The Notion to Blog

You’ve heard people say “But I never win competitions, so why should I bother”.   Then when asked of those that have won a competition : “How did you do it?”, they might reply “Dumb Luck”.

I used to be the former and now I’m of the latter.

My wife always wins competitions because she’s always entering them.  So I decided to do the same and start entering competitions, especially the easy “SMS your answer to … “

My luck turned.

I won the exact same game in 3 different competitions in 3 months.    Below is evidence:

The source of the competitions:

1. Facebook (click here for the competition link)
2. Digital Life Magazine
3. Essentials (my wife subscribes to this magazine, honest)

As you may have noticed, the only dodgy detail is that Essentials are giving away games that are 8 years old (the PC game on the far right of the picture).

Makes one think why publishers are flogging Tiger Woods games

Later tonight the Oscar winners will be announced at the Annual AcademyAwards in Los Angeles.  Most of us mortals will watch it tomorrow (Monday)  on M-NET at 7:30pm to see all the glory of the winners.

Unfortunately, as with most events of this nature, you’ll know who won before watching it.  That’s because you will get bombarded with announcments who the winners are from a number of channels:

• On the radio: That clever radio DJ that you listen to on the way to work who googled it so that he would be able to have some worthy to share on the radio
• On your favorite news website. They usually have it in bold letters somewhere on the home page
• Via the newspaper that you casually browse through while waiting for an appointment.

Yes, okay so there’s a minority of people that arent’ fortunate enought ot have M-NET or have access to the internet, so if the radio DJ doesn’t tell them how are they going to know.  They also don’t have a job that gives them the luxury of a PC to browse the internet.   Lets spoil it for the rest so that the minority get to know the winners.    But think about it, if a minority can’t afford M-NET, a TV, the newspaper or internet they probably don’t give a flying contitnental who the winner is because their needs are different.  (well, so the socio-economic research companies say).

Rant off.

I’ll let you know via comment if I manage to dodge the media and get to watch the oscars without knowing who the winner is on Tuesday.

This is the third post about my 2nd favourite computer store, Incredible Connection.  Previously I posted on how expensive certain hardware was: portable hardrives and a wireless router being double the price elsewhere.

This weekend I made use of their “Trade-in and Upgrade” special whereby you bring in old hardware (no matter how old or whether its in working condition) and you get a discount on the something similar on promotion.  Its actually a genius idea:  They get to sell old stock, and using the trade-in hardware, give it to charity.  (or so they tell us).

So we took my wife’s old, but trusty Nokia 5300 phone to Incredible Connection (call it Store A for now) , as the trade in for a BlackBerry Curve, getting R900 discount.  The geeky-but-wanna-be-cool salesperson at Store A said there were non left in stock.  Clearly the offer was a very popular.  I asked if he could check which branches had in stock, preferably Store B,, the next most convenient store.  They had 4 in stock. Fantastic!  While he was on the phone to Store B I asked him if he could tell them to keep one, as I would be there in 30 minutes.

• “No!”
• “What? “
• “No sir, they say they can’t keep stock on promotional items”

So we rush to Store B  anyway, because what are the chances that 4 would be sold in the next half hour? So we go to the pretty girl at the cell phone counter. Herewith the dialogue that ensued:

---

Me: Hi, I want to trade-in this Nokia for the BlackBerry Curve.

Pretty girl: Um…. no sir, I have none in stock.

Me: But we’ve just come over from Store A telling us you have 4 in stock, 2 black ones and 2 white ones to be exact.

Pretty girl: (Moment of pause) Actually I do have one, but I’m keeping it for a lady that’s coming in tomorrow.

Me: (Immediately irritated). No no no no.  When we phoned this store a moment ago, we were told that you don’t keep units for customers.

Pretty girl: Okay, let me go and check the stock room.

(She’s gone for 5 minutes and then comes back and logs on the computer to check stock).

Pretty girl: So we have a returned unit that’s been opened, but its white.

Me: (Irritated)  I think you’re lying.

Pretty girl: No sir, I’m not

Me: Okay, we might as well take it.

(Pretty girl goes off to get the white BlackBerry)

(Enter shy salesperson boy, who sees I’m standing around)

Shy boy: Hi,  you been helped yet?

Me: Yes, we’re just waiting for the lady to bring a previously returned BlackBerry.  We’re going to trade in this Nokia 5800.

Shy boy: (His eyes light up):  That’s a nice phone.  I tell you what, I have a sealed black one in stock that I’ve been holding for a gentleman that said he forgot his credit card and I’ve been waiting 3 hours for him.  I have  this old Siemens C35 phone, I’ll give you R100 for yours and then you can trade in this one as a trade in.

Me: (Grinning from ear to ear I say to my wife).  I’m not sure what happened now, but we’ll take it.

(Shy boy, goes off and quickly returns with a sealed, black Blackberry)

(Pretty girls returns with the white black berry)

Pretty girl: Here’s the phone sir.

Me: It’s fine we have a sealed one. (Thinking to myself. You lying cow)

---

So after being told initially they have none in stock, they actually had 2, possibly 3 in stock.

That my friends, is more evidence that behind the facade of a seemingly very slick store, are sly staff that don’t have the general public’s interest at heart.  Clearly at Store B, there are no ethics among some of their staff.

Have you ever stumbled up at some ungodly hour of the morning to take a leak and return to bed with your mind taking on a mind of its own.

It racing with all sorts of thoughts and ideas and you can’t fall asleep again.

I had one of those recently and I thought of something quite profound. It was so profound that I googled it later to see if I was maybe the first to think of it.

Turns out its been used in lyrics in some arb song before.

It probably sounds corny now but it sounded brilliant in the early ours of the morning. Anyway this is my profound thought:

When you generalise, you could be spreading general lies.

How often do we exaggerate the truth to support our story? Its so easy to lie if the person you’re speaking to isn’t an authority on the facts.

That’s my epiphany. I hope to never generalise by spreading general lies.

I would like to convey my appreciation for Antony Kay’s consistent outstanding service over the years. Since they installed our burglar bars and automated gate more than 4 years ago, they have always been very efficient and prompt when ever we’ve had problems with our gate.  Usually they come out the same day or very next day first thing in the morning.  This morning was no exception after I called late yesterday afternoon.  My battery needed replacing and the gentlemen were prompt in arriving and sorted the problem out quickly.

Their website is at http://www.automaticgates.co.za/

Since Corner House, a “come as you are” club in Cape Town closed down, I’ve been searching for a worthy replacement of this once soulful, oblivious and therapeutic haven.

Its no coincidence that Oblivion in Claremont, Cape Town is where I had my second internet date at the very same club and where I proposed marriage.  After 5 years, I’m totally devoted to the same woman who is now my wife.

On many occasions as a married a married couple, we’ve frequented Oblivion to try to relive the abandon that Corner House offered.

Today is very likely the last time I set foot at Oblivion.

With pre-meditated platonic motive, I recently complemented a girl at Oblivion on her dancing skill on my way to the bar.  She coldly responded “why aren’t you with your partner?”

I should have replied “I was complimenting you on your dancing, not your looks.”

Its then that I realised what had been bugging me the past few visits at Oblivion.  Its a singles bar.  Where single folk go to pick up other singles.  Some go for fun but most of the young people that go there have their agenda written all over their faces.  I don’t blame the single people, some who are over 30 years old still searching for their soul mate.   Why would a single person want to waste their time on a person who is “taken”?

As a married guy, I don’t share their agenda and I can see why I would be a waste of their precious hitching time.   Hey, all I want to do is dance and enjoy the music without being seen as a weirdo looking to pick up single woman.

I don’t understand how Julius Malema can spew hate speach like this (taken from this article on iAfrica)

… they do not care about the development of this country, they are forever obsessed with whether they are going to be attacked or robbed.

The very next day a gentleman was trying to help a victim of a hijacking and he became victim himself.  He was shot and is now in a critical condition.  You call saving another person being “obsesesed with crime?” Taken from myBB

Malema’s racist hate speech is a cancer that’s eating this country alive.

For the record, I’m no racist.  If Malema were white and he was saying the type of the things he’s saying I would hate him too.

JF Kenedy was assisinated for being a good leader and inspiring the country to greatness.

Malema is South Africa’s Hitler.

You do the math.

Have you ever been browsing the internet and had numerous tabs open in your browser and accidentally closed the wrong tab.  This is especially frustrating if you’ve laboriously searched for this page and finally found it by clicking through many obscure links.   You curse because you know your history is already 100 pages long and you don’t know which history item it is and you’re NOT going to try trace your clicks.

I discovered a handy menu in Firefox when you “right mouse button click” on the tab bar.  There’s a menu item “Undo Close Tab” which restores your closed tab as far back as you want.

I read an article today on My Broadband with the opening paragraph:

With the South African government pushing the use of open source software and businesses realising the benefits of open source, the demand for IT staff with Linux skills is growing.

I know this article has more of a Linux Operating System slant, but open source software is not confined to Linux. There are hundreds of open source applications for windows too. As a software developer our technologies we use are mostly from the open source world. Some of the software is unrivaled from the comerical world. Tools like Subversion (Source Control), nHibernate, nAant are some of the best known multi-platform tools. Everyone knowsn MSN, Paint and Winzip, but few windows users know Pidgin, Gimp, 7zip as free superior alternatives to the aforementioned respectively.

My daily tools that are opensource which I find indespesable are Prrogrammers Notepad, Free Download Manager, InfraRecorder, DVDFlick, Sharpdevelop and many more.

These are ALL opensource apps for windows. 99% of them can be found at http://www.sourceforge.net . Another good open source site where Microsoft has been publishing some of their tools and applications is http://www.codeplex.net. Google also has its own repository at http://code.google.com

Just thought I would add another perspective to Open Source and that its not confined to Linux and differnt flavours of operating systems under it.

Having said that, I like believe that world will one day be ruled by Linux and Android.

OS WTF!

As I consider it my duty to report rip-ffos to the public, I have to once again highlight another excessive rip-off from Incredible Connection.

You may say that I should simply refrain from walking into the Incredible Connection store. I actually like the store because and have found them to be the cheapest on 3 occassions:  Canon SLR,  Wii and Asus EEEPC.

This week I discoverd that they charge as much as 70% more than Take2 on their HP Printer Cartrideges. In my case its the No 135 color cartdrige for my HP OfficeJet

Incredible Connection: R399
Take2: R233
Ink Cartridge Recycling Shop in Plumstead: R190

This brings me to my next point. Is it worth bying recycled cartdidges?  My answer is Yes  and No depending on your motive.   “Yes” , if you care more about the earth than the colors that come out of your cartdrige.  “No” if you think that saving R40 is not worth the bad quality ink and hassle of blocked nozzles.

I took my cartdrige back for twice in one week for a recycled replacement. Both cases i got a catridge that failed to print one of the colors.

By all means, send your empty cartrdiges for recycling, but don’t bank on getting a working recycled cartridge back.