BOb_school

resolutions and all that crap

2008-01-01T19:56:00.000+02:00

so i found my list of resolutions from last year this morning. not so much found, cause i knew where it was, maybe dug up is the word… thinking back, a fair amount of thought went into this last year. i hate the word resolution, but having gone through this process once (and only once in my life), it actually kinda works. mainly cause there’s something written down somewhere that forces you to follow through…

most of these are done/being done and those that aren’t will probably get carried through to 2008...

1. get fit
done. but having done my hamstrings some slight injury this past weekend, i guess one can always be a bit fitter

2. buy a car
done. on january 17th, in fact. but i might (already) upgrade, depends on the finances though. but, i might yet get that scrambler i want…

3. get a bike
uhhh, not done. come to think of it, a bike would’ve been very handy this morning when i took my car in to get fixed… i should look into that.

4. play golf
uhhh, also not done. but we moved a bit further away from the driving range (that was literally about 400m from our old house). end of jan means time to buy our drivers though…

5. smoke on weekends/when out only
done. and then some. haven’t smoked in a year. well make that 364 days. a full year on jan 2nd. been tempted twice this year though…

6. jog
done. in fact more than done. made friends with richard branson’s house of pain… fun times…

7. make shirts
uhhh, not done. which is a problem… must make shirts, too many good ideas to go to waste on a pc somewhere…

8. launch a site or two
technically done. tycoon launched in july plus i had a bit of fun with thenewnewmedia.com (felt like the right time to blog about what i blogged about there)… tycoon will hopefully get the attention it deserves in 2008, still not sure what i want to do with thenewnewmedia.com… i didn’t complete what i wanted to though… got a plan coming together with a mate for early 2008

9. go to the berg
uhhh, not so much. got to go to india though. and hopefully will visit sun city soon enough. mozambique is a plan for easter… and south korea is definitely on for end april… berg might fit in this winter, not too sure about fest…

10. pay off *that* loan
technically done, but practically not so much. i guess we’ll see…

i also managed to do lots of stuff that wasn’t on this list, stuff which (now when I think back about it) was unexpected and cool :)

as for 2008… i’ve decided i’m not going to post the list, that’ll make following through too easy… that said, maybe the focus this year will be less on buying stuff… things…

BOb_school is...

2007-12-20T11:26:00.001+02:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about how mediated our state of mind and emotions have become with Facebook now pretty much at the centre of how we communicate with friends. (The scary thing is that Microsoft Word capitalised Facebook for me when I typed that.) The Facebook status update (which has finally lost the “is”) has become almost utterly pervasive.

What intrigues me though is how it’s become some sort of narcissistic, post-modern reflection of how we are feeling. Take a step back and think for a second. Before Facebook, would we have constantly written/spoken about ourselves in the third person? Am I the only one perturbed by this?

But it feels good, doesn’t it. To be able to broadcast to your friends (i.e. pretty much the world) exactly what you want them to know (or not know).

And just in case you’re wondering…

Hilton is over it, determined to stare down his old nemesis despondency ...
and he knows he’ll find a solution to this all...

Gary Kirsten is NOT yet another loss to South African cricket

2007-11-28T07:54:00.000+02:00

On the news last night, we were ‘treated’ to a bizarre comparison of Bob Woolmer, Kevin Pietersen and Allan Donald. And yes, Gary Kirsten is off to coach India (after an official BCCI announcement, of course).

On and on the reporter went…

“Another loss to SA cricket.”
“Yet another loss.”
“Our finest leaving for foreign shores.”

Give me a break.

Firstly, who cares about Kevin Pietersen?!
Allan Donald is no longer bowling coach for England (he turned the job down).
Bob Woolmer was a different class altogether.

Gary Kirsten is not currently coaching. Well, he coaches at his academy – but that’s hardly a top level position.

He has been a batting consultant to the SA team at some point, and most recently has helped the Warriors as a batting coach.

Talk about now hitting the big time.

Who cares that he’s leaving? Good on him. Good on SA cricket for producing (nurturing?) such talent.

There’s only place for one national coach in SA, why should all our talent sit around and wait for that position to be vacant?

I needed to get that off my chest.

My top 20 movies

2007-11-26T15:38:00.000+02:00

Its taken a while, but its settled (after a long Sunday night). The top 20, in order...

The Boondock Saints
Good Will Hunting
Pulp Fiction
Fight Club
Boiler Room
The Departed
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Romeo + Juliet
Seven

Sin City
Requiem for a Dream
Finding Forrester
Payback
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Independence Day
Snatch
Ronin
Anchorman
Casino Royale

Making someone happy

2007-11-14T11:01:00.000+02:00

So I had my first encounter with Eskom’s load-shedding last night. We decided that finding food was necessary and wandered around northern Joburg (mostly in darkness) until we found the beacon of light that is Monte Casino.

Spur it was, and quite an inspired choice too. We had the best service ever from a dude called David (from one of these franchise type restaurants ie. not a five star two waiters per person scenario). And I decided to be unselfish (for a change) and reward the good service with a huge tip. A 60% tip or thereabouts on a pretty decent bill.

And that pretty much made David’s day. We had left but turned around to see him high-fiving the other waiters, smiling broadly. Was I hoping for some twisted sense of self-gratification? I don’t know? Did I do it to make myself feel good? Not when I first decided it… but then it became kind of a bonus…

Oh yes, bob_school is back… long story, but I kinda need somewhere to write crap like this.

Pack up the caravan kids, we're moving...

2007-04-12T08:15:00.000+02:00

BOb_school is dead. Kinda.
Long live www.thenewnewmedia.com

:)

What was the Sunday Times thinking?

2006-11-22T12:38:00.000+02:00

That grand old dame of Sunday newspapers which desperately wants to be a tabloid - the Sunday Times - has had (another) nip and tuck this week.

We now have the “luxury” of a stand-alone sports section. What they forgot to mention was that it’d be a tabloid and as tight as a stingy uncle.

Previously, sport was “appended” to the back of the ‘Insight & Opinion’ section, a phenomenon that seems to be unique to South African newspapers. Most papers in the US and the UK have stand-alone sports sections.

The promotions started a month ago, with adverts trumpeting that “finally” sport was going to get the attention it deserved – in its own section.

It would be worth comparing sport (and soccer) before the change before one realizes what has been lost (or gained?).

On October 8, ‘Sport Sunday’ (which is (was?) a very catchy name), ran from page 23 to 32. Now that’s not to say there was 10 pages of sports content. With two full page adverts and tons of other advertising, content took up about five and a half to six (broadsheet) pages worth (12 tabloid).

Soccer Life (which was previously found in the middle of the ‘Metro’ section, ran to 12 pages. Advertising support for this supplement, which its sales execs will have you believe has the “most reach” out of any section in the paper, has hardly been noticeable, save for men’s enlargement-type and cellphone ringtone ads. I have always felt that there has been a bit too much space for the section, with lengthly double-page features and huge (A4 size) pictures commonplace. Remove the poster front page from the equation, the one-or-two ads as well as the two full-page Sunday Times promotional adverts and you’re left with eight pages of content (including that enormous photo).

Now we have the bizarrely named ‘Soccer Life & Sport’ which, as Matthew Buckland writes, is disjointed. He suggests that because soccer is a type of sport, we should have something along the lines of ‘Sport & Soccer Life’. Typographically, the word ‘SPORT’ in all-caps seems to have been added to fill space on the poster cover.

The back is also a poster-type page, and the regular ads which were found in Soccer Life have found new homes throughout the new tabloid. Soccer, soccer and more soccer takes the focus until page 13 of the 24-pager. In the editor’s note in this week’s debut edition, one finds this gem: “We hope you aren’t confused by the amalgamation … it … offers you more sport … with the accent on local and overseas soccer.”

Almost as an afterthought, he writes: “But there a healthy rugby presence … and there’s some good cricket, too”. For “healthy”, substitute “three pages”. Ditto for “some good cricket”.

So we have 12 pages of soccer, a quarter of that of rugby and another quarter of cricket. One page of tennis, one of tv highlights and two pages of squashed-up results and statistics complete the “package”.

Don’t get me wrong – I am an avid soccer fan… What confuses me is the fact that with so many Sunday titles and Monday papers cemented in the soccer-crazed market (think City Press, Sunday Sun, Sunday World, Monday’s Daily Sun, Sowetan), just what is the Sunday Times doing?

Still no full-page ads to be seen though, which may be a blessing in disguise – lest that precious rugby/cricket content be cut down even further. At least the transition seems to have been done almost page for page (based on the 12-page Soccer Life, and 12 tabloid-pages worth of normal sport).

The paper has also reduced its advertising space – hardly a clever move. There’s no more space for lucrative 15cm strips spanning the length of the broadsheet backpage – a spot Nashua Mobile had pretty much staked out. The 10cm strip on the back of the tabloid hardly has the same effect (or revenue!).

They took a really nice, fresh, magazine-inspired design which used to have a home in the old ‘Soccer Life’ and forced it together with the Sunday Times main body style sheet.

One’s not too sure what the “Times” is trying to achieve with its “Soccer Life” brand. Its magazine title, which started off the obsession, is hardly a sales blockbuster.

There also seems to be a desperation for feedback (any feedback) from readers. At every turn, one is confronted by (what some sub-editor thought are witty) blurbs, asking, no, pleading you to (please!) e-mail the Sunday Times.

My hunch, and at this stage its simply a hunch, is that many more sections within the Times will become tabloid in the months or years to come. The main paper won’t change from broadsheet though, or there’d be nothing to wrap all the advertising supplements in – a la Saturday Star. Careers could very well soon become tabloid, as could the opinion (or what it calls “News & Opinion’) section. The off-on ‘News & Review’ (what’s the difference?!) may downsize as there’s no real reason for it to be broadsheet.

It’s worth noting that out of all the supplements the Sunday Times has launched over the past few years (Food & travel, New York Times, It’s my business), none have been broadsheet.

Coincidence?

'This store will close at 4pm today for stocktaking'

2006-09-07T12:11:00.000+02:00

“Can we climb this mountain, I don’t know… Higher now than ever before, I know we can make it if we take it slow” – When you were young, The Killers

I’ve had lots to say but not that much time to say it in the past three months… but instead of trying to tell all the funny/sad/boring/ridiculous stories, I thought I’d rather do some kind of stock take. This will (hopefully), at the very least, be kind of interesting and (here’s hoping) it’ll give me a kick in the ass to do/start certain things.

A good few people have been sadly disappointed when they’ve checked this blog every few days (wishful thinking, more like weeks), hoping that something besides Keeley Hazell is on the screen. Oops. And she’s not even the girl who was supposed to be there (as the ‘almost a perfect 10 girl’)… Long story that…

Work. The inevitable conversation-starter. ‘How’s work?’ has got to be one of the most overused openers ever. Its followed, of course, by the predictable ‘Fine’. Which really doesn’t mean all that much. Or anything at all. But yeah, work is fine. ‘Challenging yet comfortably routine’ is perhaps the best description of it (I feel like I’m putting a house for sale ad together).

I’m getting to write a bit more nowadays (which may explain why this post is in slightly better English than even I’m used to). Work’s not quite the be-all and end-all though, and I guess anyone who’s starting out spends quite a while trying to almost divorce yourself from work so that weekends are weekends and weeknights can be spent watching whatever crap is on DStv (or partying, depending on the day).

I know I bitched and moaned about the almost routine weekends I had been having. Festival may have changed that, or simply writing about my frustration may have changed that… and I can confidently say that weekends are no longer boring.

I’m trying to catch up on reading. I have about six or seven unopened books which is a problem, because I’ve got at least another three on my Kalahari.net wishlist.

I still haven’t started Gumede’s book on Thabo Mbeki and the ANC (I got that for Christmas, and as I sit on my bed typing this – I can’t see the book in my pile… shite), I scored the follow-up to Beckham’s autobiography (something about him going to Spain) for less than R40… I’ve lent Liar’s Poker from someone at work (its supposed to be brilliant), I got the Anthony Kiedis autobiog for my birthday this past weekend and I’m trying to finish something called ‘The Game’ - the less said about that book, the better :)

Random thought: which reminds me, the Gumede book might be in a box in my cupboard.

The reading doesn’t quite always take first priority because of a fairly sizeable collection of South Park episodes, movies and other DVDs (oh yes, and DStv).

***

El and my (uhum, we’ll call it ‘long-awaited’) t-shirt company is finally taking its first few steps in getting off the ground (how many more bad clichés can you get in a sentence?). We’ve got quotes from a few places (yip we can be all business-like) and we spent a random Friday night a while back creating some sort of catalogue in Excel of all our designs… It came to well over 100 (I’m too lazy to check now), of which around 20 are ready to be made tomorrow… But not quite. We’ll get there… someday soon.

If all goes according to plan, I should be the satisfied new owner of one of these by next month :) (this is one of my missions at the mo)

***

No news on the girl front (but if there was it probably wouldn’t have been a secret anyway). This (you’re thinking to yourself) is probably good news, judging by some past experiences. Stumbled across one or two interesting girls on various nights out, but on some of those occasions there’s been this moment of realization where I’ve thought something along the lines of: ‘what a second, this chick is random/doff/(insert cynical description here), why the hell have I just spent the last 5/10/30/45 minutes talking to her?’

***

I was driving home one night last week (after a slightly hectic night out) – I think it may have been a Tuesday? – and found myself thinking that I really love living here. I enjoy the people I work with, I enjoy what I’m doing (its pretty much a dream job, for now anyway – if there ever was such a thing), I enjoy partying when I party, at this point in my life, I just enjoy being.

Pretty hectic that.

The few moments were kind of like this:
(Driving on the M1, around 1 in the morning, in some weirdly philosophical mood) Where am I in my life right now? > quickly weigh up different options in my head > result, mmm… I think I’m happy > actually, I’m really happy > content. A much better word… (thinking, thinking, change lane, thinking)…. Mmm > FUCK! What’s just happened to me? This is bizarre… It feels like I’m in some deep, meaningful drama… Fuck. (that was the extent of the freakout)

And it has (in way) been bugging me over the past few days. But hey, I doubt I’ll be content for the next month, hell, even the next few days. Bloody weird, nonetheless...

***

Stuff I’ve been listening to over the past few weeks:

Tracks
Why you wanna – TI
Ridin – Chamillionaire (www dot C.-H.-A.-Millionaire dot com… that kills me every time I hear the start of the track)
When you were young - The Killers
Rooftops - Lost Prophets
You gonna want me - Tiga
In the air tonight – Nonpoint (Hardish rock + Phil Collins – it works, strangely)
Kick push – Lupe Fiasco
Promiscuous – Nelly Furtado ft Timbaland (its got Timbaland in it, dammit)

Albums:
Hot fuss – The Killers
Stadium Arcadium – RHCP (yes, STILL on disc one, haven’t even got to the second cd)
A fever you can’t sweat out - Panic! At the Disco
(I own all three (actual) albums – a record company’s wet dream… ‘Kids, now piracy’s bad. Mmkay?’)

And I listened to a scary amount of Phil Collins now the other night… can’t believe I just admitted to that…

***

Did I mention that I sat and wrote this post on a MacBook Pro :) What a sweet deal… It’s the company’s but what the hell, I get to use it…

Oh yes, and I’ve started the great mission to get fit once again (complete with a morning jog, pressups, and (soon…) back to swimming).

Also get to take off a weekend at the end of the month and spend some time drinking (chilling) or should that be the other way round? in Gtown…

(And so ends the longest blog post ever. On this blog anyway. Fucking hell, over 1100 words, shite…)

***

And I will try and blog more often (I can sense your skepticism, but then again, I’d doubt myself too if I kept promising myself that I’ll blog – you know what I mean…)

“They say the devil’s water, it ain’t so sweet… you don’t have to drink right now… but you can dip your feet, every once in a… little while…”

And so... the Fest is near

2006-06-26T14:31:00.000+02:00

It's almost time to bugger off and head to festival.

I won't lie, I've been waiting for the 27th for about the past two months - like a kid waiting for school holidays... It's a great feeling. The templates are done. My desk is tidy (two neat piles of paper), hell - I've even deleted most of the kak shortcuts on my desktop. Tonight will mean packing and then the early start tomorrow.

This past weekend was crazy. I suppose you could even go as far as calling it insane. So many things went down, a lot of them probably won't be retold (ever). What's weird is that just over a week ago I blogged about just how boring weekends had become in Joburg. Granted, I've taken a fair bit of flak for the post. Bygones. Its not weird that I blogged about it, rather writing about how frustrated I was with the lack of interesting things to do on weekends seemed to make me want to do something different. Suffice to say, Friday was awesome.

What struck me this weekend is just how many Rhodes (and ex-Rhodes) people you're bound to bump into when you go out in Joburg. Seven on Friday night. Very cool.

Onward to Grahamstown...

If you leave, I won't cry
I won't waste a single day
But if you leave, don't look back
I'll be running the other way
If You Leave - Nada Surf: The OC Mix 2

A reason to smile (today and everyday)

2006-06-21T16:56:00.000+02:00

Keeley Hazell, the perfect 10.

The animatronic Pelé

2006-06-20T15:29:00.000+02:00

Hardly anyone would be able to guess who Edson Arantes do Nascimento is. Do you know? Thought not.

Pelé (or Edson Arantes do Nascimento) is hero-worshipped the world-over, hell, Wikipedia tells me he’s known as “O Rei do Futebol” (The King of Football).

The New York Times, in a piece called “Trying, Again, to Turn Pelé Into Profits” provides some insight as to just how valuable his name is:

"The man, Édson, is 65, but Pelé as a character is 50," Paulo Ferreira, the chief operating officer of Prime, said last week in an interview, referring to Pelé's given name. "For the first time in his career, he is building a brand around his name. In the past, many of the things he did were not professional; he was always trying to do something with friends, but it wasn't good business for him."

“His worldwide appeal is similar to that of Muhammad Ali — Pelé is the greatest, but not The Greatest — but without the religious and political controversies.”

He’s wheeled out at every World Cup opening ceremony, at any important Fifa event. But, something’s been bothering me since this year’s opening ceremony: what is Fifa going to do when Pelé dies? Are they going to get the folk at Madame Tussaud's to fashion a wax model for them to wheel out when they need to? Or are we going to see an animatronic dummy of the man? Realistically I think we’ll get to watch grainy video clips with Fifa execs looking all misty-eyed when they talk about the world’s greatest ever footballer.

Some random Pelé facts (courtesy of Wikipedia):
· In 1970, the two factions involved in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire so they could watch Pelé play an exhibition game in Lagos.
· Pelé was the first sports figure featured in a video game with the Atari 2600 game Pelé's Soccer.
· After the World Cup in 1962, wealthy European clubs offered massive fees to sign the young player, but the government of Brazil declared Pelé an "official national treasure" to prevent him from being transferred out of the country.
· Pelé was one of the first black people to be featured on the cover of Life magazine.
· Pelé has presented trophies at the Brazilian Grand Prix race several times, but in 2002 he was waving the checkered flag to signify the end of the race and missed the race winner Michael Schumacher crossing the line.
· Tarcisio Burgnich, the famous Italian defender who marked Pelé in the 1970 World Cup Finals: "I told myself before the game, he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else — but I was wrong".

The more I see, the less I know
The more I like to let it go
People need the cover of another perfect wonder where it's so white as snow.
Finally divided by a word so undecided and there's nowhere to go
Snow (Hey Oh) Lyrics – Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium

A change (for a change)

2006-06-19T14:57:00.000+02:00

Just when I was bitching about how boring and routine life gets in Joburg, I have an awesome weekend. The main reason for the change in routine was Bel’s visit (she’s up here for a few days before flying back to the backwater farm that is Durban Airport).

What a cool weekend. Friday marked the return to the Bowling Club (after a lengthy absence). Very cool to watch Cote d’Ivoire trying to beat those damn dirty Dutch (how many ankles did they try to break during the game?). After that was missions to Nandos somewhere close to my work (I can never remember that area’s name). Melville followed. Now, I have never actually been out in Melville (most of you are going to harass me about that – I know it’ll happen). But now I can see myself chilling in Melville fairly often :) Like maybe once a week? Was also introduced to this astonishing place called Cat’s Pyjamas. Felt kinda like a tourist.

The weekend was filled with other random firsts – like my first visit to Cool Runnings, my first escape from having to go to Loaded, the return to Doppio Zero, a return to Cose della your mother (that funny restaurant) in Sandton.

Let me not get into a boring step-by-step account of three days of my life… but all in all, it was a great weekend.

Now to make it happen more often…

Been thinking about much randomness so I’ve got some cool posts coming this week (one a day ... remember that?).

And no matter how hard I try
I can't escape these things inside I know
When all the pieces fall apart
You will be the only one who knows
- Let me go, 3 Doors Down: Seventeen Days

Who writes this crap?

2006-06-15T15:30:00.000+02:00

Have you seen the new Vodacom ad? Now which cracked-up one-eyed toad of a copyrighter came up with the idea of using the Ghostbusters theme song and some random non-storyline about the stupid sleazy jewish pornstar and that black doctor who always calls 112? What the hell? The ad doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make me laugh. It doesn’t make me pay attention. There’s no plot. When it starts is my brain shuts off, and then I curse the fact that Vodacom’s millions are polluting our tv. I know it annoys you too.

We lost track of the time
Dreams aren't what they used to be
Some things slide by so carelessly
- Smile like you mean it, The Killers: Hot Fuss 2004

Metro bastards

2006-06-14T11:41:00.000+02:00

So I got fined R100 by our beloved JPMD (metro cops) a week or two ago. I was doing around 107km/h in a 100 zone. It was 9ish on a Sunday night.

Maybe you don’t see much wrong with this, but David Bullard pointed out in his column on Sunday that if you don’t stop at a STUPID Rosebank intersection (that really has no reason to have a stop street in the first place), you get greeted by a nice surly JPMD officer and a R500 fine. There is a lot wrong with the current metro cop system we have in place. In the mornings, I deliberately take a detour so that I miss this other big intersection in Rosebank – why? Cause the metro bastards are always there. Not stopping taxis or trucks spewing dangerous amounts of crap into the air – but pulling over you and I. For shit. Like not indicating that you’re changing lanes when there aren’t even lane markings to show that the damn lanes exist. Or for ‘driving dangerously’. What a cop out. No-one’s going to have the time to contest that, so what do we do? We pay them. So that they can reach their divisional revenue targets (yes – they have those). So that they can drive new Ford Focus STs or whatever the hell they drive. So that the deficit from non-payments at our dear municipality doesn’t look that bad.

Contrast this to a totally unrelated case but one where, if you do a bit of Chinese maths, you might find yourself a bit pissed off.

Some students got busted at Rhodes last year in their digs with drugs. After the whole argument about how much weed was found, how many pills, will they be excluded, etc, the case was dragged out and they eventually got ‘sentenced’ two weeks ago. The girl, who was in possession of 6 ecstacy pills got… A R500 FINE.

Same as not stopping at a RETARDED intersection in Rosebank. Or is it?

Life in Joburg

2006-06-13T11:08:00.000+02:00

So the predictions El made last year some time have come true.

In chatting about this year (back then it was ‘next’) during September 2005 we tried to figure out what life would be like living and working in Joburg.

El joked about how when we both had decent jobs, we’d spend the majority of our free time (on weekends) in malls and shopping centres.

He also said that we’d spend (waste?) most of our cash on new clothes, books and eating out. I dismissed these ideas. “No ways man – we’ll find cool stuff to do”.

And I was wrong. Totally and utterly misled.

He was spot on. It happens almost every weekend. We buy clothes. We buy books and (expensive) magazines. And we spend Saturdays in a mall – either in Centurion, or somewhere in Joburg (hell, sometimes we even go to Roodepoort).

Friday nights usually consist of a ‘visit’ to News Café or similar venue which serves large amounts of beer. Many a chilled Friday has been spent at Cobblestones at Monte.

At least its not bowling club, bowling club, bowling club Friday after Friday as was the case in December.

I’ve been thinking about what I spend weekends doing and thought that we should try and do more random type things. And fest is coming up which’ll be a nice change.

People have been asking me (both on the blog and off) to blog more often. I’m trying – but the past six weeks have been torridly hectic at work. Now that all of that is over, I can start doing stuff I enjoy again. So there will be more blogging. And I’ll post random stuff I write for Moneyweb on here every now and then (there's a column I wrote last week down there somewhere >> ).

Now (STILL) listening to: RHCP Stadium Arcadium Disc One (its been six weeks - non-stop!)

Telkom, the beast with two faces

2006-06-08T08:00:00.000+02:00

IRATE complainants about Telkom’s service receive a diabolical recorded message if they annoy call centre staff:

“If you did not call Telkom to do business,” the canned voice says, “take the time out to speak to a family member or a friend. You are denying someone else the opportunity to do so [deal with Telkom]. Please remember that these calls are recorded and can be traced.”

No problem resolution. No apology.

Fear not we are told, Telkom CEO Papi Molotsane is on a mission: to delight customers. Speaking on Moneyweb Radio after the release of the company’s results on Monday, Molotsane drove home the point.

He used the phrase “delight our customers” twice in the same answer. Later he even said that he was “delighted to be at the helm” of the company.

This is not the first time, however, that Molotsane has tried to explain his desire to delight customers.

In numerous interviews published by various media outlets in November last year, the use of the word delight was persistent. From: “We’ll have to delight our customers through impeccable service levels”, to: “We’ll have to come with innovative products that will delight our customers”.

His intentions are good, admirable even. Molotsane and his executive management team talk at length about their “five-pronged strategy”.

But, Molotsane also says “our customers can only be delighted if our employees are delighted … Focusing on employees is also in line with the company’s vision.” Herein lies the problem. The message from the man in charge is not filtering through.

Does Molotsane know that some line manager has instituted the outrageous insult to customers described above?

The insult could go to people trying their damnedest to find out why their phone was cut off for a debt of less that 10c – you’re “politely” disconnected and transferred to the recording.

In addition, some Telkom workers have told Moneyweb confidentially that employees were recently made to feel special with a bizarre internal marketing exercise. We have heard that certain “experts” found that employees seem to associate “Telkom blue” with unhappiness.

It seems that lobbies and office blocks are now filled with banners proclaiming boldly that Telkom cares about its employees, that it is employee-centric. The banners, you guessed it, are in Telkom blue – a move that seems to suggest that the experts want to sub-consciously associate the company’s corporate colours with warm and fuzzy feelings. Do you think this would make you feel better?

At the recent public Icasa hearings into ADSL pricing, Team Telkom used ten representatives to argue its case. Customers were there, watching as Telkom defiantly tried to stall the process using an advocate with, by his own admission, very little telecoms knowledge. Those that weren’t there read about these shenanigans and one can only imagine what they thought about our incumbent operator.

Among the arguments we heard for the high prices was that “copper is expensive”. I kid you not. IP resets for “billing reasons” every 24 hours was also absolutely “necessary” Telkom argued – the technology doesn’t exist “to allow us to bill without the reset”. No real explanation was given, in spite of evidence that overseas operators don’t reset users’ connections.

Why did Telkom pursue these seemingly stubborn arguments? It knew it was reducing prices barely two weeks later.

In order to share the company’s profits, employees participate in a scheme called gain sharing. Trade union Solidarity says that workers received between “3,39% and 9,89% of their salaries in the form of gain sharing in 2005”. There are reported rumblings among staff that the current system is unfair. Would fixing this bonus system help improve staff morale?

Admittedly, it is a tall order to preach the gospel of customer service to over 25 000 employees, but surely lower-level managers should realise that every time a consumer is burnt by someone in a call centre, they’ll be less likely to remain a Telkom customer.

But, for all the faults within Telkom, its leader Molotsane is commended for going on record last year admitting these difficulties.

“I think the problem that we have as an organisation is perhaps we’re not reaching out. We’re not talking to our clients. We’re not explaining to them what problems we have in our business … we need to just go and talk to our clients,” he’s said.

He’s hit the nail squarely on the head hasn’t he?

Now with talk of expansion into other African markets (Kenya, Nigeria and the like), we hope that the monopoly with two-faces continues its “drive” to delight us all.

* * *

Speaking of Nigeria, we stand by what we said a fortnight ago. It is easy to make money in Nigeria; however, what we failed to emphasise is that you need to take a few “shortcuts” here and there. There are companies from this country that are making cash in that market, but they may not be doing so legally.

It’s this that iTouch CEO Greg Brophy says is “tarnishing South Africa’s image abroad”. He is “absolutely annoyed” by the actions of players who take shortcuts and run “fly-by-night” Wasp (wireless application service provider) operations. iTouch, he says, plays by the book and there is of course no reason to dispute that. The company has a global presence and contractual partnerships with content providers worldwide.

Brophy says iTouch was “very, very careful” going in to Nigeria. He says the company worked closely with the South African embassy in Lagos to get the necessary advice and guidance management needed. Over and above the trickiness actually launching in Nigeria, Brophy is “very optimistic” about iTouch’s prospects.

The company has spent R4m on platforms up front and has a staff complement of 14 in Nigeria. Brophy intends setting up a formal association of Wasps in that country, similar to the one he helped set up in SA. He says this will protect the industry and the consumer.

With cellphone users in Nigeria set to double from last year’s figure of 18m to 36m in 2007, iTouch is well poised to grow its business there. Beyond Nigeria, he says, management is looking at entering markets in other African countries (iTouch SA also has the rights to Turkey).

This story first appeared in Moneyweb Business in the Citizen

Who are you? Where have you been? Where are you going? - David Beckham, 2003

2006-04-26T10:05:00.000+02:00

They say things can change in an instant. Perhaps thinking about this could be seen as somewhat ironic after watching (what was probably) the season climax of Prison Break. Lincoln is about to get the chair and after all the promises of him maybe being pardoned, him getting off on some technicality, something going wrong with the process – as the episode ended last night, we realized that all those possibilities, all the faint flickers of hope turned out to be bullshit. Some things are inevitable, however much we want them not to be. This might not be the best illustration of what I’m trying to put in writing because, thanks to some conditioning, we’ve come to bloody well expect these cliffhangers from TV shows, and Lincoln will probably get off next week. Or the week after that.
I guess, though, that the blow gets softened when the ‘unpleasant news’ that you know is unavoidable takes forever to materialize. You know that it’s going to happen, but everyone around you continues acting as if nothing’s going to change and that it’ll all be okay in the end. It will, in some respects. But this thing happens, and you know things will be different from now on. But weren’t they always going to be? At this stage of one’s life, when there’s so much potential, so many opportunities to grow, to develop ideas, to forge a career, to make some extra money here and there, to be happy, to cultivate friendships… what is there to be bleak about? Sure, from time to time you do receive news that’s negative but it’s at those times that you find yourself stepping back for a second and having those all-too rare moments of ‘me’ time – when you balance out all the promise that the month and year ahead hold with whatever ‘bad news’ you’ve received.

As for me I'll be ok.

Yes – this is me getting deep.
Yes – it’s been a while.
Yes – I have a good reason to do so.
No – this is not about a girl.
No – it’s not something that earth shattering.
No – my brother’s not getting the electric chair (that’s me being full of shit right there)
No – you’re not supposed to have been able to figure it out from what you’ve just read. I suppose you’ll eventually find out when the moment is right. Or I might just blurt out the ‘bad news’ when I next see you.
And no – I’m not all depro and about to jump in front of a train – I’ve dealt with most of this ages ago.
(And as an aside, I’m pretty impressed with just how deep I got there, having just reread the stream of consciousness)

Four

2006-03-26T18:05:00.000+02:00

For a change, something cool I found while reading Jeremy Zawdony's blog a while back.

Basically you give four answers to things which'll (maybe?) provide people with some insight into how you work/think/relax.

Four jobs I've had in my life:
Newspaper sub/layout/designer
Journ dept lackey
Event management
Barman

Four movies I can watch over and over:
Finding Forrester
Training Day
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Ronin

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Prison Break
Six Feet Under
The OC
One Tree Hill

Four of my favourite songs at the moment:
Move along – All American Rejects
Pharell Williams ft Gwen Stefani – Can I have it like that
Jamie Foxx ft Kanye West – Extravaganza
T-Pain – In love with a stripper

Four places I've been on vacation:
South Coast
Jeffrey’s Bay
Sun City
Cape Town

Four of my favorite dishes:
Pizza
Lasagne
Steak and chips
Macaroni cheese

Four websites I visit daily:
John Battelle’s weblog
The Huffington Post
Paid Content
Moneyweb.co.za (I work there, c’mon!)

Four places I would rather be right now:
Mexico
At home watching TV
The Netherlands
UK (I wanna see what all the fuss is about)

On a totally unrelated tangent, I’ve been meaning to blog about 'Syriana' since LAST Monday. And that damn public holiday just messed up most of my plans for this week. Should finish a post later tonight about that movie and 'V for Vendetta' which I saw on Saturday. Hold thumbs...

There are no words...

2006-03-13T11:45:00.000+02:00

It was about more than just a win...
I searched Technorati last night for "South Africa Australia cricket" and there were already quite a few blog posts up about how we gave the Aussies stick.
The thing though was that, over and above beating our arch nemisis, these kind of victories give our whole country a boost.
One of the Sabc commentators said that the atmosphere at the Bullring was like a 'World Cup final'. Yesterday we spoke in the office about this being like the 1995 Rugby World Cup. A very unexpected thing happened after the game. Cars and taxis were hooting like crazy and at the intersection outside our building, cars stopped at the robot, people jumped out running and waving flags. There were taxis full of people cheering, complete strangers were high-fiving each other. 1995, indeed.
Looking at the crowd at the match during the part that I got to see and on the highlights last night, I couldn't help getting that clichéd warm and fuzzy feeling. There was an entire nation (a representative nation) watching that match, cheering us on.
And we needed this. We've got a power 'crisis' in the Cape. Jacob Zuma and his army of blind followers have been causing chaos in the centre of Joburg. Today marks the start of a huge Transnet strike which is going to dent our economy. Three of our five teams in the Super 14 are playing like kak.
But, for one day, just for one day we got to forget about all of that. We got to forget about the potholes in the roads. We got to forget about the fact that Cape Town still doesn't have a mayor. And that the ANC still hasn't told us who most of the country's mayors are going to be.

There is statisical evidence that our success on the sports field affects the confindence in our country, and consequently our economy. Witness 1995. Witness when we won the 2010 World Cup bid. I really hope this lasts...

As an aside, its been ages since we've seen SA not choke at the death - in fact, the last time was probably back in Hansie and Kepler's days. And Boucher proved yesterday that we don't have to mess up under pressure. And how cool was it to see my man Roger playing like a champ again?

Chuck's back... not that he ever went away

2006-03-09T13:13:00.000+02:00

You know its a slow news day when the Washington Post writes a story about Chuck Norris facts...

At the moment, the 65-year-old martial-arts master is the object of a kind of sardonic cult veneration. Conan O'Brien, on his late-night show, has been airing vintage "Walker" clips for months. CollegeHumor, a Web site popular among the dorm set, regularly links to all things Norris on the Internet (recent entry: a rare photo of Norris sans beard). Norris popped up in a cameo in "Dodgeball" two summers ago, and in a two-hour "Walker" movie in October, which drew respectable ratings. Most intriguing, and certainly most amusing, has been the grass-fire spread of Chuck Norris "facts," a series of Paul Bunyanesque exaggerations riffing on (and amplifying) the Legend of Chuck.

This is some awesome shit...

Why can't The Star write about stuff like this? Oh yeah... wait cause its a kak newspaper

Tough Love: Norris Fans Board the Chuck Wagon (WPost)

A question or thirteen

2006-03-08T13:34:00.000+02:00

Why is Backstage still on tv?
Why is 5fm planning to ruin my morning with Gareth Cliff on breakfast?
Why do I see at least one accident on the way to work every day?
Why didn’t we get DStv sooner?
Why has SL Magazine gone to shit?
Why is Rhodes launching an alumni magazine?
Why are 99% of radio shows formulaic and boring?
Why didn’t I discover Ricky Gervais sooner?
Why do people drive four blocks from their offices to the mall at lunch?
Why are they cleaning our building’s windows for the second time in a month when they hadn’t cleaned them for four months prior to that?
Why have all Isidingo’s writers seemingly started taking crack?
Why can’t someone in SA launch a decent legal online music service (Musica downloads suck!)?

Why don’t I blog more often?

A quick list

2006-03-07T14:06:00.000+02:00

Thank you e.tv for having enough sense to buy Six Feet Under and also for having the conviction to continue serving it up for us, even if ratings (most probably) aren't that high. It really is gratifying to watch something once a week that actually really really makes you think, unlike some of the reality tv crap that's managed to find its way on to our tvs (think Strictly come dancing).
Thank you HBO for making a series so unconventional, yet so utterly brilliant. So much so that I think I need to start amassing the dvd box sets.
Thank you Ricky Gervais for making me laugh as much as you did when i listened to your final guardian podcast last night. Still not sure whether i'm going to dole out R50 four every four episodes of season two... mmmm....
Thank you to whoever started that silly 75 questions ms word email forward thing. Been very interesting to see the responses.
Thank you Fresh, Thato and Mpho for playing awesome music and for making me laugh in the mornings... even if it is only for 26 more days :(
Thank you FNB for my credit card. Makes life sooooo much easier.
Thank you Amazon UK for sending me Freakonomics when I asked for it. One hundred bloody rand cheaper than Exclusive Books.
Thank you Opera for designing Opera Mini so that I can browse the net and check mail on my phone... very cool. Screw you Motorola-piece-of-kak-proprietary-broswer!
Thank you salami from killarney, whoever the hell you are - splattermail cracks me up.
Thank you to The Killers for making the most amazingly awesome album ever.

Just some random thoughts that came to me while I was eating lunch... pretty tempted to do a sarcastic one now... just a thought. may use it. may not.

What made my day today: Windscreen-washer man Godfrey at the Glenhove offramp. No matter how crap I'm feeling (not that I was felling kak today), he manages to make me smile.

Now listening to: A colleague talking to someone on the phone about something or other...

Going to work

2005-10-27T10:32:00.000+02:00

Its a simple route to work every morning: couple of blocks to the M1 and then about 5 minutes of hurtling down the highway. Then another 10 mintutes down Glenhove and into the underground parking lot. Now this was never going to be a post about my route to work (hoping you'd realised that).
I stopped at the Shell nearest my house this morning and got shown to a pump by one of the attendants. I've been helped by him before. Turns out he's mute you see. The last time he helped me, I hardly realised this, but this morning was a different beast altogether.
I was late. I'd overslept and when I'm late I get full of crap. He showed me where to park and asked me how much petrol I wanted. He communicates with hand signals - five fingers = R50, etc. I suddenly found myself getting angry at him because this was taking so long. But while sitting there waiting, I realised that I simply have no right to be so selfish.
What the hell was I thinking? To watch him meticulously going through all the steps: checking the fuel cap, water, oil, pumping tyres, etc, I realised that here was someone who was trying his hardest and doing a damn good job. This job obviously meant a better life for him and he was earning a living from it. As some sort of attempt at self-absolution, I gave him a decent tip (was that called for? did it mean anything? was i just thinking about myself in this situation?). So that was this morning's epiphany. Not the best bit of musing, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.

Life's quite hectic at the moment. Lots of loose ends and stuff going on. Be posting more regularly from now on, now that I'm in a routine. Got something big coming up soon... But hey, don't I always say that?

What made my day today: H20's new single on Yfm this morning. :)

Taking time out

2005-06-11T16:19:00.000+02:00

Yip- taken a few days off and sitting doing pretty much nothing in kimberley. All in preparation for the mad month ahead, yes- its festival time. Really looking forward to it. Its gonna be a 10 day blur again. Complete with daily hangovers. Kimberley's been nice though, cold but cool- done a grand total of nothing over the past 2 days. Catch you on the flipside, back to doing, well nothing. blogging from my phone again :)

the weekly maelstrom

2005-06-01T14:55:00.000+02:00

so, i've just emerged from the weekly maelstrom that is the weekly newspaper that we produce here in gtown (shoppa). kind of chows up my whole monday and tuesday (and most wednesday mornings), but it is fun and its also very liberating being part of such a small team that produces a product with such huge influence in this town. 'why don't you ever blog about shoppa?' bellowed mike (my boss), which is probably the reason why i've finally posted something on the subject. its been amazing being part of the paper (for over a year now - and no, i wasn't paid to say that), and i'm convinced that one day i'll write something quite decent and sizeable about the whole experience.

on the other hand, part of this newfound determination to blog links slightly to one or two of the projects that i said in my previous post i had up my sleeve :) i've made some headway there (and now even own yet another .co.za domain name). hopefully, i'll be ready with at least one of these ideas by the time term 3 starts (got that nice gap after festival...)

lastly, you may be confused as to what value 'test 4' has (the post immediately before this one)... well, it was the first time that i managed to successfully post via e-mail from my cellphone (a motorola v600, incidentally). so, i've decided to leave it up to brag a bit (the technology took forever to set up - and entire morning of fiddling in fact). this is the first of many posts via phone that i'll make in future (its so much easier!)

what made my day today: the promise of star wars 3 later (yes, finally)

now listening to: the cd in my car (well, i wish i was anyway - does the noise in my head count?)...

Test4

2005-05-27T14:08:00.000+02:00

Test4

freeing up time

2005-05-26T18:33:00.000+02:00

i guess the only time i have to blog these days is when i'm out of town... when i get a break from the grahamstown work. eat. sleep. work cycle. so, i'm living it up in jozi with the hana team until saturday. we're producing a daily paper for a creative commons conference called commons-sense (clever heh?). the official launch was last night at the rosebank hotel - and we were there (naturally). larry lessig (or professor lawrence lessig as some academic-types refer to him) was there too, and the whole event had a nice atmosphere (guess everyone was excited by the fact that ccSA was officially launched then as well). if you haven't heard of creative commons or if you have and don't really know what they're doing - go check out their website... pretty awesome stuff. 340ml played after the speeches but the life of a designer dictated that i had to go back to our hotel (which, coincidentally, was across the road). apparently, everyone else got pissed and had fun. who knows? me, i watched the uefa champions league final. which - i suppose - is not an altogether bad thing.the new media lab from rhodes are also here (vince, colin and the fourth years). they're producing a 99% live site which is really pushing new trends in journalism/story-telling to the limit (especially considering we're in south africa). check it out. you know you want to.
our 8-pager came out this morning. we're running on an adapted micro-publishing model. 200 copies of the paper in a magazine (a4) format. the pdfs will be on the web this weekend and what i'm currently working on is converting these to rich media pdfs (hopefully as rich as possible). i'll be pooling the content that we've produced together with what the new media lab have produced and at the end of it all i should be able to have a pdf available for download that is embedded with video, audio, extra pics and lots of hyperlinks (lots and lots).
i've been wanting to blog on quite a few things lately and now, i don't actually know so much.
term 2 has basically been a cycle of work work work. drink drink drink. party party party. (the last two occuring on wednesday, friday and saturday nights - and one or two during the week on assorted monday/tuesday/thursday nights).
i have two new puppies (well, in actual fact my parents have puppies). we've got one little white yapping jumping thing (staffie/foxy-type dog) and a lumpy puffy little brown boerboel puppy (who's own mom weighed over 80kg) - will post pics soon. my dad's pressuring me to come home, using the puppies as bait :) crazy man.
fest's going to be a goodie. gonna be over-worked and underpaid, but production on cue is actually quite fun.
other than that, i've got some other projects up my sleeve - had a few ideas over the past month or two, so i'm trying to build those into more concrete plans. some are online ideas and i'm convinced one or two of them will be quite big if i find the time to dedicate to them... more on this soon (i hope!).

what made my day today: i'm in joburg - come on!!!

now listening to: a horrible aircon sound and lots of people typing (i'm in a computer lab at wits)

grad + a boys day out

2005-04-06T14:56:00.000+02:00

grad was this weekend. grad was good. me parents came down for the whole occasion thing, which was nice. met up with old friends who i was in class with last year and saw some peeps that i haven't seen in years... great weekend all round. a pic of me and the boss :)

so, this past 'vac' has pretty much been 14 days or so of partying - which was also good. was kinda pissed off that i didn't officially have time off to take a break so a couple of us (wigga, mike and el) had a boys day at the beach (also known as port alfred). water was >this cold.
and i'm going up to jozi next wednesday (with el and darb) and maybe one or two other peeps. can't wait - i get to go on leave :)

what made my day today: my car's getting fixed!

*now listening to: ian f and sasha - surprisingly good, much better than each on their own

what is it about fridays?

2005-03-13T18:40:00.000+02:00

what do you do on fridays? go out and get smashed? right answer.
no-one knows why - but we all do it anyway. the day for those drunken dinner appointments (yes - those of you with jobs in the city) or the day for drunken nights in new street (those of us with jobs in a dorp)... been out and smashed for the past five fridays in a row - and i actually thought about this during last week. why was this becoming a pattern? and come friday night i was at it again. now, that's not to say i don't patry and/or get drunk on saturdays/wednesdays/[insert other day of the week here], but yeah - this friday thing has become pretty routine and expected in a way. last friday (4th) was chris' 21st - so it goes without saying that i was going to get rat-faced. and i think he knew deep down that he was as well. i can take kudos for being the chief architect behind his downfall, and what a spectacular downfall it was. he chundered for over 3 hours straight :) i had long left the party and decided it would be fun to hit some first year(?) guy who asked me for a light in the rat. *smack* "what the fuck, bru?"
"fuck off - i don't want to speak to you" was my curt reply. and he did just that, leaving me to continue causing havoc and mayhem in the good ol rat.
found gregor who i hadn't seen for a few weeks. thought this would be a good excuse to keep punching him. kidney shots. in the chest. hell, it was fun. and then i concocted a great plan to throw my empty bottles at the bouncer from the first floor. thank goodness eldridge stopped me is all i have to say about that. what fun. managed to reverse my car into a wall earlier on (en route to the above-mentioned rat). no damage (hooray for my towbar).
evening ended by eventually finding tam and summararily going to bed.
what a hangover indeed. much much cane and half a bottle of absolut (thanks 21 jump!) plus a bit of the good stuff...
this past friday was much more chilled - just a couple of us drinking. knocked back quite a bit of jack and some soco. later in the evening i managed to once again start trying to punch people... but then that didn't happen. as an aside, no hangover from friday :) jack is indeed the way forward.
this is pretty much what's been happening in my life. work work work. drink drunk sleep.
i like it.

what made my day today: the sunday times extra.

* now listening to: highveld stereo's streaming audio (trying my best to block it out!)

so its once a month then...

2005-02-27T17:58:00.000+02:00

so much for the whole 'i wanna see if i can post every day theory...' what can i say, but oops. let me just say that going overseas for 10 days while you're actually supposed to be working kind of screws up your life for a while. for the past few weeks its felt like i've been running down a road without actually touching the tarmac.
all is now well in the life of bob. not mugabe - but hey that would require a whole other kind of blog. got a new phone - a v600. in fact i have two (a nokia 6820 on upgrade but i don't use crap)... want a v3 razr though... mmmm.
now that i'm into some sort of routine i'm doing as little work as possible (hope my superiors don't read this) that's the nice thing about working here... you can slip under the radar quite easily.
got a weekly house music show on rmr which makes me happy. also get to go to pe like once a week so i get lots of mc donalds and nandos!
having lots of fun getting into another routine that involves the consumption of vast quantities of tassenberg at very regular intervals. nice.
i think that's all i have to say about that - will post this week about something real. promise.

what made my day today: tam gets back from design indaba.

* now listening to: mags reading afrikaans news on rmr.

live from ghana

2005-01-31T17:01:00.000+02:00

(15:01 local time)

who would've guessed? me in ghana. just a couple of weeks ago a group of us were talking at tam’s 21st about going overseas, and i was one of the few who had not left sa. i mean, it would be nice i thought – but it was one of those things that would happen ‘one day’. and then this happened. now, my first choice was definitely not ever going to be ghana. but it’s a freebie, so i guess we take what we can get... and what you’re reading now we will refer to as ‘the collected and yet-to-be-completed travelogue of one hilton marc (with a c - carc) ‘bob’ tarrant. internet is up and down here. we might have five minutes of high speed access in the morning. or a couple of hours worth of excruciatingly slow access in the afternoon. but never uninterrupted access. right now, we are internet-less (again) as the organisers and government have not paid the service provider that connects this bloody building to the outside world (apparently we’ll have internet after lunch?). yesterday (sunday) was particularly bad. seeing as it was sunday, no-one (and nothing) really works. not that anything works on weekdays either. right now, the internet is down at the conference centre seeing as the organisers haven’t paid the internet company :) can you see the irony? no internet at an it conference… and to add to it all the electricity was on and off the whole of yesterday. at the country’s international conference centre. across the road from central government. how? that’s the simplest question i can ask. minz and i have vowed never ever to complain about waiting in queues in south africa ever again. home affairs in sa would win a five star service commendation if it had offices in ghana. that’s how slow things are here. to illustrate, while waiting for 10000¢ change from breakfast this morning, i had to ask the waiter (if you could call him that) three times for my change. as my boss chris says, everything here is a procedure. everything will take “another 15 minutes”. and in everything there is process. and white pieces of paper. if you ever ask about/for anything at any counter, the person there will hand you a blank white sheet of a4 prinitng paper and tell you to write your name and country down. no-one (not even the person who’s helping you) knows why you have to do this but i guess some manager somewhere told them to do it, so they do. we’ve asked many of these people why we should write down our name and we’re told that we just should. questions that will never have answers… i was chatting to my editor, steve about the total disorganisation at this conference yesterday and i figured out what frustrated me. in town, at private internet cafes, etc. there is electricity all the time. and high-speed internet. that’s the thing that pisses me off, cause you’ve expereinced world-class infrastructure a few blocks away, yet you have to deal with crap and beaurocracy here. my cellphone got stolen this morning. but i’ll sort out a new one. was due for an upgrade before i left anyway. so it’s not pissing me off as much as it should have. the exchange rate here is (yet) another screwed up thing about the country. r6 = $1 = 9100¢ (cedis). so things always cost a couple of thousand, from 5000¢ for a coke on the street to 200000¢ for a sim card. the single reason why i don’t have a reachable number that you can sms yet. not that i have a phone anymore, so that doesn’t matter anymore. i am a millionaire here. how cool is that? change $105 and you could be one too :) and to get these magical cedis, you have to go to shady forex bureaus dotted all around town. or do it at your hotel, but then the rate drops to 9000¢ (you lose 100¢ for every dollar). or better yet, do it at a bank in town (barclays, standard chartered) and you’ll get 8900¢. this place is crazy. during all the internet failures yesterday (but when we did have power) i amused myself with the vast assortment of windows games that come preloaded with xp. most of you will realise that by the time i start playing spider solitaire (which i’m doing again now), i am beyond bored. totally and utterly bored. there is waiting involved in everything here. now, the town is not actually that big. kotoka international airport has a total of one runway (used for take-off and landing). we waited in the airport for about an hour on arrival for our visas. to get anywhere, you need to find a taxi (pronounced tuck-see - note the break). or some locals call them kubbs (cabs). these rogue drivers (mostly driving scrapped old opels or hyundais) will take you anywhere for between 5000¢ and 20000¢. the cars are messed up and i don’t think that any taxi cab here has cv joints or a clutch in good working condition. rattles, bumps and noise all the way. last night we went for dinner at paloma – a touristy kind of outdoor restaurant (think a rural moyo)… very nice food, a live local band and some cold coke. it was good. after dinner we walked down the road to the 24 hour total. you’ll be able to find the weirdest stuff at the shop there. beer, spirits, car parts! (oil filters, spark plugs, and other little bits and pieces) and then the normal stuff we have back home (like chocolates, toiletries and cooldrinks). i also saw the first packet of simba chips in ghana at the total – and they’re like r3. granted they look like they were imported 2 years ago, but i shall try them :) kay – that’s all for now…

what made my day today: nothing. seeing as my phone's gone. nothing at all :(

* now listening to: the sound of a fan (bigger than 'that' huge one in pop-art humming in the corner.

has it come to this?

2005-01-19T18:34:00.000+02:00

so i'm blogging from a pentium 133 with 64mb ram. yes you read correctly. my life has been degraded (is there even such a word?). suppose i can blame it all on journ with them not having anywhere for me to work yet, so i have to use rmr communal news resources (*happy i don't read news here anymore - this technology would drive me to drink double what i already do).
so, my life in a nutshell (why do people say that?). i arrive back in grahamstown on sunday evening after a day-long drive from jozi. monday morning = phone calls from all and sundry (i.e. people who want me to do work). somehow they all know i'm back. who knows? but they found me allright. so while i'm kinda stressing cause i have this mini mountain of crap to do in two weeks, they tell me that i'm going to ghana next wednesday (26th). highway africa is covering some u.n. conference (wsis i think) and they need me to design the daily paper.
talk about your world being thrown upside-down. never so much as set foot outside south africa (hell - i've never even been to limpopo province) and now i'm going to west africa. sorting out emergency travel documents wasn't fun. but they should be here on friday (fingers-crossed). visa's are being taken care of by u.n. in ghana so that should be ok - or i guess i could just camp out at accra airport for the 10 days.
and now i compress my work into a week.
it'll all get done. it always works out.
so i'll stop worrying now.
(plus i'll be back for o-week!)

what made my day today: finally got my digs deposit refunded (from last year!) and should also get a refund on my 120gb hdd that just stopped working at the beginning of this month.

* now listening to: malaika - destiny

back at it

2005-01-18T16:17:00.000+02:00

so here i am. at work. 'enjoying myself'.
what a crock of crap. grahamstown has never felt this boring. i guess its cause i know a total of 5 people in town. oh well, since its been months since i last posted, i'll post a little something tomorrow about what's been going on in my life since then.
peace.

what made my day today: no-one's really hounding me for all the work i'm supposed to be doing.

*now listening to: nothing.

speechless.

2004-11-04T23:12:00.000+02:00

i guess that's the reason why i haven't posted anything about the election yet. i kinda felt depressed all of yesterday and it all had to do with kerry (and by extension bush). i've done some thinking about why i was so heavily invested in him and his campaign, hell i may even have promted some friends to do the same. and the things i could come up with were that i identified strongly with him. he was a rising star - someone who came from nowhere in the primaries... a 'no-hoper'. it was all dean - that's all the media and some friends of mine overseas were talking about. and then dean bombed. to be knocked out by john forbes kerry (delightfully ironic, isn't it - that whole jfk thing?). picking john edwards as his running mate didn't look like the best case scenario, but (a) there was no-one else worth their salt, (b) they're very very good firends and (c) i think he thought edwards would capture some of the middle-class workers' votes (which it seems he did). but back to the whole identifying with kerry thing. i think i somehow connect with his past and his standing in society. obviously i'm not saying that i'm part of the american bourgeoisie, but i think i understand where he was coming from and believed in pretty much the same stuff he believed in. i wasn't one of those 'well, i'll pick anyone as long as it isn't bush' fans of kerry. it seems he had a lot of those too. i do hope he stays in the news for the next couple of years, as he'll be in the senate until 2008 :) which kinda makes me happy. at his concession speech in boston, while he thanked his supporters, someone from the audience shouted 'we still got your back'. kerry replied 'thank you, man. and i assure you – you watch – i'll still have yours.' now that kind of leadership makes me happy. who besides mbeki in south africa is as good a leader (if not better). leadership doesn't get created. you've got it or you don't. and i know that kerry will be an extra-ordinary leader in various capacities in the years to come. its not over yet. (read john kerry's bio and find out some more about a role model of mine, if you want).

in terms of reality- grahamstown. south africa. let's get back to my life for a moment :) i've got just over two weeks before i've handed it in. the portfolio. an entire year's worth of work. and i'm on track believe it or not. i refuse to pull another one of my last minute stunts. i think that's one of the (useful) things i've learnt over the past four years... anyway, no huge life-changing shift at the end of this year. pretty sure most of you know that already. back for a year of teaching. no more (and i'm sure you realise that when i say that i mean it). i'm just too damn smart to get stuck in this town (city?). the strange thing about next year is that i'll actually be living three houses away from where i've stayed for the last two years. strange. but i guess, it was bound to happen in a town as small as this. another funny thing is that i probably would've found it much more difficult to stay if i didn't have a car (that i can (and do) use to race to port elizabeth) - almost weekly of late :)
other than plans for next year... life's going along very well. some friends are saying that i'm gushing fairly often when i speak about life... but hey, i won't argue.
going home at the end of the month - when the freelance work ends (somethings got to pay the bills). finally figured out what i'm going to do with myself for seven weeks: probably stay up in kimberley for a week or so, need to fix things on my car. then up to jozi to visit a whole bunch of people. back to kimberley for family christmas. who knows about new year? and finally off to durban quickly (maybe back to jozi as well, we'll see) and back to grahamstown in mid-january... yes, work starts early.

what made my day today: so many things. heard some very very good news today. but more about that sometime later. maybe.

* now listening to: that same aircon, and some fellow designers hacking away at their respective keyboards.

---
i'll leave you with a piece written by dan gillmor from the san jose mercury news (i met him at highway africa last year, incidentally):

four more years:
kerry has conceded, properly so. and now we're onto the next four years.
the republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. they have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. they have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.
there's no secret about what's coming. we don't have that excuse this time.
here comes more fiscal recklessness - as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the treasury bill credit card for the next few years. many economists expect a brazil-like financial crisis to hit the u.s. before the end of the decade. if we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.
here comes an expansion of the american empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. this is also unsustainable in the end. empire breeds disrespect.
our civil liberties will shrink drastically. this president and his top allies in congress fully support just one amendment in the bill of rights, the second amendment's right to bear arms. say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. roe v. wade will fall after this president pushes three or four scalia and thomas legal clones onto the supreme court. say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.
the environment? we'll be nostalgic for ronald reagan's time in office.
this is not sour grapes. this is reality.
i hope, but doubt, that the democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. if they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.
people say there are two americas. i think there are at least three.
one is bush's america: an amalgam of the extreme christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.
another is the democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.
i suspect there's a third america: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored - or made worse - by those in power today.
that third america needs a candidate. or, maybe, a new party.

and something i found just now on lawrence lessig's blog:
i’m going to spend time these next few days looking for the america in my heart. it may be a while before i see it anywhere else.

he's the man... told ya so.

2004-10-19T10:25:00.000+02:00

the endorsements are rolling in... newspapers are picking their candidates for the us election in 14 days time. john kerry has picked up 48 newspapers in total (with a combined 8,935,195 daily circulation). the biggest so far has been the new york times, the only national paper to have endorsed a candidate till now. george w. bush has the endorsements of 34 newspapers (with a total of 4,776,231 daily circulation).
interestingly, national review online reports that the lone star iconoclast, george w. bush's hometown paper, is backing john kerry this year. that's a change from 2000 when the weekly endorsed the hometown boy. it's impossible to know how much influence the crawford, texas, weekly's endorsement will have on its 425 subscribers, but no one expects the state of texas to end up in the democratic column next month. john kerry's hometown paper the lowell sun, a larger daily, recently endorsed george w. bush. it's safe to say that massachusetts won't go republican.

and, in a break with tradition, the tampa tribune, a republican standard-bearer for decades, has refused to endorse a candidate for us president for the first time since 1964. the newspaper has solidly supported every republican presidential nominee since 1952, except for barry goldwater, but withheld its endorsement this year, calling the decision "achingly difficult" and blaming shortcomings of both candidates. editors instead published an unusual full-page editorial with harsh criticism of the war in iraq and president george bush's economic policies.

now, i said i’d think this weekend about why i’m so heavily invested in kerry winning.
i didn’t. instead, i read most of the endorsements for him so far and realized that these editors and journalists could put into words what i couldn’t.

this one, from the san jose mercury news, sums it all up nicely:
the argument for electing john kerry president is straightforward. he would be a more responsible president than george w. bush. kerry would be more responsible in maintaining america's standing among other nations, without sacrificing its independence or risking its security. he would be more responsible in reversing the plunge to record budget deficits. he would be a more responsible in protecting the environment. bush does not merit another four years as president. a part of our recommendation of kerry is simple: he is not bush. but kerry is a good choice on his own merits as well.kerry is better prepared to step into the presidency than bush was four years ago. at every stage of his life, kerry has been a man of serious purpose. in vietnam, he signed up to fight despite his doubts. after vietnam, he protested the war, which was neither easy nor popular. in the senate, he investigated iran-contra and paved the way to better relations with vietnam (along with sen. john mccain). kerry and mccain dispelled the myth of prisoners of war being held in vietnam, still a political flash point at the time. their work opened the door to diplomatic and economic ties. yes, kerry is sometimes verbose and vague. sometimes it is a fault. bush has been deriding kerry as a flip-flopper over his senate votes that appear to be both for and against the war in iraq. in part, the charge is a canard from a president who has changed his own mind numerous times. in part, kerry's changing votes are explained by evolving circumstances. the case for war was different when the president sought authorization for it than when he sought $87 billion to sustain it. nonetheless, kerry has given voters some reason to wonder if he would be decisive enough as president. we believe he would. presidents grow to fill the office.while indecision is not a virtue in a president, an ability to understand issues in all their complexity is. the world is not the black-and-white tv show bush seems to think it is.kerry understands that the war on terror involves choices just as every other struggle does. the war in iraq was a choice that diverted resources from the effort to wipe out al-qaida and osama bin laden in afghanistan. he understands that the war in iraq isn't simply spreading freedom, it's spreading anti-americanism in the muslim world. on foreign policy, kerry is firmly within the decades-long american tradition of working within alliances, because a group is stronger than any of the members individually. with 19 years on the senate foreign relations committee, kerry has the grounding a new president will need to immediately begin re-establishing america's standing in the world. on the home front, kerry at least offers some hope of restoring fiscal sobriety and tax fairness. he would revoke bush's income-tax cuts for families with incomes above $200,000. first, it would stop the pretense that the country can spend more and tax less. second, rather than accelerate the growing gap between rich and poor, kerry's tax policy would ask more of those who are doing best economically. but it would be a mistake to simply plow that money into a health care plan as he says he would do, instead of reducing the bush budget deficits. health care requires a different, more significant - and likely far more expensive - national solution.to judge by the lawmakers silicon valley sends to sacramento and washington, the domestic agenda of the bush administration is at odds with the kind of society people here desire.kerry would be genuinely compassionate toward the poor. he would protect civil rights, including abortion rights. he would halt bush's erosion of environmental regulations. one area where we disagree with kerry - at least with what he has said in the campaign - is trade. his "benedict arnold ceos'' and other tirades against jobs moving overseas betray either economic ignorance or campaign pandering. at least his senate record is better than his recent rhetoric.george bush likes to remind voters that "you know where i stand.'' it's not always true. too often when it is, it's not where we think the country ought to be. john kerry is in the right place. americans should put him in the white house.

‘kerry’s papers’ so far (from his endorsement page):
the new york times, boston globe, minneapolis star-tribune, san francisco chronicle, miami herald, st. petersburg times (fla.), kansas city star (mo.), the sacramento bee (calif.), san jose mercury news, dayton daily news (ohio), palm beach post, the beacon journal (ohio), lexington herald leader (ky.), daytona beach news journal (fla.), roanoke times (va.), the modesto bee (ca.), south florida sun-sentinel, the register-guard (ore.), duluth news tribune (minn.), the st. louis american, bradenton herald (fla.), the muskegon chronicle (mich.), the daily camera (colo.), grand forks herald (n.d.), mail tribune (ore.), columbia daily tribune (mo.), the daily reflector (n.c.), nevada appeal, livingston county press & argus (mich.), florida today, las vegas mercury, citizen's advocate newspaper (coppell, texas), the albuquerque tribune, the philadelphia inquirer, st. louis post-dispatch, seattle post-intelligencer, the oregonian (portland, ore.), portland press herald (portland, me.), the atlanta journal-constitution, detroit free press, arizona daily star (tucson, ariz.), the lone star iconoclast (crawford, texas), the day (new london, conn.), the press democrat (santa rosa, calif.), the seattle times, the philadelphia daily news.

what made my day today: stiff after jogging. a good stiff :)

*now listening to: nothing, really.

kerry's the man

2004-10-14T14:05:00.000+02:00

i don't quite know what it is, but for some or other reason i am deeply invested in john kerry winning the american election - i think he's an amazing man who knows a crap-load about the world and is exactly what that country needs right now.
gonna think about it some more and try and rationalise it here this weekend.

for now, some views from salon.com on the third kerry/bush debate:

"i just don't get the bush as beer-drinking buddy thing (even if he still drank beer). it isn't like john kerry is mr. personality. he's a bit of a stiff. but you sense that behind his wonky, methodical exterior that he cares and that he's actually engaged with issues -- which, after all, is what we hire our politicians to do, not be incoherent cheerleaders for anti-government zealotry. bush, presiding over a deeply divided country, mired in a disastrous war that he misled us into, offers only a bad reagan imitation. which could, in fact, describe his entire presidency.if america will buy a used ideology from bush, it'll buy anything." - gary kamiya (salon.com staff writer)

"ok, america, now that you've watched the last presidential debate, the choice should be perfectly clear - even for you dazed undecideds still out there. on one side, we have a candidate who thinks we should have targeted osama more than saddam; we should allow cheaper prescription drugs to be imported from canada; we should give women the right to choose and would not appoint any justice to the supreme court who feels differently; we should outlaw assault rifles; we should raise the minimum wage; we should uphold affirmative action; we should offer all americans the same health coverage enjoyed by their elected leaders. and the other candidate? well, he doesn't believe in any of that. but he isa man of deep faith. oh, and he loves his wife and kids a whole lot." - david talbot (salon.com editor)

that's bout it for today...

what made my day today: there's sunshine (and aircon inside.)

*now listening to: yfm's dj waxzy :)

a masterpiece. no other word will do it justice.

2004-10-10T17:33:00.000+02:00

if you see one movie for the rest of this year, go and watch collateral.
now, its been a while since i’ve posted anything and most of the reason behind it is because i’ve been hacking away at this piece, trying to do the film justice since last wednesday (i saw it late on tuesday night). i think that watching it on tuesday night perhaps, is also important seeing as those who know me well will actually (i think) be shocked that i managed to sit through a film that late at night without falling asleep. truth be told, i don’t think i would’ve fallen asleep during collateral no matter how long it had been since i’d last slept.
so... collateral then.
instead of trying to compose a prosaic plot-centred review, i’m going to attempt to offer some glimpses into moments within the masterpiece that is this film. jamie foxx plays a taxi driver who is bullied into driving a hit man (played by tom cruise) around la for a night. thing is, most of the first scenes are filled with a sense of enchantment – which is something i haven’t seen in ‘serious’ movies (read: not lord of the rings or anything penned by jk rowling) for a while. the movie is directed by michael mann, the same guy who, funnily enough, directed 80s tv mainstay miami vice. having been a fan of the latter, i found myself shocked at how mann was able to move so far away from cheese and create art with this movie. collateral is one of the first commercial release (‘hollywood’) movies to be shot on high definition digital video, a technique which produces the awe-inducing lighting effects (especially seeing as this whole movie is set at night). everything just looks so real. and different to the film textured world we’ve become used to. some critics point to the fact that the entire movie could be broken up into free-standing short films. the key phrase here is free-standing – sure, some scenes in other movies could make nice short films, but i have never before seen a movie scripted (by stuart beattie, incidentally) and shot so cleverly that it could be broken apart with the units still making sense in isolation.
i recently started to appreciate tom cruise’s work, and have come to realise that this man is one of the greatest actors of our time. he manages to constantly re-invent himself, and collateral stands as testament to his skill as an actor.
that said, jamie foxx is right up there. friends and colleagues laughed when i said that he pulled off one of the performances of his career... until they went to see this film. and, after collateral, i find myself not being able to wait for foxx’s lead role as ray charles (in ‘ray’).
mark my words.
one of the scenes in this movie, towards the final quarter, stands out and accentuates the beautiful complexity of collateral. foxx and cruise are on their way to cruise’s last job when suddenly they are forced to stop the taxi. a pack of coyote-type wild dogs come from nowhere and cross the road, their eyes glistening in the taxi’s headlights. cruise and foxx then move on, without saying a word to each other.go see the movie. and then try and say that this scene is not one of the most powerful moments of cinema that you have ever watched...

what made my day today: so many things *wink* :)

* now listening to: buena vista social club

u remind me

2004-09-27T13:14:00.000+02:00

you know, it struck me yesterday how often we leave reminders of oursleves in each others lives. and how often we keep reminders of others in ours. i'm talking about the little things. stupid-sounding movie ticket stubs, notes, a piece of paper with a scribbles from that lecture where you sat next to someone you know, or memories of moments that others may think are quite ridiculous and meaningless. thing is, you have all these bits and pieces and whenever you clean up your room and try sort out your life, you find some of these and for some or other reason, you don't want to through these thoughts away (quite literally?). i think that this whole idea kinda fits nicely with something i posted a number of days ago, where I questioned the whole notion of whether we sometimes actually know some people we interact with and encounter day after day. so at the end of the day, you have people who you don't really know, and then have others that for some or other (sometimes silly?) reason, you don't want to forget about. these links are at times not clear in our minds (or maybe we don't want the reasons to be clear), but, we cherish the thoughts and scraps, nonetheless.

what made my day today: no class. maybe if you count that 10 minute 'planning' session we had...

* now listening to: 5fm: d12 - how come

3 is more than 2

2004-09-23T16:24:00.000+02:00

its long weekend. yay. and thabo will be in kimberley.
i've also decided to update the links (on the right ->)
oh, nando's got back to me - the store manager from sandton spent about 2 minutes solid apologising to me on the phone last week. and i scored 2 free burger meals :)

what made my day today: i have no work to do. nothing. zip. niks.

* now listening to: pierre's set 10 - small town underground.

the new ringo

2004-09-20T13:37:00.000+02:00

a wonderful leader was in sa just last week. some call him abdul kalam. yip, the president of that great nation state india was here.
the reason he intrigues me so much is because he looks like the fifth beatle... i kid you not:

how cool is his hair?
think he wakes up every morning and even realises that his hair is so damn cool? big ups to abdul. and to think we could've had ghandi's (boring) daughter instead of this dude...

weekend was a goodie. lots of doing nothing. which rocks. and if you watch one wacked comedy for the rest of the year, get how high. method man. redman. lots of weed. and i'll say no more.

what made my day today: its summer. and i walked to campus. (yes - i left my car alone at home).

* now listening to: fresh cuts. some nice oldies. tracklisting at sheerdance.co.za's back catalogue

y'all don't know anybody

2004-09-16T14:07:00.000+02:00

i had one of those moments of deep thought this morning. do you ever stop and think about all those people you 'know', but you really no shit about. people who you see and chat to every now and then (or even every day) but you don't even know their surname, where they're from - you know, their story. you know nothing. do you even know these people?
case in point: your domestic worker. fine- her name is sally/milly/thando (insert name here). but do you know her at all?
what about people who you're in lectures with, people who you work with? every single day of your life.
maybe we should move beyond our stupid little comfort zones (that ridiculous 1m X 1m cube) and actually make an effort to get to know a little bit more about people around us who we think we 'know'. think about how many (few?) people would visit you if you were really sick in hospital. its not a pleasant thought by any means, but it kinda puts things into perspective - doesn't it?

what made my day today: liquorice allsorts. its the small things :)

*now listening to: big up harambe-be-be...

dre 2004

2004-09-15T22:32:00.000+02:00

today has been one of those days... life (read:work) got a bit hectic this morning and i took time out after lunch. i do that way too seldom - you know: have 'me' time. now, before you go on accusing me of being another oprah convert.. i don't mean angel network-type 'me' time. its more like time-out for yourself - to calm down and sort shit out. do it. take the time.
random thought: think i'm gonna dye my hair black again tomorrow. that's a good idea :)
ever played fantasy sports? like fantasy cricket? got a team in fantasy premier league (uk) that's kicking ass. well, kinda. they're making a huge comeback and the best footballer in the world (van nistelrooij is back!).
now i read this today and its beyond cool:
--snip--
burt bacharach is working on a new album with hip-hop producer dr dre in an unlikely collaboration.dre, best known for his own gangsta rap and for producing eminem’s records, has supplied the beats for three tracks on bacharach’s next album, reports mtv. bacharach, the 76-year-old king of easy listening, said: “it’s a challenging, freeing feeling to take an existing format - like these rigid, four-bar loops - and to see what you can write on top of it.“it’s hard and challenging too, because it does have some restrictions.”bacharach, who launched his songwriting career more than 50 years ago, is best known for writing hits for the likes of dionne warwick, dusty springfield, the carpenters and neil diamond.his new project, due out next year, came about when his uk label approached him about doing a “cutting-edge record.”“i had got together with dre about a year and a half ago and talked about doing something for the album that we never did,” bacharach said.“then he gave me the loops, and when i decided to do this album for sony england, it seemed a natural fit.”bacharach is not making a hip-hop album, however. he described the new music as tapping into his jazz and classical roots.
--snip--

what made my day today: designing the front page of a chinese tabloid newspaper (complete with mandarin font and pics of chinese film stars/politicians). i don't know what it says. i don't even know what its meant to say - but damn, it looks good (humility aside).

*now listening to: some bad 'dance' music on 5 - with "DJ ZJ". groan.

mushrooming reality

2004-09-13T16:33:00.000+02:00

i found myself awake at 4 this morning in front of the tv. now its amazing what good shit is on that late (early?) at night. its hong kong's election, apparently. and china have tried as much as they can to make the citizens (hong kongese?) vote for them, and not the pro-democrats. this is deemed newsworthy according to those in control at the sabc. but that aside, soemthing else interesting that happened in that part of the world: a massive mushroom-cloud explosion was 'noticed' in north korea. amid hysteria on britain and the us's part that the north koreans were testing nuclear bombs again, their 'vice-foreign minister for europe' (who even has such a thing?) said that the blast was part of the deconstruction of a mountain for some hydroelectric scheme.
today must be a day for weird news, cause pamela anderson is now on billboards across the states saying 'boycott kfc'. she's really into this whole cause and has written letters to people that kfc sponsor to urge them to pressure kfc into killing their chickens in a way where the chickens don't feel any pain. never really understood any of this humane killing thing- killing is killing... in'it?

what made my day today: just read this about our president. and then maybe you'll be as impressed as i am :)

* now listening to: fresh house flava 6

pecking order

2004-09-13T16:07:00.000+02:00

s'pose i should post this here - i did promise to last week. last i heard, i'd been lucky enough to have received unique interaction number 76165. wow. i'm impressed... not.

--snip--

Hi Lana,
I find it quite interesting that after submitting all of the information (on 12 August 2004) you've requested to your website, wait - your "Nando's Lifestyle website", I have been asked to send thisinformation to Customer Care again. I guess I've resigned myself to the fact that your "Lifestyle website" database is broken and/or does notreally exist. Perhaps the information got lost somewhere between Nando's and DigitalMall?
And so, for the second time, here goes:
The store I visited: Sandton City
Approximate date and time of visit: 6 August 2004, 13:40
A brief description of my Nando's experience: The store was busy and the take-away area was crowded, so I expected a slightly longer wait for my order evenbefore I placed it. I'm sure you'll appreciate that even with this expectation, I still ordered from Nando's and not one of the tens of other fast food outlets in Sandton City (which were, incidentally, handling the rush a lot better).I eventually managed to order after waiting in a queue for a few minutes and ordered a burger (extra hot), regular spicy rice and 500ml coke. Note the rice. The assistant who helped me said that she would bill me for a burger combo meal instead, 'as chips costed the same as the rice' and this would save me a few rands. She also said that she would alert kitchen staff to this change, and they would swop the chips with rice. I didn't question this idea at all, I mean, she did work at Nando's and had helped hundreds/thousands of people before me. I then waited for my meal and everyone who had placed orders at the same time as me started receiving their food. More people came to order food and they too started receiving their orders. I presumed that the rice or extra hot burger were the reason for the slightly longer wait (which at this stage was still fairly reasonable). It was only when another employee (who had noticed me waiting for a while) actually asked me for my order number, that my waiting made sense. Somehow my order had gotten lost in their system and they then 'rushed' to assemble it. I had now been waiting for close on 30 minutes. I received my newly assembled order which consisted of the burger, coke and chips. Note the chips. Note the absense of rice. I questioned the lady who gave me my order (who was not the same person who took my order)and she said that my slip indicated a combo meal and that is what I was served. At this stage, when I was genuinely too irritated to argue - I turned around and left. To make this whole experience worse, my burger was not anywhere near hot - let alone extra hot. And my chips were cold. This entire experience has left me in two minds as towhether I should actually ever eat at Nando's again. Is rice too much of a tall order?
While I appreciate the fact that you thank me 'in advance for this valued feedback', I do hope that the correct caution is excercised this time to ensure that feedback such as this does, not once again, get lost/deleted as I know that I will not have the patience to type this out/resend this again.
Regards

--snip--

go shawty

2004-09-12T18:48:00.000+02:00

what made my day today: kimi's birthday.

* now listening to: an airconditioner droning away. exciting? yeah.

make that super size

2004-09-10T15:42:00.000+02:00

went to watch super size me last night. not a bad movie. but not a good one by any stretch of the imagination. thing is, my expectations were kinda inflated by websites and news articles i've read over the past few weeks. i don't actually know why spurlock made this into a full length movie. maybe he knew he'd make more cash that way. it didn't really deserve those extra 39 minutes. an hour would've been fine. watching it was the highlight of my day though. weird day.
does bad customer service piss you off? what about stupid people? now think about the two together.
while in joburg last month i had the shittest service ever at nandos in sandton city. i'm talking absolute shittest. so, being the good little consumer i am, i chortle off to nandos.co.za and fill in one of those automated forms. and the form asks for every single detail. when. where. time. what i ordered. i fill all of this in and get this lovely response:
// hi, thanks for not being chicken to tell us how it is - your feedback is greatly appreciated. our nando's team will respond to you as soon as possible. //
now, after three weeks of waiting i send a reply asking if they'll ever get back to me...
and then, i get this:
--snip--
good day,
thank you for taking the time and submitting your feedback through the nando's lifestylewebsite.
nando's strives to deliver and maintain the high standards set for its stores and would appreciate you providing me with the following information.
information required by customer care:
1. your contact telephone numbers
2. the store you visited
3. approximate date and time of visit to one of our stores
4. a brief description of your nando's experience at one of our stores
when convenient please would you provide me with the above mentioned details as this ensures your experience be noted and addressed with senior store management. senior store management will contact you to discuss and address your experience.
we look forward to your response and would like to thank you for your valued feedback.
thanking you in advance,
lana magerman
nando's customer relations manager
"we're at your peck and call"
--snip--
do they have idiots running the backend of their website?
yes.
will i ever eat at nandos again?
i'm going to mail them on monday and then wait and see. i'll post that mail here ;)

what made my day today: rhodes i.t. support and their sheer brilliance. no, i'm not being facetious. oh, and gillman's vinyl frontier this morning. damn - i'm back into this house music thing in a big way.

* now listening to: sander kleinenberg's essential mix.

i drove all night

2004-09-08T17:04:00.000+02:00

driving at night on a highway must be one of the most enjoyable experiences one could have. well, in my life anyway. i don't quite know what it is - the vastness of it all? the fact that you are absorbed in concentration and have time to actually think?
nataniel evening of fine cuisine was awesome. except for the venue - tsitsikamma conference centre at the (tacky/kitch/cheap) boardwalk. what is it about all sun international casinos? they all manage to look the same with different 'themes'.
the night was sponsored by winston. who even remembers those cigarettes? but they've relaunched and everything: very snazzy. am i allowed to mention their name? manto might get cross if she finds out :) but this is hosted overseas, isn't it? speaking of manto, nataniel had me cracking up when he said that we can't smoke inside the venue cause of a bylaw that was passed by port elizabeth's pissed off mayor (his wife left him recently).
joe's coming to mzansi. which is good news, at least i think so. everyone i tell is like 'whatever'. has joe become uncool? seeing as he's now like a c-grade celeb, he's even performing in pe. i mean, who does that - besides dj sammy and right said fred. oh, and chris de burgh (back in 95 or something).
still on the politics tip: can you possibly say anything dumber: cheney "if you vote for kerry, the terrorists will attack the us again".

what made my day today: a little clip (one of those e-mail fwds) with george w and tony (i'll do anything for love) blair singing 'my endless love'...

* now listening to: dj waxxy plays the phattest jams... yfm again. damn this is tight.

twenty million loud

2004-09-07T01:07:00.000+02:00

just found a site that mtv launched for november's us election (why can't i stop thinking about politics?). nice way of trying getting youth motivated and interesting in actually voting (don't know if this'll work in good old apathetic america, though). they've got a featue interview with john kerry (and mccain - but i don't really care about him...). nice one. they go on to say that while kerry has now sat for two interviews with mtv, george w has yet to agree to a single appearance. they've been pursuing an interview with him all year and to date, the bush campaign has told them that it hasn't been able to schedule an appearance on mtv. ass.
back in mzansi, the sabc (who are not my favourite people right now as they've been screwing me around for the past 2 weeks) just culled half of safm's programmes. the da responded on sunday, but turned it into an allegation of anc interference in safm's affairs.
going through to pe later this evening for a night of contemporary cuisine with nataniel. one of those king size british american tabacco events. free food. free wine. free smokes. life can't get better :)

what made my day today: deep dish's flashdance. awesome track.

* now listening to: dj mbuso - mbuso's revenge on harambe on yfm streaming audio

baldwin doesn't know my name

2004-09-06T16:54:00.000+02:00

i find it quite interesting that our president takes time out weekly to write a letter to the nation. well, its not really to the nation per se, rather to the couple of thousand people who subscribe to the nifty e-mail service the anc provide. his past month worth of writings have been quite different to what i read when i started subscribing to anc today. there've been two letters from the youth league president, and a bunch of stuff about august being women's month. this past friday's letter was really interesting. it was more an essay, really and was all about james baldwin who published a book of essays called 'nobody knows my name'. mbeki asks some significant questions about what defines our heritage and our culture, where we come from - that sort of stuff. coincidentally, i read a column by anton harber recently who also chatted about mbeki's letter.

today i also discovered some music i haven't listened to forever... bruce springsteen and the lighthouse family. some good chilled stuff.

what made my day today: the fact that griquas beat the sharks 33-24 on saturday

* now listening to: the calling - one by one.