Cash Heists in South Africa

This past weekend there was very good article in the Sunday Times, taking a look inside how Cash Heists in South Africa take place.

Check the article out here

Goodbye Dad

Exactly 295 days after my mom passed away last year in November, we said goodbye to my Dad on the 12th of September. He had been in hospital for a month, and had been diagnosed with cancer. They removed a growth from his colon, but it had had spread to his lungs & liver. He came out of hospital to my house on the Monday, and passed away peacefully on the Tuesday.

We had become quite close in the last couple of months, and it hurts to know that I don't have either of my parents left, but I am greatful they are together now, wherever they may be.

Goodbye dad, thanks for all you did for us, we gonna miss you ;(

So Close

So I ordered the book by Tertia from So Close Blog, that I wrote about the other day. And what a book.

WOW. WOW. WOW.

This is truly heart wrenching stuff; with loads of humour added in. It's amazing that such a "sad" story can also make you smile. It recounts Tertia and her husbands journey through 9 (NINE!!!) IVF's, with sometimes unpleasant results, and finally a bundle of joy. It even bought tears to my eyes ;)

I would really recommend this book to anyone. Young, old, if you have kids, or not...anyone. It really is brilliant. Well done Tertia, hope we get to see a follow-up sometime with the rest of your life story, it could only be entertaining.

You can order the book from Kalahari.net or Loot.co.za

Cool little excel tip

I'm an excel fundi.( I claim to be one :))
I love excel and love learning new things about excel.
But came across this awesome tip today that allows you to make graphs in your cells, using the =rept() function in excel. Quite simple, yet very effective.
Check it out at JuiceAnalytics

What is a blog ???

In my moment of silence over the past few months, I have come across some very interesting sites. One of which I check out everyday. It's called bLaugh, and has some witty comics daily all net related. Todays one is I can relate to very well. So many people still DON'T know what a blog is.

I'm Slack

I know I have been terribly slack lately with my blog. In fact every day when I read all the other blogs I have on my Bloglines, I feel more and more bad.

Having started in a new department at work, time seems to be more and more limited. Then get home, and there is hardly any time there to blog. But I'm goign to try more. Promise.

Why am I blogging today. Well it seems a bit of blog history has been made in South Africa.
Today Tertia from the Number 1 Ranked South African Blog; So Close, has finally had her book published. She has been writing her book for ages now about her life and intertility. Anybody who reads this blog, knows all the hardships she has been through, and judging from this book, it looks as if its going to be a major sucess.

Read more about the book here, and order it from Kalahari or Loot

Survivor South Africa

M-Net has just announced that they will be shooting a Survivor South Africa, in Panama, to be screened in August.

More info over @ TashiTagg

Awesome

Its really the only word I can use to describe last nights concert. Robbie Williams is serioulsy something special. He knows how to entertain and please a crowd.

If you havent got a ticket yet for the CT or PTA shows, I suggest you make a plan, because this is really a once in a lifetime oppurtunity.
(excuse the dodgy pictures)

The Big RW pulls into Durbz

Yes, he has finally arrived. Today is the big day, that sees the big RW ( No, I'm not talking about our local superstar RW), I'm talking Robert Peter Maximillian Williams, who kicks off his world tour here in Durbz tonight.

Durban people have a funny way of doing things. This is the ONLY concert on his world tour that is NOT sold out. People from Germany have even bought tickets to the show here, because it was the only one on his world tour, that still had tickets available.

It is going to be an awesome concert, even though I'm not a major fan, he is a real super star. Hopefully will have some dodgy camera phone pictures up tomorrow.

Doh!

Well after 17 seasons and 372 episodes, Americas wackiest family have finally done it.
Finally the Simpson family are going to star in their own movie.

The Simpson movie is due to be released on the 27th July 2007
Check out the trailer here.
official Site

How SA won the cricket

Google gets spaced out

Today is Percival Lowell's Birthday.
huh, who...

Percival Lowell was a world famous astronomer who thought that there were canals on our sister planet Mars . He spent many years researching Mars, and came up with loads of interesting things about this relativley unknown planet.

Now google has joined the space race, and following on from their mapping of the moon last year, and now have mapped out Mars out for us.

Amazing stuff, allowing us to see all sorts of interesting things, from Lunar Landings to Mountains on our friendly neighbour.

Check it out at Google Mars

Blog Off

Hot on the heels of the SA Blog Awards, (which are being held on the 16th of March) news24.com presents South Africa's first Blog-Off.

"...news24 has decided to pitch the best SA blogs against each other to find the nations top bloggers..."

Interesting with a 5 Grand first prize, 2 and a half K second, and a measly one five clips for third, its defenitly something to be sneered at.

So get entering, and remember when you win, sharing is caring...

Finally...

After much blood, sweat, tears & loads of cursing, they have finally done it...

Believe it or not, I am a Happy Telkom customer.

Its been a long 6 weeks, but today (Sunday !!!) they came and installed the line, and now i'm up and running.

My life at work, is hectic, with 0 time for blogging.
Which means now I have no excuses not to blog, and am sure to make some people happy...

More to come soon... (and this time I promise)

It was go, go go....

Awesome. Thats the only word i can use to describe my weekend. The A1 GP in durban was a blast. I was lucky enough to spend all 3 days at the race, and with full on rain on Friday, a scorcher on Saturday and lovely overcast weather on Sunday, I have a full on "my dad is a farmer"sunglasses tan .

The race was won by ex F1 Dutchman, Jos Verstappen. South Africa came 5th in the main race which was brilliant consedering that he started 20th and there were only 8 cars left in the race.

The atmosphere was incredible with evry single person supporting all the drivers.
Those cars are LOUD, and fast. Even though I have only been living in Durbz for 2 and a half years, I still think it was absolutley amazing what was pulled off this weekend. If you watched on TV you will know what I mean. The track was built in only 12 weeks, and was super cool.

Here are some of the pics I took with some more to come sooon :)
Australia's car getting lifted off the track on saturday

The Pit area
The best looking car on the track, USA.

The Winner, Jos the Boss

Victory lap for the boss

Wicked Cricket

There has been a phenomenon that has hit South Africa in the last couple of year. Pro20 Cricket is seriously a fantastic couple of hours entertainment. Even if you don't like cricket the atmosphere at these games is unbelievable. And the rules are so simple

Last night's game between the Warriors and the Eagles was super cool. The Warriors lost by 100 runs, and the Eagles kicked butt. And there is loads more to come.

This is the type of format of cricket they need to introduced to the Americans. They love these fast paced games, which are over in a couple of hours. I'm almost positive that they will love it.

Its Wicked Cricket

Revved Up

This weekend in durbz sees the South African leg of the A1GP. And it's gonna be hot. (well not the weather)
durbz is a buzz with this weekends activities and local and international celebs are jetting in left right & centre.

Durbans roads seriously look like kyalami turned upside down, and they expecting about 100000 people. I reckon its gonna be a blast.

The last race in Dubai, SA's entry, with Stephen Simpson behind the wheel, raced to a cool 3rd place. I'm pretty sure he is able to crack it this time, and pull off a 1st.

So come Sunday morning, I will be there with a cold beer in hand, snapping away with the camera. Then on monday you will see the pics. Easy eh ?

If you in Durbz, or even close then make a plan and get here :)

Positively Negative ?

One thing that really gets my hair up is when people run down things they supposed to love. I’m talking specifically about our country. We have so many things to be proud of in South Africa, yet you get people putting us down all the time.

A great example is people who have gone to work overseas on “2 year visa’s” (and I am generalizing here, not everyone). They tend to always point out the bad things about our country, like the crime and AIDS, but always fail to point out the positive things. The country was good enough to be born in, so why isn’t it good enough now ?

I came across a blog post today by Mark from Mark’s Digital Farm, which points out a couple of negative thoughts about our country. The source that he got it from, has loads of negatives. Sure a few of them are meant to be jokes, but it still gets my back up to see things like that.

South Africa has loads of positives. On positivelysa I came across a whole list of these points at which points out loads and loads of positive points.

For example did you know…?

• South Africa is one of only 12 countries, where we can drink water from a tap. Our tap water was found to be the 3rd best quality in the entire world


• The Kruger Park has the most innovative management of a national park anywhere in the world - and is the world's most profitable game park.


• South African Breweries is the 4th largest brewer in the world and produces over 50% of China's beer! (hmmm, beer !!)

Graeme from tmtd.biz has made a similar post on these issues, mainly relating to the finance of our country.

This country has changed so much over the last 12 years, we have so much to be proud of, so let’s all try and be positive, please :)

(This service announcement was paid for by all parties concerned)

Testing the Waters

As seen in my previous post, my new toy, is loads of fun...

This morning on my way to work, I saw how beautiful the beach looked, stopped and went happy snappy...

I must admit that I am over happy with my purchase. The picture this camera takes is absolutley awesome. I need to get more to grips with all the fancy photography settings, ISO, WB, fstops blah blah, but for now, i'm just snapping.

My first collection is up on flickr go check it out and lemme know what you think :)

Free Dating in South Africa

A mate of mine from It-Ideas has started a free internet dating site in South Africa, called letsmeet.
While there may be plenty of these out there, this one has a very cool twist.

Imagine sitting in the traffic and see a hottie, you simply jot down the license number, go to www.letsmeet.co.za and you can leave a messge. If they are registered they simply get sent a private message, otherwise the your message is stored until they register on the site. Cool idea.

Give it a bash at www.letsmeet.co.za

Lemme know what you think

Another Year ahead...

Ahh, so we back at work...ahh bummer. It's days like this I wish, I would have taken just that LITTLE bit of extra leave, like another month...

Happy New year to all of you. Hopefully 2006 will be better than 2005.

Father Christmas(aka Makro) bought me a new toy for Christmas. I am the proud owner of a Canon 350D.
Awesome. I been eyeing this camera for a couple of months. Armed with a credit card, I approached makro with hositlity, and savaged the beast.
It has to be the best buy I have ever made. Such a brilliant camera, and an absolute breeze to use.

So in 2006, expect to see a lot more pics on the blog, and hopefully a photo blog sooon !