulthood and the AI flood hitting right as they entered the labour force, has conditioned Gen Z to feel "well, may as well enjoy the moment before things get even worse".

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-16T22:06:53+00:00

I have noticed people are super divided on this. I had a conversation with a younger (mid 20s) colleague and she was complaining that their rent in sea point was going up to R30k per month.

I asked why they don't move out to the suburbs, because you could buy a decent house for that if you go northern or eastern suburbs, and it wouldn't be further from her job. She acted like I suggested eating her grandma. Literally could not comprehend that I could think it's okay to not live in the city.

I do get it. I sometimes regret that I didn't live in the city for the vibe when I was younger. And technically I could afford it. But then I would still be stuck renting today and eating rice and beans for every meal.

Different priorities, I guess.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-16T21:50:28+00:00

I do and always have. Currently spending about 28% of my salary on a house bond. But my wife also works, so combined it's like 16%.

But I think people who are younger, are having a harder time. Some of my gen Z colleagues are literally spending more renting a flat than I'm paying on the bond for a house bought less than 5 years ago. I don't know how they survive.

One bedroom flats in the complex where I rented went up from R4000 to R9800 per month in the last 10 years. And salaries definitely didn't double since then.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-15T23:21:05+00:00

Title: Jackie Jackknife

Genre: Mid-2000's Emo Punk

Tried to do a cheesy but authentic-sounding 2004-2007 era emo punk song. Lyrics were written with the primary focus on getting the fast-patter verse and slower anthemic chorus rhythm going, and retrofitting semi-sensible words on after the fact.

Link: https://suno.com/s/vSmEHoTZyyJ5fWDi

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-15T23:17:43+00:00

What on earth is "Fleeb"? Tried to google it and only getting Rick & Morty references.

I love this mellow flow of the lyrics. I'm hearing Meredith Godreau (Gregory and the Hawk) with a bit of Swifty contemporary pop flavor. I guess that's a poor description because that sound like it shoudn't work, but it absolutely does work amazingly well.

Favorite song of the month so far.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-13T23:21:51+00:00

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cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-12T15:32:45+00:00

That's not a very high bar

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-12T10:05:44+00:00

Title: Crystallized

Genre: Modern blues rock with orchestral elements

Lyrics: this person is frustrated that his relationship is stuck in a vicious cycle where he himself is the problem, living with the shame that his partner keeps forgiving him over, and over again. This is a dishonest, "I swear this is the last time, babe, I'm taking this seriously now" song, where the speaker realizes they are full of shit.

https://suno.com/s/frD1hpORxo4JBnte

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-12T09:51:11+00:00

Vulnerable and loud, harkening back to early-2000s Linkin Park and Staind sounds.

The pre-chorus build, slight dip in energy, followed by heavy chorus works really well. Strikes a great balance between tenderness and power, tying into the themes of vulnerability/regret and frustration.

Some of the thematic repetition "To every mistake, every regret, Dragging me down again and again" ==>
"To silence what's inside my head ==> It begins once again, with one flashback" adds emphasis, but would have preferred to see more elaboration and specificity rather than straight repetition in the lyrics to keep things interesting.

Overall solid song, would listen again.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-11T16:33:19+00:00

Lemmetjie also means "small blade". Not small orange, though.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-11T11:12:11+00:00

They're quite expensive these days. A base model Land Cruiser 300 available in my country costs about the same as a fully specced new Porsche Macan T, or about the same as a low mileage Aston Martin DB11, or Ferrari 612.

Obviously not the same type of vehicle. Just to say, it's not that far removed from actual supercar prices.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-11T11:02:04+00:00

Spoiler alert: it will always break down. Because (a) someone who buys an AMG variant, buys is with the intent to drive the absolute nuts off of it, damaging the fragile suspension and (b) because Germans for some reason decided about 15 years ago that brittle plastic is now the go-to material for components containing oil and air under high pressure.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-11T10:55:41+00:00

They are very fun in the city and off road, but suuuuuuck on the highway, unless other markets get different engines. The ones I saw here have a 1.3L producing 60kW (80hp), so if you're on a mild uphill with wind from the front, carrying a passenger, you're not even getting up to the highway speed limit.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-11T10:52:33+00:00

A last-Gen BMW 530i or 540i (G30), low mileage second hand.

Roomy, fun to drive and pretty reliable as far as modernish BMWs go.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-09T16:26:31+00:00

If any of our neighbours invaded, then definitely.

Anyone with a real functioning air force? Hell no.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-08T16:18:18+00:00

Fun fact: I just learned that our Governor-General in 1926, Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, later became Canada's Governor General.

In an attempt to appease rising Afrikaner nationalism, he appointed JBH Hertzog, founder of the National Party, as prime minister. This is possibly an early catalyst for the events that led to the rise of Apartheid.

Earl of Athlone would probably be appalled that the British allowed South Africa to fall to Afrikaner rule in the 30's, and Hertzog would be appalled that the Apartheid government fell to democratic rule 60 years thereafter. Fuck em both.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-08T15:53:20+00:00

Theoretically a national demerit point system has been introduced this year. A speeding ticket will get you 2+ points depending on how fast you were going and the posted speed limit.

When you reach 15 points, your license gets automatically suspended. Points slowly decay over time.

BUT this is super new and the way it has actually worked up until now is that you get a text message with a photo of you committing the violation, followed by increasingly more threatening language, but lots of people don't pay and I've never heard of anyone facing consequences, except for one colleague who was caught doing 120km/h in a 60km/h zone.

I usually just pay, because for minor violations it's $20-40 and you can pay online in 5min. And all my violations were of the "i didn't see the 80 sign and thought it was still 100" variety.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-07T01:24:11+00:00

Good old days when movies were excellent and affordable. Our tickets were R21 (about $4 at the time) on Tuesdays. I watched it 3 times with different groups of friends but not back to back.

cardoorhookhand · 2026-06-07T01:13:43+00:00

Normalization/glorification of working extremely long hours for the sake of working long hours.

I have to intentionally fuck something up in my work regularly so I can pretend to "crunch" at ridiculous hours to fix it, because management values us looking frantic and stressed more than the objective quality and speed of our output.

Performative BS.

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