Just another winters week..

• Monday, played with Mia’s Leapfrog Tag toy.. yes, software works with OS X, put up a basic website for the Open Spectrum Alliance, spinning.

• “What’s for you will not pass you by” — Familiar Feeling, Moloko

• Tuesday, Lions Head meeting, kicked a rugby ball around the field below La Med, nice home cooked dinner, read up about Carrier Ethernet.. and totally forgot about the GeekDinner.

• “Do you have sex music?” — Ingi, busy making compilation CDs after her breakup

• “Inside every working anarchy, there’s an old-boy network.” — Mitch Kapor

• Wednesday, haircut at Bianca’s, a sunset run along the cable car contour road with Andy and Ingi, Amobia meeting.. I waxed a large portion of ribs.. stuffed.

• “The cold-hearted boy I used to be..” — All These Things That I’ve Done, The Killers, probably their best song.

• “YOU are funny. You’re not a family guy. You’re Joe. You’re a great single dad. You were a bit of a crap partner.” — Naulene.. there you have it.

• Thursday, uber juice with broccoli and goji berries, checked out A is for Apple (the kids book store) and got Mia a cool book, watched Chaos Theory.. not bad, nice home cooked dinner.

• “I don’t often listen to my body, but when it tells me I’m thirsty …” — Andrew, while running.

• Helped plan a founding meeting for OSA.
• I sent ~800 emails in May, which is about double the April figure.

• “What’s for lupper?” — Ingi, about weird meal times

• I felt a bit bad about having 4 traffic fines outstanding.. until I mentioned it to a friend who claims to have 31.
• Wow, it’s June.. 1/2 the year gone.. that was quick.
• Friday, painful process of drafting and agreeing to a custody and maintenance document (only took a year to get to draft 3), Mia time, watched Kung Fu Panda, couscous salad, played with Mia’s new toys, hot choc, sleep.
• Saturday, tea, Incredibles, gym, swim, painting, Beta Beach sunset walk, pasta salad.
• Remember kids, always use some hand cream after washing the dishes. As Ingi says your hands give away your age.
• Sunday, tea, gym.. bumped into Gaby, swim, wholesome Sunday lunch at Vredenheim with Mia, Ramsey, Debby, Adrian etc, played 30sec at Debby’s, dropped Mia off, salad at Da Vinci’s, Asoka.. Wallaby sunday.
• I don’t get signatures. The pen and paper type. Does anybody ever check them? Seems so last century.

• “Not only in love, I was obsessed” — Simple Kind Of Life, No Doubt

• “I’ve knitted a scarf” — Andy, about Debby knitting in a bar

Have a fun week.

Neighbourhood Restaurant and Pub hosted our merry group of geeky friends at Tuesday’s bimonthly GeekDinner, code-named Naughty Naartjie.

I guess the first thing that I have to say about Neighbourhood is: “What a flippin’ awesome venue!”. The restaurant is located close to the top of Long Street (the vibrant side), on the upper level, from where you can watch passers-by migrating between nightclubs and bars. The restaurant owner kept an eye on the proceedings, and made sure that we had everything we needed. The service from the (beautiful) waitresses was unexpectedly attentive, giving us the feeling that they genuinely wanted to make sure that we were happy.

The buffet starter table was almost a meal in its own right, laden with trays of teriyaki and chilli chicken wings, chilli poppers, nachos, pita breads with hummus and tahina, olives, and a whole bunch of other yummy things. I had a pretty decent burger for mains, followed by ice-cream with chocolate sauce… and all of this was topped off with a great bottle of Merlot from our wine sponsor, Delheim (more about that in my next post though).

Apologies if it sounds like all we did was eat and drink :). In fact, there were a couple of good speakers who kept us well entertained in between courses and table banter. Thanks also to Bryn for the well-constructed slideshow karaoke*.

*Slideshow Karaoke: “…somebody prepares a set of slides on any topic they want (we’ve had “Etiquette when dealing with British Royalty”, “Common problems with cement tiles”, and “A primer on lesser known Norse gods”). Somebody else then presents a talk based on these slides without any prior knowledge of the topic, or of the content of the slides - always to amusing effect.” - Vhata Vas Hyah

A notable feature of my recent social events seems to be the common theme of geeks and wine. Could this be 2009’s cheese and wine?

Last night was no exception when Delheim wine was served up at the bi-monthly GeekDinner. A delicious Merlot 2006 (and I am not typically a Merlot fan) as well as Sauvignon Blanc/Chenin blend. I am a bit of a glutton for red wine at the moment, so I stupidly forgot to taste the wine - will have to remedy that soon.

The list of geek-friendly South African wine seems to be growing: Stormhoek, of course: Perdeberg (not sure why they don’t sponsor GeekDinners any more but hooray for Delheim), Moreson has turned up now and again, and now Delheim.

Nice.

In my opinion Geek dinners are the black horse of the current Cape Town social media circuit. Always incredibly fun - and funny, you have to witness the slideshow karaoke at least once - and with the widest variety of topics at a dinner/networking event I have come across.

Last night was no exception, with Mandy Watson taking impromptu to a new level and testing out her new presentation pointer, slide mover thing in front of a live audience. It’s called an Apacer Wireless Presenter. You can see why she is queen of the tech reviews with her astute observations and questions about the technology’s capabilities.

Next up was Wessel Venter talking about Aspergers syndrome. Discussing it later, Kerry-Anne and I agreed that we live in amazing times where increasingly there is no normal.

Wessel was followed by poster child for “Saffers taking the world by storm with a pocket full of VC money”, Vinnie Lingham. Vinnie, head of Synthasite … I mean Yola, held a lively question and answer session about his move to Silicon Valley and observations on what’s up in SA. I am not sure he is totally convinced that Silicon Valley beats Silicon Cape Town hands down though.

And of course the ever-present Springleap team provided the geek schwag for the evening.

I just got back from the May 2009 Cape Town GeekDinner and, man, was it great!  There was good vibe, the venue was excellent and the people awesome!

Our location was at Neighbourhood in Long Street in Cape Town.  I went there with some friends after the Cape Cobras-Rajasthan Royals match and thought it a good candidate for a GeekDinner.  I suggested it and we eventually settled on it.  And we weren’t disappointed!  The staff was very friendly and the food was excellent!  The starters were different platters served as a buffet: I’m sure that alone filled up some of the people in attendance.  For mains we were given a relatively generous set menu to select from.  I decided on having the Foghorn Leghorn Burger, and it was delicious!  For dessert I had ice cream, but by this time I was so stuffed that it was an uphill battle I didn’t quite win.  Having worked with the managers before to arrange the venue, I can testify to the lengths they went to  accommodate us and were always friendly, open and helpful.  I’m not trumping anyone up because I have to: these guys really are tops!

We also welcomed a new face to GeekDinner: Delheim wine estate generously sponsored us with good quality wine!  Thanks guys!

For me, this was a special GeekDinner.  Not only did I have a hand in helping to organise it a bit, but I also gave my very first GeekDinner presentation!  I gave a brief talk on Asperger Syndrome.  It served a dual purpose: to raise awareness amongst the GeekDiners (although I suppose a lot of them already knew much on the topic) and it also helped my studies by forcing me to study this subject and getting me to try and wrap my mind around it.  The only downside was that I wasn’t able to cover the topic as thoroughly as it should be.  But I believe I got the jist through, and that is what is important.  It prompted some discussion and some interesting comments and questions afterwards, which I’m glad about.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in and pitched up and made this a great evening!  And a special thank you to everyone who supported me!

Late notice, but the next GeekDinner, Naughty Naartjie is coming up on Tuesday 26th May at Neighborhood in Long Street. Be there 6:30 for 7pm.

Please sign up on the wiki if you want to come, and remove your name if you can’t. This is a small venue and can only hold 60 people at the maximum.

If you haven’t already, mark your willingness to eat meat with a “Moo” on the wiki.

See you there!

Before a vocal part of the Cape Town geek community point it out, let me admit that this photo is a week old. It was taken at the last GeekDinner, codename Majestic Mandarin, which Kerry-Anne and I attended on 31 March.

Tao Yuan, is (kinda obviously) a Chinese restaurant, and they provided our group of roughly 60 people with a set menu consisting of sushi, chicken, sweet-and-sour fish, calamari, peppered beef, and many more delicacies (for a phenomenally good price of R100). Now the reason for bringing up sushi in the title of this post is because I normally don’t enjoy this apparently addictive treat. The strange thing however was that I found the few pieces of sushi that I did try pretty darn good, actually… and in fact not as distasteful as I had expected them to be.

To be fair, I avoided any treats containing seaweed and stuck to the ones with mainly fish and rice. What I think made the difference with Tao Yuan’s sushi is that the rice was the best I’d had yet. Normally I find that sushi rice contains far too much vinegar to make it appetising. Yet, that night’s sushi was just perfect - even for a self-confessed sushi-shrugger like myself.

Oh, by the way, thanks to Perdeberg Winery for sponsoring enough wine to make us happy and yet keep us safe on the road. Thanks, guys!

Just collecting and telling stories..

• Monday, tea with Edward at Caveau to meet the EmitIT guys, Kauai for lunch, spinning.
• Super Green: my new favourite smoothie flavour.
• So Mia’s mom calls me “single guy”.. “enjoy the Kauai single guy“.. like this is a bad thing? The irony.
• Parking payment hassles again, R3.50 for 5min this time. I found out the human parking meters get 17% comms. This one also agreed R3.50 for 5min is “unfair”.
• Started using Songbird as a music player on my desktop. Lame iTunes was just not working well with Oggs.. I guess now I can really use Last.fm.
• Amusing how complex things often become simple when you explain them to others.. about explaining a strange relationship.
• Tuesday, took a mental health day (as Rachel would say) and worked from home, phoned Mia for her birthday, a really fun soccer game at La Med with Matt and Andy.. I scored 3 goals, attended the GeekDinner at Tao Yuan.. I really enjoyed it, excellent talks by Henk and Bryn.
• I’ve developed a liking for Steaz ice tea, very nice.
• Nikki said something interesting last week.. at some point most bloggers struggle to post, they kind a hit a wall, but once they get over that (or if they get over it).. they kinda just get on with it. Very true.
• Wednesday, a quick 1km swim since I was a bit stiff from soccer, sunset swim on Beta Beach, Dave the cowboy at Julep (love that “I changed the lock song”) with Rachel and Andy, pizza at Royale.. not bad, but stick to their burgers.
• Andy is now unemployed. Good thing I kinda hopefully found him another job already.

• “I know Chai Tea” — Andy, from a tshirt he spotted

• Amoebit:
  Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time.

• Thursday, a quick 1km swim on the way to work, meeting with Georg, cleaned up my music collection a bit, Clifton 4th sunset and swim with Andy and Steff.

• “What are you doing for Easter weekend? I’m sure I had something on?” — Andy, the wedding planner.

• I found Qimo.
• Friday, gym, swim, backup day.. made an off-site backup of my music and photos.. a healthy 160GB, Taste of Cape Town with Georg and Keith.. nice venue, Dave at the Grand Daddy, SA Blog Awards, Boo Radleys, Kink with Andy.. nice place, fun to be out on the town.
• Interesting new spinning bikes at the gym.. Scanner Darkly / Minority Report stuff.. comes with a big LCD and these instructor videos that touch on the spiritual/emotional side of cardio. Machine making man happy. The thing about devices like these is that today we find them strange in a month they seem normal.
• Backups really make you see how IO bound computers still are. I hope we all have solid state super fast disks in 3 years.

• “The first half of the bottle is great, the second half is spectacular” — Francois Naude, Winemaker, about Beyerskloof Pinotage.. best selling Pinotage in the world. I like their vibe.

• I have this crazy idea that I want to move back to Stellenbosch in two or three years.. mostly related to finding a school for Mia.
• Saturday, fetched Mia, V&A to watch Monsters vs Aliens.. her first cinema movie.. she loved it and she was a little angel, shopping.. Body Shop.. got some strawberry lip balm, music shop for a new movie, toy shop.. played with the Leap Frog Tag stuff, food shopping, book shopping.. Olivia and the missing toy, sunset Beta beach swim.. seems Annelien is back, home cooked dinner, bath, we read both Olivia books, sleep.

• “This is a hobo suit, darling. You can’t be seen in this. I won’t allow it.”
  – Edna, The Incredibles

• I like Aston Martins.. the DBS looks pretty cool, but I just can’t get over the rear light design.. it’s ugly.
• Sunday, tea, puzzle building, watched A Bug’s Life.. pretty cool, really nice Sunday lunch at Andy’s parents’, Beta Road play park and Little beach sunset.. took some nice photos.
• We’re into sing-along tunes for the car at the moment.. Mia likes Rocketman, Under the Bridge and L.O.V.E. (Sinatra.. and Amelie iirc)… Downtown gets played over and over.. “When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go, downtown..”

See you at Balkanology.. have a fun Easter weekend kids.

I enjoyed Majestic Mandarin, the March Geek Dinner. I’ve missed a couple, and it was good to go back after a lengthy gap.

I particularly enjoyed the last two talks. Henk’s humorous “A brief history of modern banking”, covered familiar territory, though unfortunately I can’t find or remember the name of the well-known main source he based it on.

The talk attracted more questions and comments than any other I can remember. Some comments expressed support for the system, ranging from how the banking system actually contains checks and balances, and is quite healthy, to how buying crap is desirable as it keeps people employed.

Let’s just say I disagree.

One of the questions went something like “What can we do to stop them”, and Henk answered, humourously, that he’d “rather join them”.

This was fuel to the fire, and he was immediately challenged by the anarchist in the front (I’ll call her this since I don’t know her name, and someone at the table next to me whispered that she was an anarchist!), who said that we should rather be asking “what can we do to make people stop wanting to join them”.

Indeed!

It was interesting to watch the dynamic. Really understanding how the banking system works is shocking, and humour is probably a healthy response. But at the same time it can be distancing, and the anarchist was probably offended that people could even joke about wanting to fool people and make billions at their expense.

There was a certain irony that Jonathan’s earlier talk was about buying a house, and therefore getting a loan from a bank, and the following talk was Bryn’s hilarious Avon Lady slideshow karaoke. Unfortunately being told by Bryn to buy cosmetics was too much for the anarchist, and she left shaking her head before I could get to chat to her.

So, what can we do? I’ll assume that anyone reading this accepts that the banking system as it is now is undesirable. If not, you need to do some reading - or you can watch Zeitgeist, as the other talk suggested. Banks have us all where they want us, right? What could we possibly do?

There’s a lot we can do. It starts by understanding the problem, which is where talks such as Henk’s can help. Next we need to realise our power to change the systems that are failing us, then choose or devise alternatives, and finally, we can work towards these alternatives.

Options mentioned were What Would Jesus Buy, as well as International Buy Nothing Day.

Focusing on consumption is important, as it’s the core of why most people feel trapped into working for organisations and people they have little respect for - fear of not having enough, and a false need to support a consumerist lifestyle.

But this is only part of the picture. There are certain things we need to consume here on the physical plane. Food and water being obvious examples. That realisation is why I am involved in the Ethical Co-op, an attempt to offer a core basic need, food, that’s as healthy as possible (which is why it’s organic), being as transparent as possible, and in a structure that’s as ethical as possible (which is why we chose a co-operative).

But as far as banking goes, there are better alternatives too. Co-operative banks (although sadly in South Africa none of our big four qualify). One local initiative is the Community Exchange System, or the Talent Exchange.

Creating money out of thin air is then not a power granted to the elite few, shrouded in secrecy and smothered by greed and vested interest. It becomes democratized, so that everybody can do it, transparently. And, just like people, when first exposed to ideas such as Wikipedia, will ask why it isn’t vandalised into oblivion, or on encountering Free Software, why anyone bothers to contribute and how the quality can possibly be any good, people generally ask why the system isn’t just abused by people going massively into debt. It’s the strength, as well as the eyes, of the community that will prevent that from happening, sometimes with more structure, sometimes less. As a system, it makes a lot more sense than the current one.

And Henk, your dream has come true - you can join them, along with everyone else!

Related posts:

• Is the stock market a ponzi scheme
• Apocalypse now and the stock market crash
• Debt as slavery
• Economics, oil, nuclear and the price of a house
• Guiness, Shiatsu and the CES

Last night I attended the thirteenth GeekDinner which was held in Sea Point at Tao Yuan.

Now, before we begin, I should make a couple of points clear.  Firstly, I am not a big fan of oriental food.  Secondly, the previous GeekDinner (the Stellenbosch one) completely eclipsed anything we had experienced before.  Therefore, measuring most GeekDinner experiences against that one could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

To fairly rate Tao Yuan and any future GeekDinner events, I have come up with the following solution.  Anyone who watches Top Gear will know of the “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” segment.  In this segment, they interview a celebrity and then have them race around their track.  Their time then gets recorded on a board for future guests to compete against.  But if the guests are in fact part of motor racing, it would be completely unfair to measure their times to the film stars.  F1 and rally racers therefore have their own board.  So, I shift Lovane to one side until the rays of tranquility and enlightenment fall on me in a dining establishment again.  I am now ready to objectively evaluate Tao Yuan.

But, the reality is that this whole exercise wasn’t strictly necessary.  This is because Tao Yuan did not disappoint.  The staff was friendly and there clearly was good and efficient communication between the organisers and the management.  From my point of view, the restaurant’s trial-by-fire began with the appetizer, which was sushi.  I am a feverent opponent of sushi.  I have tried sushi more than once before and it never accommodated with me.  But, under the guidance of some fellow GeekDiners I was led to my first half a dozen bites of sushi which didn’t completely revolt me.  It was quite nice, actually.  The main course was served as a different dishes anyone could help themselves to.  This included pork ribs, salted chicken, noodles, steamed beef, rice, sweet and sour fish and something limp and green (I didn’t have the first and the last).  Everything was delicious, but an honourable mention needs to go the the rice and sweet and sour fish.  I have never had sweet and sour fish, but it is a winner idea that goes above and beyond expectations.  Dessert was watermelon slices and dough with a sweet syrupy centre.  Everything was incredibly yummy.  Tao Yuan is (from what I gather) already prominent in the Chinese community in Cape Town.  Now, however, I’m sure there is going to be a protracted surge in other patrons frequenting this neat establishment.

The only thing which was a bit of a bum was that the vegetarians had to be relegated to their own table.  While this provided for some joking about on the organisers’ list, it was a shame that not everyone could sit with whom they wanted.  No-one is to blame for this, however: it was a consequence of circumstance.  But perhaps it would be something to look out for in the future.  (Besides, after the previous GeekDinner, I learned that vegetarians sometimes also gets yummy food! )

I also want to thank everyone who presented last night.  You guys outdid yourselves.  There was a common underlying theme in most of the talks (money)—whether this is coincidence or not, I’m not sure.  But everything went well and the talks were quite enjoyable and informative.  Special thanks to Bryn Divey who delivered an amazing slideshow karaoke.

Last, but not least, thank you again very much to Perdeberg Winery.  You guys are family and it just wouldn’t be the same without you!

I’m sorry for again not having any pictures to share.  I took my camera with this time, but all my batteries were kaput.  More than you, the readers, loosing out, I lost out on some amazing Sea Point sunset pictures.  It was second breathtaking sunset in a row and really lifted by spirits.  Man, I love Cape Town!

Just before the GeekDinner I was thinking about somebody (ex-friend of a friend kinda thing) who recently lost pretty much everything.. a whole string of properties included. He now pretty much spends his days crying. It’s messy. I used to think this guy was very wealthy.. though I knew he had questionable ethics.

If there is one thing we learnt in the last six months.. it’s that there is something wrong with the way banks score and trust lenders.. especially property speculators. There is something generally wrong with the way banks “create” money, but that’s another story.

Banks allowed this guy to heavily gear his property portfolio because they could again in theory borrow against the collateral he provided.. which was actually just loans on top of loans. A big card house.

A few months ago most people would have said this guy was a smart investor, but it turned out that his “assets”, which looked so good on paper were a major risk.

If it’s too good to be true..

Remember kids, try not to do what all the other kids are doing.

It seems as though we don’t go out for dinner much these days unless it’s to a function like GeekDinner, 27Dinner, or something similar. I arrived home this evening to a wife not up for cooking and myself not too much in the mood either.

A quick decision was made, which entailed rationalising the fact that we deserve eating out tonight - because we’ve been working so hard, you see. Anyway, we’ve been meaning to try Chai-Yo, a Thai restaurant in Durbanville, for some time.

To be honest, we’re never really impressed by restaurants in the northern suburbs, and most often find ourselves eating out in the city or in the southern suburbs. The thing that normally counts against restaurants in the north is the service - which is usually just not good, or pretty average at best (to be honest).

But this is what made our visit to Chai-Yo really awesome. The service was impeccable - polite, helpful, and attentive without being overly intrusive. The thinly-cut, seared, tuna starter that Kerry-Anne and I shared was delicious, as were the traditional Thai chicken dishes that we ate as our main course.

So to sum it up, there was great service, good food, and a pleasantly comfortable yet smart ambience. Well done Chai Yo, please do keep it up!

Last night I attended the thirteenth GeekDinner.  Or the first.  Or 10½.  It depends on how you look at it.  Because it was a very special GeekDinner; for more than one reason, as it turned out.

For a long time, we who live in Stellenbosch have been campaigning for a GeekDinner to be held in the Stellenbosch area.  I had promised that, when I find the time, I would join the organisers’ mailing list and actively lobby for a Stellenbosch GeekDinner.  After the January GeekDinner, I joined and, low and behold, GeekDinner came to Stellenbosch!  The best part is that I didn’t even lift a finger!*  We had a willing-and-able person who organised the whole affair nearly singly handedly and, boy, did she do a good job!  It was still decided, however, to hold the dinner in an “off month” to test the water and the willingness of Capetonians to drive “all the way to Stellenbosch”.  We didn’t have a full house, despite the fact that the venue could only accommodate 55 people, but there are other factors involved as well.  Personally, I believe that GeekDinner will return to Stellenbosch in the not too distant future!

And there is good reason for this optimism, which brings me to the second factor which made last night so special.  GeekDiners now have a new standard whereby to measure quality and service.  Our hosts, Lovane Boutique Wine Estate (a small start-up just outside of Stellenbosch), outdid themselves and, to be quite frank, most of the venues in the recent history of GeekDinners.  The venue itself was small, but the tables were well placed and spaced, and everyone could see the screen (a problem we have been having of late).  It is always interesting to see the menu we get for a GeekDinner and this one had my mouth watering from day one of the planning: beetroot stack with goats cheese starter (which I quite enjoyed, despite the fact that I am not a big fan of beetroot), sirloin steak served with a mushroom sauce and butternut ravioli (for the vegetarian option) for the main course with a side dish of rosemary and garlic potatoes, vegetables and salad served with apples, avocados, walnuts and spring onions, and, finally, homemade ice-cream served with a chocolate sauce and coffee.  At first sight I was a bit sceptic of the steak, as it was quite clearly rare to medium (I prefer my meat well done), but it was delicious, soft and succulent either way!  But the best part was the fact that it was a buffet.  This meant three things: I would be able to try the butternut ravioli (which was really tops in itself, although I doubt whether something can be called ravioli if it doesn’t contain meat…), we could pile our plates as high as we wished (no chic bird-dropping-sized portions) and there were seconds!  And, as a final, unexpected treat, after we finished we were all invited down to the cellars for personal tours.

So, what can I say?  Good venue, awesome and friendly hosts and staff, and food to die for.  Really, I don’t owe anyone any favours—when I say this, it is the real deal: go to this place for the food, go there to chat to the people, just go there.

But despite the rave of the “new kid on the block”, we haven’t forgotten our faithful wine sponsor, Perdeberg Winery for sponsoring us in this “off month” with their delicious wine!  You guys really are tops!

Oh, one final tip.  If you decide to go to Lovane, schedule your visit to coincide with sunset.  I didn’t explore the grounds as I was late in getting there, but on my way I saw the stunning sight as a blood red sun setting behind a tree (think of Lion King) directly in front of me along the middle of the road.  Yes, yes, I know it is bad for your eyes, but it was just so beautiful….

PS Sorry, I didn’t take any photos.  I went home thinking it was 17:00, realised it was 19:00 and turned around and went straight to Lovane.

* I call this the “demi effect”, as in my years of being a student assistant, I have miraclously solved many programming problems by just arriving at a confused pre-grad.

It's time for the 2009 South African Blog Awards. I'd love to win at least once in my lifetime (I, too, have big, big dreams) so I've assembled some suggestions (of stuff I've written, I mean). I haven't, however, made the "handy" blog widget that you can configure on the awards site because it automatically generates nominations. This is quite irritating if you just want to click through to the site because you want to check it out but haven't made up your mind yet.

Instead, I've listed the categories for which I feel I might be suitable and the appropriate URLs for them. Feel free to click through to check out any of them if you are suspicious, otherwise you can just cut and paste into the nomination form as is (the form is evil and complains if you include the "http://" bit). I appreciate your support!

(By the way, after you nominate on the site you will receive an email with a confirmation link that you have to click otherwise your nominations are not recorded. Please look out for it.)

Nominate:
brainwavez-watman.blogspot.com
for:
* South African Blog of the Year
* Best Entertainment Blog
* Most Humorous South African Blog
* Best Original Writing on a South African Blog
* Best Photographic Blog

Nominate:
www.brainwavez.org
(brainwavez.org is half South African so I don't know if it counts but I've decided that it does)
for:
* South African Blog of the Year
* Best Entertainment Blog
* Best Original Writing on a South African Blog

Nominate the following:
(These are four of my favourites but you are welcome to nominate anything I've written on my blog or for brainwavez.org during 2008.)
for:
* Best Post on a South African Blog

The Anti-Connoisseur's Guide To A Walk In The African Bush:
www.brainwavez.org/travel/za/kwazulu-natal/activities/2008/20080815001-01.html

A Cultural Expedition To A Nearby Mall To Snap Photos Of Models In Swimwear:
brainwavez-watman.blogspot.com/2008/12/cultural-expedition-to-nearby-mall-to.html

Cape Town GeekDinner Report: Happy Habanero:
brainwavez-watman.blogspot.com/2008/05/cape-town-geekdinner-report-happy.html

Rigoletto, Joseph Stone Auditorium, Athlone, Cape Town, Until Tomorrow
brainwavez-watman.blogspot.com/2008/02/rigoletto-joseph-stone-auditorium.html


Finally, if you're looking for other blogs to nominate, I would like to recommend Cape Town Daily Photo by Paul and Kerry-Anne Gilowey, The Other Side Of The Mountain by kyknoord, Jonathan Hitchcock's blog, and Alison Westwood's Getaway blog.

Theme of the week: being good..

• “It’s a struggle, Livin’ like a good boy oughta
  In the summer, Watchin’ all the girls pass by”
  – Scissor Sisters, Take Your Mamma

• This is also the tune of the week, btw.
• Monday, had a good long stare out over the Bakoven sea while munching on my Weet-Bix, good day to make a few changes, gym, swim, attended Mia’s swimming lessons in Somerset West, visited Will, 1st Stellenbosch GeekDinner.. good food and nice to see Theo, drinks with Debby at Wijnhuis, managed to drive all the way from Stellenbosch to Cape Town with a single cruise control setting.
• I figure conflict resolution has a lot to do with conflict avoidance. Sometimes you have to ask.. how did you enter this environment and how do you exit?
• Tuesday, tea with Cath and Andy at Daddy Cool to do some wedding planning, soccer at La Med.. I scored a goal, housewarming planning.
• Wednesday, bit stiff from soccer with the new boots, Lions Head walk with Andy and Keith, tuXlabs workshop, Heavy Chef.. very nice presentation by Cath, drinks at the Grand Daddy bar on the roof with Andy, Chinese food at home.
• Lingo for the week: “Behaviour Modification” from Cath’s talk, “Preferential Attachment” from the GeekDinner.
• The popular become more popular, the connected become more connected, the rich become richer.. until the rules change.. then it happens all over again.

• “All I know is that
  There were rumours he was into field hockey players
  It was like so hush hush
  and then the next thing you know…” — Pixies

• Thursday, nice walk from Bakoven to Glen beach, jacSharp at Daddy Cool.. I like the new songs, tapas at Fork.. very nice, Bang Bang trance night with Keith.. who is updating a travel book about Cape Town.. so Andy and I are co-pilots on some of his “researching the city” missions.
• Friday, Infecting the City play at the Adderly St fountains, Design Indaba at the CTICC with Keith, Naulene and Mia.. kinda cool, well worth it.. if only for all the hot woman in summer dresses. Got invited to go test drive some Vespa’s. Got Mia a Woo-men toy.. very cute.

• “Chewow?, no, it’s worse that that.. if it was called ‘Chewow’ it would be honest.” — Keith, about Chevelle.

• I figure the Design Indaba is the perfect place for the big dull corporates brands to be pimped as lateral thinking brands.

• “I’m so busy self actualising, I don’t have time to work.”

• Saturday, gym, swim, French toast at Knead, bumped into Lauren (K), black cherry ice cream, a 3hr shop till you drop session with Mia.. for bath, pool and beach toys, Mia passed out on the way back, turns out that cute waitress from Neighbourhood bar works at the toy shop, bumped into Nikki and Andrew, we hung pictures around the house, watched Mulan.. nice story, long bath play session, sleep.
• I think I really enjoy shopping.. (weird) with Mia.

• “I want to take a bath dad” — Mia at 7:30AM.. (that’s a first) wanting to play with her new bath toys.

• Sunday, Chai Rooibos, honey and rusks, gym, swim, goji berry smoothie, we visited Cath, nice tuna salad, nap, Beta Beach, took Mia to her SSW home, drinks by the pool at the Lord Charles with Andy, Ryan and G, pizza at Bacini’s Kloof St.
• I live with such modern men.. I realised we all have more than one product from the L’Oreal men facial range, haha.
• This week one of our close friends discovered she had breast cancer. Seems to be a very early diagnosis and we are all positive it will work out well. Scary times when you have to worry about cancer in your early 30’s. Makes you think about being more pro-active about a few lifestyle changes.

Be good kids, be good.

Wow, this was awesome! As a last-minute arrangement, I got in to go to the first GeekDinner held in Stellenbosch on Monday evening. AJ Venter of OutKast Solutions was kind enough to give me a lift over to Lovane. The company was great, the food was amazing, and I had an all-round great time. This is the first GeekDinner I attended in more than a year (the last one was the Cape Town November 2007 one).

Obviously I saw quite a few familiar faces such as Tania, Jonathan Hitchcock, Jeremy Thurgood, Joe, and many others. Then there was meeting people I only "knew" online before (such as Sheraan).

Per chance, this was also while AJ was releasing Kongoni. He gave me a CD with the 64-bit version so am looking forward to playing with this after getting back to George.

Great stuff guys, you rock!

If you’ve been reading Cape Town Daily Photo for a while, then you might recall us mentioning something called a GeekDinner once or twice before. Normally these dinners happen at a restaurant in the city or the southern suburbs, but last night we held the very first Stellenbosch GeekDinner at Lovane Boutique Wine Estate, located just outside Stellenbosch on the M12.

Please don’t read on if you’re hungry right now, because you’ll just end up hating me. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Dinner was a-ma-zing. For starters we had fresh beetroot slices filled with goat’s cheese; the main course was a buffet of sirloin steak, creamy mushroom sauce, potato slices, baby marrows, carrots, butternut ravioli and walnut salad; and the dessert was an unbelievably moreish helping of homemade toffee/fudge/vanilla ice-cream. The steak had been cooked on an open fire, with some sort of lemongrass basting, and it was done to absolute perfection. I actually don’t have enough adjectives to tell you just how good this meal was.

Lovane is a really beautiful place too, both inside and out. We even got taken on a tour of the cellar (which is where this photo was taken, of course), where we learnt a little bit about the process of winemaking.

If you’re looking for a party or conference venue in the winelands, I can certainly suggest Lovane. Great service, a really lovely setting, and excellent food… what more could you want?

The first ever Stellenbosch GeekDinner was hosted at Lovane last night. It was a great evening!
The food was excellent and the people great.

Pity I didn't get to sample more wines, as I only drank the Neethlingshof Sauvignon Blanc. Lovely crisp white with some acidity and lingering aftertaste of grass. The Lovane wines are excellent, by the way, as I have sampled them on numerous occasions in the past, and will do so in future as well! ;)

The rest of the crowd were treated to a cellar tour hosted by Philip Gouws, winemaker and owner of Lovane.

Last night was the first Stellenbosch GeekDinner and I thoroughly enjoyed it, mostly because of the venue.

Lovane Boutique Wine Estate was gorgeous and perfect. It’s on the Cape Town side of Stellenbosch so you can get out of the city after work and be sipping wine on the balcony overlooking the vineyards while the sun is still out.

Best of all was the food. A sirloin steak buffet with a mushroom sauce and tons of veggies and a green salad. Dessert was homemade ice cream with chocolate sauce. It was delectable in its simplicity. Something that the GeekDinners have been missing out on since we were at Mell’s Kitchen. The meal was perfectly paired with the bottle of wine had been generously placed on our table by Perdeberg.

Which brings me to a point about food. My partner is a chef. Her life is food and she’s incredibly fussy about getting food perfect… As a result I have eaten some pretty amazing meals ranging from the utterly sublime to french toast.

Perfection turns out to be very hard, even for the simple things. How do you fry a perfect egg? How is the perfect roast chicken prepared?

What any chef who truly knows their craft will tell you, if they’re being honest, is something that any good drummer will also tell you. To really impress, perfect the basics, keep it simple and introduce your own subtle flare to hook the person eating (or listening).

Complicated rhythms that mix 3 time signatures and require super human levels of coordination only impress drumming nerds. Also, making food too complicated before you’ve perfect the basics is like taking part in the 100m sprint before you’ve learnt to walk and too much complexity will just taste like noise to most people, even the “experts”.

Lovane got it right. They got the basics right and they had their own subtle touches which finished it all off nicely. The price was perfect, the venue was perfect. I just need to return to see if their wines are perfect!

If you’ve got a function and need a venue for around 55 people I can thouroughly reccommend Lovane.

It’s been a frenzied few months, but { Huddlemind } is getting stronger by the day and it’s time to look up from the books and get out to play.

Many months ago at a geekdinner in Cape Town, the bright Sarah Blake suggested that we start doing geek.girl gatherings here in South Africa. What a great idea! what appalling timing!
We’ve finally resolved to do something about it: though admittedly we haven’t really rolled up our sleeves on organising a serious event, no extravaganza of prizes, nor yet with seeming effortlessness whipping up a luscious feast for the occasion - because we’re too damn BUSY. As you probably are.

Instead we spoke very nicely to the good peeps at Gardens Virgin Active & Stormhoek who are sponsoring workouts and wine (virtue or vino balance each other out surely) and we’re inviting some of the startlingly bright women we know to just come & hang out at my new fave wi-fi & alt.office spot & re.connect ..before we drown in to.do lists and meet our demise ingloriously, at our desks. No karoshi for me thank you!

This isn’t necessarily a GEEK.girl session - I’ve realised there are sadly very few of us xx chromosome creatures who go crazy for code - and more about the tech.supported social media infused lifestyle and embracing the new economy that women are flourishing in. One where relationships have heightened value over process. And where trust is the gold standard.

So all that said, it’s ever a good idea to enrich your networth: come hang out with us at Sinn’s on Wed 9th April after work at about 6ish . Click on the p

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I just haven’t had enough time to blog recently, so here’s a bunch of (seemingly) random stuff all in one post.

Cool Christmas Gift

Johannes gave me a really cool Christmas gift. In an episode of the IT Crowd, the guys thought it would be really funny if they played a prank on their manager by giving her “The Internet” in a box that they borrowed from the Internet elders. We’ve been making lots of jokes about this (YouTube video here, but you should watch the full episode), and for Christmas I got a replica of The Internet in IT Crowd. Awesome! It looks very similar to the one in the story:

Geekdinner

I attended the “Lucky Litchi” Geekdinner last month. I enjoyed catching up with people again and the food was good (although some of us felt that it was a bit too little). Mike Stopforth gave a talk about Jack’s and Aces which I quite enjoyed. Basically, Aces are typical geeks. They focus intensely and specialise and usually get the job done. Jacks are people who start lots of things but don’t necessarily finish them. They are don’t specialise so much and are more jack-of-all-trades kind of people. He also explained how both kind of people are important to make our world work. I think I used to think of myself as an Ace more before that talk, but afterwards I think I’m more of a Jack, and I feel better about it too. Jonathan Endersby did a kareoke talk (a talk on a subject and slides that he’s never seen before) on “The Joys of Scrapbooking” that was brilliantly prepared by Kerry-Anne.

Ikamva Youth Does It Again

Ikamva Youth did a great job again in 2008 with their Matric students. They maintained a high pass rate and 68% of them will be able to study further at university. They also recently started working in Gauteng in Midrand.

KDE4 Release Party

AJ Venter arranged the KDE4 release party in Cape Town. It was quite small, but it was interesting hearing people talk more about KDE for a change. I also got a free copy of AJ’s poetry book “Batteries not included“. I’ll give KDE a proper try again when Jaunty is released.

Unix & Car Epochs

Yesterday we hit 1234567890 in Unix time (seconds since 1970). I guess we should start planning 2038 parties like it’s 9999999999. The day before yesterday, my car reached 155555 km’s on the clock. I took a picture of it on my phone. It feels like just yesterday when it hit 123456, but I couldn’t take a picture of it since there was too much traffic and I couldn’t slow down in time before it ticked over to 123457

Debian Lenny Released

Debian 5.0 (Lenny) is released. I bet R50 against Morgan that Lenny would be released before the end of 2008. Unfortunately I lost that one. I’m glad that it’s finally released though.

Bill Gates Coolness

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the reports of Bill Gates releasing the mosquitos during a TED talk. I didn’t know he had it in him. I wonder if he came up with the idea himself, or if it was just his PR department being clever. Either way, I think it was a brilliant awareness stunt for his new maliria campaign.

Unisa Information Overload

I received study material for 2 of my subjects. It’s a lot to work through. The documentation that I glanced over so far says that I’ll need 8 hours a week per subject *gasp*. I hope to make more time available for that later, although I still need to check when my first assignments is due and make sure that I’ll be able to cope with that. I’ll give a proper update on this once I’m more or less on track on this!

Zanix Doing Well

Last year in November I went to work full-time for Zanix Software Systems, a company that I have founded. I was a bit uncertain about doing it at the time, since the world economic status wasn’t looking quite good (not that it’s looking that much better now), but I’m very happy to report that it’s doing quite ok. I haven’t achieved everything I wanted to at this point yet, but Rome also wasn’t built in a day. I’ve been getting more help in to assist on our projects. 2008 wasn’t a wonderful year for me personally financially speaking, but I’ve already recovered my losses for 2008 so far in the first month and a half of 2009. I’m very grateful that I’m able to do what I’m doing and if things continue this way then 2009 will be my best financial year yet. I hope that it spreads into other parts of my life too

Me++ (My Birthday)

Exactly a week ago I turned 27. We had a nice little party at home. Thanks to everyone who bought me nice gifts. I received lots of gifts from people who I didn’t expect anything from, which makes me feel slightly guilty for not getting them anything for their birthdays, but at least I have the rest of the year to make up for it again. I usually like the even-numbered years more, but I have a really good feeling about 27.

There’s more stuff (like getting a collective 3rd place in a very fun trivia evening, my experience with registering as a voter or a strange talk that I attended on “Development is broken and mobiles broke it!” at UCT), but this entry has gotten too long already. I guess I should do more microblogging to keep things from heaping up.

As we in Cape Town are well aware, we have the only city in South Africa really worth living in. However, there are some towns in close proximity to us that, whether because they’re so close to us, or because of their natural assets, are also pretty awesome. I lived in Stellenbosch for two years, and it really is a beautiful place. We have a fair contingent of regular GeekDinner attendees who come from there, and this month we’re going to try a bit of an experiment, and go visit them for once.

We’re having the first Stellenbosch GeekDinner in an “off” month - that is, putting it between the Cape Town dinner we had last week, and the one we’ll be having in March. We’ve got what looks like quite an awesome venue at the Lovane Boutique Wine Estate, just outside the ‘bosch, and we’re going to be having the dinner on the 23rd.

All the details are on the wiki, but here they are in summary:

Date: Monday, 23 February
Place: Lovane Boutique Wine Estate.
Time: 18:30 for 19:00.

We’re really hoping that the Cape Town GeekDiners will be interested in trying something different and going out to Stellenbosch - sign up on the wiki if you’re keen.

(Also, if you’d like to give a talk, please mention it on the wiki - we’re always looking for speakers.)

See you there!

Welcome to 2009! Only 347 sleeps until Christmas! I hope that everybody has made lots of New Years Resolutions that they will utterly fail to stick to, leading to an inevitable spiral of self-recrimination and depression, culminating in total loss of faith in oneself and expensive therapy for months.

Moving on, I have good news: after this month, the Cape Town GeekDinner will have been held every two months for two solid years! We held the first one at Barbarellas in Constantia, in March of 2007,
and we’ve been going ever since. To celebrate, we’re going to have a GeekDinner, and we’re going to have it on the 29th of January, at Yum in Vredehoek, starting at 6:30 for 7.

After some heated discussions involving lentils, and Cape Town’s alleged reputation for laziness, we decided to call the dinner “Lucky Litchi” - you can see all the other details on the wiki page, as
usual.

Please go sign up if you want to come, and remove your name if you can’t; the venue can only hold 50 people, so please make sure the list accurately reflects whether you can come or not. We’re also, as
ever, looking for speakers, so if you’ve got something you want to talk about, add it to the wiki!

Hope to see you there!

Mostly a week of moving.. painful, but as you know, change is like a holiday..

• Monday, house shopping in Bakoven, cooked a nice vegetarian dish.. red beans, lentils, chickpeas and herbs, chilling with some good old Ah-ha tunes and a nice Chardonnay, watched Shawshark Redeption again.

• Funny how such simple things can keep one “sane” — Lesley

• Tuesday, gym, bumped into Scott and Christo, GeekDinner planning at Yum, Ingi’s farewell dinner at Shoga with Debby, Marcia, Keith and Andy.. nice Diemersdal Chardonnay and Diemersfontein Pinotage.

• “If everybody would just agree with me, they would always be right” — Debby

• Wednesday, house shopping and Beta Beach with Keith.. had an interesting business idea.. something to “start in the garage”, long Amobia management meeting in Newlands.
• 350 Facebook friends.
• Thursday, Teraco meeting and DC tour.. it’s looking really nice, collected my E71.. only took Vodacare 2 weeks to fix it, swim, GeekDinner.. nice to be in the background.. no talk to prepare.. no pressure, Mike gave a nice talk, Jono’s slideshow was fun.
• Tunes of the week Kings of Leon: Sex on Fire, Royksopp: Poor Leno and Remind me.
• Friday, crazy moving day.. from Tamboerskloof to Camps Bay, packing and negotiating, trip to the Gardens Centre.. bank and fetch Mia, unloading, moving really wears you out.
• We started recycling, thanks to Keith.
• Saturday, tea, swim, Beta Beach with Andy, unpacking, nap, first braai at the new house with Georg, Cath, Parri and Kirsty.. and 4 small people.
• Sunday, tea, gym, swim, bananna ice cream, chill by the pool, dropped Mia off, Llandudno beach, nice sunset drive back.. Llandudno is only 7km (two Royksopp songs) away, pizza at Dizzy’s, catch-up with Keith and Andy.
• On Sunday I woke up with this idea that I need to be a friend to Mia’s mother. Good friends. I told her about this idea. Not sure if that’s a step up or down from where we were, but I figure it’s good to label things and start working on the friendship again.

• Dr Bain, how’s your brain? — Andy

• Some people are lucky enough to have two sets of moral frameworks. They switch them like Stallone turns his cap in Oven the Top.
• Kinda cool when ideas you put out there boomerang back to you. Some things make an impact, enough for somebody to use and echo back.

Have a fun week. I’m off to go for a run next to the ocean somewhere.

It’s come to that time of the year, when I need to spend several hours putting together a post summarizing everything that happened during 2008. Last year, I did my 2007 summary and ended off with a traffic distribution, this year I’ve put some more effort in and am going to try and summarize things as best as possible. The best way for me to do this, is by categorizing things and then elaborating on each category.

2007 was a fantastic year, I put everything down onto paper, organised myself and went further than I thought I could ever go, until 2008.

Social

2008 has been an exciting year socially, I’ve made a ton of good friends in the web industry and maintained friendships with all of my friends outside the web world. This year saw many exciting events and to point them out to you, here are some of the ones I remember:

- Codfather in Camps Bay
- Relish Restaurant by candle light
- Picnic at Kirstenbosch
- Massive night out at Hemisphere
- Weekend away at Yzerfontein
- Warrens bergie party
- Green Dolphin Jazz
- Andre the Hypnotist
- Rocking the Daisies and here
- Puppetry of the penis
- My makeover, kinda
- Fedisa Fashion Show
- Boskloof Swemgat
- Getaway weekend

Apart from these events, 2008 saw the start of the Not So Geek Dinners, which was a monthly trip with all my mates to a restaurant of choice by one of the attendees. The event was a huge success and here’s a collection of the destinations we went to:

- Relish, Balduccis, Magica Roma, Royal Yacht Club, Willoughby & Co, Buena Vista, Hussar Grill.

I think I’ve missed one or two, but these are the ones I have covered on my blog.

Another area which bursted this year was geekery; I’ve never attended so many geek events in a year before and I have to mention some of them:

- Cape Town Geek Dinner and here
- Bloggerati and here
- openCoffee and here
- Crazy Bloggers at Asoka
- Geek at Tank
- Neighbourhood Bloggerati
- Twevent

Personal

There are three major things to cover in my personal life and that’s my girlfriend, my flat and my car (I do love my family too).

At the begining of the year I went out and bought myself a new car. It took me weeks of searching, I remember getting up every Saturday morning to walk to streets of Wynberg and Voortrekker road and then the one morning, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, the Fiesta ST. I’m telling you, I searched high and dry for a BMW Compaq and just couldn’t find one in decent condition and I was walking out of the car shop when I saw the ST and I just knew I had to have it - A girl was there with her mother, she was sitting in it and smiling, I looked at the sales guy and with my hands I told him that it’s sold, he hurried off the girl and called me over - no jokes, that’s how I got the car. It’s been one of the funniest purchases of my life, even through the expensive times! It’s now kitted out with a pretty darn big sound system and controlled by a Belkin Radio Frequency Player. SEO GURU WP license plates..

This year also saw me moving into my new apartment on Roeland Street and I can honestly say that I’ve never been happier. I live in the most beautiful city in the world, Cape Town, with views of Table Mountain that many would die for. I’ve invested so much time and money into the flat to ensure that it’s kitted to the max! To give you an idea, here are some related topics:

- First pictures of the flat
- Flickering lights
- Cops crashing
- More pictures of the flat
- My 32″ LCD TV
- DivX player
- Styling things up
- Most recent photographs

So that’s the flat, what do you think?

In 2001, the 24th of April to be precise, Fe and I started dating. It was a bumpy ride, in which we both dated other people and did things I’m sure we both regret, but 2008 saw our reuniting and things have been great since, it’s almost a year now since we got back together. We’ve both spent a huge number of hours chatting and working on things to ensure that we’re both happy and form a bond of trust and openess between us. The journey has been hectic, Fe has completed her first year at UCT and been accepted into doing her LLB, but not only that, she’s been on my entire journey this year, which she’ll agree, was a hectic one! Two topics which came to mind whilst wring this, were when I felt as though I was being emotionally backed into a corner (thanks heavens that was resolved.) and a lovely evening at The Green Dolphin.

Two sad events this year were the near death of my brother and the death of DChetty’s brother. Thanks Bloggisphere for your support!

iMod, Chris M and Christopher Mills

I reall don’t want to spend too much time on iMod and self branding, so without going on, here are a few things:

- iMod wins the South African blog awards (watch the movie)
- Boobs at the blog awards?
- Freelancing with The Rubiks Room
- Writing for Tech Leader
- iMod attends AMD live broadcast
- Featured on ModelBase
- iMod top ranked blog on Afrigator
- iMod donating thousands to BreadLine
- iMod mentioned on Read Write Web
- Featured on MyBroadBand
- Featured on Campus Mail
- Me on Read Write Web
- Alexa Ranking
- Top 10 on Amatomu
- Freelancing
- SEO

Amongst other amazing things!

2008 has been a year of making money online and whilst I’ve done so, I’ve kept track of my journey, which consisted of challenging myself month to month to make more money. I outlined the importance of incomes and expenses, make sure you take a read. I’ve documented a great deal of my journey as I’ve earned more and more Adsense over the year, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. During this mission, I’ve taken a huge amount of time to research monetizing websites and of late many website owners have been approaching me to ask for advice. If you’re interested in monetizing and marketing your website, read my marketing articles (here too), otherwise I work as a consultant, so please drop me a line and I’ll quote you.

My Job

I started off the year consulting and freelancing for a number of companies, but wanted something more substantial as well as something I could learn a lot from, this desire lead me to working for Web & Mobile Development company, FormFunction. During my stay at FormFunction, I lead the company from an operational view, nothing happened with a project without me knowing about it and I was pushed so hard that I almost went onto happy pills. I learnt time management extremely quickly and as well as project management skills. Some of the other things I experienced were:

- Second Facebook Developer Garage
- Jazzing up your offices
- Bowling
- Birthday web 2.0 cakes
- Web multi-tasking
- Gossiping

I left FormFunction and was invited to work at The Forge after several months of freelancing. My stay at The Forge has been short, but I’m totally head over heals happy about the job! The Forge has already presented me with some amazing memories:

- Getaway trip before work
- Travelmate laptop
- New adventures of Christopher Mills
- First day at work
- My new office
- Christmas lunch at Greens

I guess that brings me to the end of everything, sheesh, I could go on for hours and hours with all the experiences I’ve had, but I think this is enough for those of you who want to get an idea of everything I got up to.

2008 has possibly been the best year of my life, thank you to everyone who played a part!

I look forward to everything that 2009 brings me, let’s go!

Ps. For those of you who follow - I reached my Adsense target - More on that later, there’s a beer waiting for me :)

Happy New Years!

Technorati Tags: 2008, 2009, friends, geekdinner, 27dinner

I recently came across this article about how we should be a lot more concerned about alternative medicines than we’ve been. Perhaps I should be more outspoken about this myself. Very few of the people I know actually bother to lobby for the causes they believe in. And it is a shame.

Reiki recently came up at a Geekdinner and it got me into researching some of the other complementary and alternative medicines. Reiki sounds like an elaborate placebo if you ask me - and so do a lot of the other alternative medicines. There are some of these which I previously thought were outright legitimate. It seems I should be more skeptical of my own information store.

Some alternative medical avenues into which I believe the modern world needs to do some further scientific sifting:

• Homeopathy - Diluting a substance makes it less harmful but doesn’t make it less beneficial. Bulldust.
• Acupuncture - Meridians and acupuncture points have no contemporary physiological relevance in medicine. This is related to the concepts of Qi in Energy Medicine.
• Energy Medicine - Energy or Qi fields in the body affect your health. Fixing, breaking, or manipulating the flow of these fields affects the ability of your body to heal itself and fight illness. This boils down to practitioners claiming to perform magic.