The Wonders of the Internet

Disclaimer: This Post May Contain Adult Content 

Salamu

One of the biggest features of my current job is that spend a considerable amount of time on the internet researching stories and writing about technology based news which affects the investment capital or general investment industry. On average I spend 8 hours a day one the net.

But just because I write about a seemingly boring topic doesn’t mean that I am not subjected to other interesting pieces news/information that the internet offers. In fact…has anyone ever stopped to think about what we are actually exposing ourselves to on the internet?

It has most definitely changed the world. Since the dawn of the new millennium there has been a steady flow of users towards being connected to the internet. so much so that we live our lives through it. This has become a major selling point and was the motivation behind Google Street View.

Now Google Street view is a product designed by Google which gives you a first person view of a particular street in the world. Google achieved this by getting Google cars to drive around with cameras on them getting live feeds.

Most of this is done during the day where there is good light..blah blah..blah blah..blah blah. So one would assume that the view that the street car would get would be pretty harmless (provided its during the week that is). Well it is unless you live in Liverpool or the Australian Outback.

A recent drive down the back streets of scousetown revealed a man standing around a corner getting a hand job by a lady of the night (or middle of the day in this case) who is standing a bit away from the man in order to see that they cant be seen by no coppers. What she didn’t account for is the fact that she can only see in front of her and couldn’t see the car coming up behind her. ONLY IN LIVERPOOL MATE. ONLY IN LIVERPOOL. The Aussies took this one step further, a recent trip by a Google street car revealed a couple on an outback road pulling over and having intercourse over the bonnet of the car. The best thing is…the girl doesn’t try to hide her face away…she waves at the camera!

This doesn’t mean that there are only bad things on the internet. There are also some great sources on information and entertainment on the net. One of the best websites that I have come across lately is Buzzfeed, which is a comedic satire on everyday life reflecting on  weird ass lists. It’s a great read but highly addictive.

Below are some of the sites a spend a lot of time on and I consider worthwhile visiting.

www.cnet.com this is one of the best technology based news websites in the world

www.thehuffingtonpost.com this is one of the best general news sites around and is owned by Fox Entertainment so is quality.

www.buzzfeed.com for reasons discussed above.

www.sport24.co.za this is a great sports website for South African sports fans locally and abroad.

www.facebook.com for obvious reasons. Zynga poker is great.

www.freeonlinegames.com a great website for free games and Real Time Pool is highly recommended

It would be great to hear your sites. Let me know and I can visit them and include them in a more in depth review.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

Engineering change is never an easy thing

Salamu

How often do we take life for granted?

Have you ever sat down and asked that question? It’s human nature to get so engrossed with the problems that you are facing that you tend to forget how blessed you are despite the challenges.

I was…and still am at times like that. I am by no means claiming to be innocent in this matter. So I don’t judge or even get frustrated with people when they tell me that their problems are so insurmountable.

I merely point out a few things.

-   90% of the bullshit you worry about in life never happens.

-   No problem is insurmountable or unresolvable if you are willing to REALISTICALLY look at the situation UNEMOTIONALLY.

-    There is ALWAYS someone that is in a tougher situation than you.

I tend to be the person that people come to with problems. I don’t know why because I am currently on my second girlfriend ever, I’m only 31 and I am by no means a master in my faith.  Anyway….we digress. People tend to come to me with their problems because:

-      I am a good listener

-      I am able to look at a situation in a pretty practical way when it doesn’t involve me.

But how often do we forget about the challenges that other people face in life?

A friend of mine gets in touch with me and tells me that he is having trouble with his girlfriend because they see too much of each other and it is “busting his balls”. Really?????? I only get to see my girl once every few months. I’d actually kill to have your problem buddy.  

We always complain that we don’t have enough money and we wish we could win the lottery. Yet we go home every night to a warm bed, a roof over our head and decent food. Every morning I go to work I see homeless people sleeping in the shelter of a balcony overhang outside of the local TAB office. I’m sorry…I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never win the lottery in my life time because God (or any higher power that other religions believe in) equipped us with enough graces, we shouldn’t worry about winning UNNESSESARY money.

But change is one of the hardest things in the world to achieve. We get so used to our own ways and living life in a comfort zone that change is one of the hardest things in the world to achieve. Ask me…I have had to engineer significant changes recently.

How does one change? Well, first there needs to be a reason for change. Second you need to look at who needs to change. Most of the time it is you. Mahatma Gandhi hit the nail on the head when he said that we need to be the change that we seek in the world. A lot of people made fun of Michael Jackson and called him all kinds of names…but was he not striking the right chord when he said: I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer. If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.

I don’t usually give anything up for lent because I end up breaking it the same day. I have very little self restraint. But I always try to make an effort to be nicer to people. A kind word, a helpful gesture, money to an outie, food to an outie or distraught animal. But my logic is flawed…what’s stopping me from doing this all year round? Did Jesus only do good for the people during certain periods? No! Did Gandhi? No! Did Mother Teresa? No! These people devoted their whole life to doing good. Mother Teresa helped a lot of people, but compared to the volume of destitute people in India, we have to come to terms with the fact that her work was a drop in the ocean. But it was a necessary drop because she felt that by preventing one death…she was doing good to society. Changing it.

There are a lot of doomsday prophets that will tell you that you will never be able to change the world. And they are right. But we have to try. If we can make society look at itself differently, then we have achieved a goal.

I am by no means a bitter man, I give a lot. But this is emotionally and of my time. At heart, I am a firm believer in the saying that charity begins at home.  Perhaps I need to change this. Be the change that I seek in the world.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

How often do we just walk past beggars in the street?

Challenges of Long Distance

Salamu

Public Disclaimer: This E Mail contains a lot of information that people may feel the need to use in their own relationship. I am not an expert on relationships. I am not a marriage/relationship councilor. Every relationship is different because dynamics are different. These are merely my opinions on a matter.

Challenges in life make us human. We all have our crosses to bear. God gives his greatest challenges to his strongest warriors.

To feel pain while overcoming a challenge leaves a person with an irrevocable sense of achievement which is the closest that a human being can come to feeling an eternal bliss. The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

I have never been a fan of having too many challenges in my life. Just like Muhammad Ali took a stance and defied the draft to Vietnam I have taken a stance and have not welcomed to much drama or to many challenges into my life.

But like everything in life. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and it is often the reaction that turns out to be so severe that it shakes the world as you know it to its foundations.

I am being very deep here and one would be excused to think that I am dealing with a significant family crisis or a death of a loved one. It is not this. The challenge I am dealing with at the moment is very different, yet at times leaves you with the same uncertainty. It’s having with a long distance relationship.

One of the biggest challenges with a long distance relationship is  not being able to spend time with your significant other on a regular basis. Because of this, you cant create memories. There are VERY few walks along the beach or in the park, VERY few picnics or dinners, VERY few moments of tenderness when you just sit enjoying a movie or series holding each other…not saying a word…just enjoying others company.

This leads to problems in that for the initial period of the relationship you have a lot to say to each other because you are still discovering things about each other. But what happens when that is over? I used to speak to my girlfriend every day on the phone. Now we call each other every other day because we ended up repeating what we were saying to each other.

I used to freak out because I thought we had run out things to say to each other. Which in a way, we did. But we ran out of things to say to each other because of the lack of memories and not the fact that we didn’t love each other.

Another challenge a long distance relationship presents is that you have to be your own pillar of strength a lot of the time. When you miss someone that’s far away, there is only so much that the other person can say when you say you miss them.

Again this is can become a problem. I have overcome challenges in my life that would have broken many people. I wont go through them now because I am a private person when it comes to these things. I am lucky in the sense that I have overcame these challenges without too much emotional scaring. But at times with a long distance relationship, I admittedly am an emotional wreck. There are times when the storm rages around me so severely that I don’t know where to turn to find safety or strength.

There are many challenges that are associated with a long distance relationship and there will be more posts about this topic. So these are by no means the be all and end all of the challenges.

You need to find coping mechanisms. Something that will help you cope. If you can’t do this. You have a long road of pain ahead of you.

Besides the obvious option of seeing each other as often as possible you need to become creative.

My girlfriend and I have started watching TV programmes together and discussing them. This is a perfect mechanism as it’s like we are sitting next to each other talking about the programme and it’s a way to break the irritation of the monotonous conversation.

Another coping mechanism I have is telling my girlfriend that I love her as often as I can. This is becoming a contentious mechanism as she is a person that does not like to over use the phrase.

It sparked a conversation about how many times it’s acceptable to tell your significant other that you love them. I found a blog where the general consensus is that twice a day is about acceptable.

Love is shown in action. Do things to show your love for a person. And I fully agree with these sentiments. However, while we are doing the long distance thing and I can’t give my girlfriend flowers often and I can’t hold her tight while watching a movie/series…the phrase is that reminder of my feelings for her.

However, every relationship is different because dynamics are different. Dynamics are different because people are different. My girlfriend doesn’t like to overuse the phrase. That doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with our relationship or that she is a difficult person.

I need to adjust my approach because I don’t want to rub my girlfriend up the wrong way. So we are trying an experiment. We are going to try and not say: I Love You for two days.

In a way I can see her point. If you are secure in your relationship and you know that the other person loves you…why feel the need to say it? However, it is un-natural to go days on end without saying it and couples MAY run the risk of becoming complacent and from past experience, complacency is a relationship KILLER. (I say MAY in caps because although I feel that the risk for complacency does exist, there are no guarantees that it will be the case.)

Many people will ask about the trust issue. How can you trust that your girlfriend or boyfriend is not cheating on you while they are so far away? I must say that this has never been an issue in our relationship and never will be. I trust my girlfriend completely and she trusts me completely. This is because from early on in the relationship we decided to play open cards with each other in every situation. If she is going out with her friends she tells me. Not because I want to check up on her, but because we don’t want a completely innocent get together to be misconstrued as a date with a guy. The same applies with me, when there rare occasion comes about that I do go out with my mates I tell her about it.

There are many many more aspects about a long distance relationship that I can talk about. And this may well be the first of many posts. My posts have never had many comments in the past and I am hoping that this one will. I would like to hear your feedback so please comment below.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

An idiots guide to St Patrick's Day

Salamu

To Be Sure To Be Sure. Allow me this opportunity to wish all of me Irish fan base a Pre Happy St Patrick’s Day.

I have always liked the Irish as one of the better people from the British Isles. Their brashness and blatant honesty are virtues that I admire and feel that every person should look for in a friend. I would even go so far as to say that everybody needs at least one Irish friend.

Before we go into the happenings on St Patrick’s Day let’s have a brief look at the life of the man. He was born in Britain to a very pious family. His village was attacked by Irish slavers and he was taken to Ireland where he spent some time. In a dream God told him to make his way to the coast where he could go back to Britain which he did.

In another dream a man came to him bearing letters imploring him to come back to Ireland, which he did. He then proceeded to convert the pagan Celts to Christianity. Then he died.

I purposely gave the remix version of events because I am no expert on the man and there is a far more comprehensive account of his life on the bastion of modern information…Wikipedia.

One of the popular legends is that St Patrick chased all of the snakes out of Ireland. This happened when he chased them into the sea after they were attacking him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill. It is true that there are no snakes in Ireland, but research shows that this absence extends far beyond the presence of St Patrick to the glacial period. So there were no physical snakes for St Patrick to banish.

Therefore, the banishing of the snakes from Ireland is a metaphorical representation of St Patrick converting the pagan Celts to Christianity.

So, it would be logical that the perfect way to celebrate St Patrick’s day would be to go to Church, and in an ideal world this would be the case. However, as I have pointed out before, we don’t live in an ideal world.

So let’s look at the reality of the situation then. To the rest of the world St Patrick’s day is a day to get absolutely hammered on drinking that vile drink known as Guinness and that beer which is not really a beer… Kilkenny. Most certainly Irish pub songs will be sung on such a day and there is a strong possibility of a fight breaking out.

 

There is a popular saying that the whole world is Irish on St Patrick’s Day, and while this is a nice thought to cling onto, some places really practice it. In Chicago, the locals color the water of the Chicago River green with vegetable coloring. There are St Patrick’s day parades in many countries including Canada, Japan and Mother Russia.

I suppose we all like to identify with the Irish carefree way of life, a life where any problem can be sorted out with a pint of Guinness and a fight. This is attributable to the Irish sense of humor. So I will leave you with two of my favorite Irish jokes.

The Reverend John Fluff was the pastor of a small town in Ireland.

One Sunday, after a riviting service, he was walking down the high street when he noticed a young lady

of his congregation sitting in a pub drinking beer.

The Reverend wasn't happy. He walked through the open door of the pub and

sat down next to the woman.

"Miss Fitzgerald", he said sternly. "This is no place for a

member of my congregation. Why don't you let me take you home?"

"Sure", she said with a slur. Right after ye ave a drink wif me.

So they had the drink and stood up to go home. Obviously very drunk, when Miss Fitzgerald stood up from the bar, she began to weave back and forth. The Reverend realized that she'd had far too much to drink and grabbed her arms to steady her.

When he did, they both lost their balance and tumbled to the floor. After rolling around for a few moments, the Reverend wound up on top of Miss Fitzgerald, her skirt hitched up to her waist.

The pub landlord looked over, grabbed his shelangly and stormed across from behind the bar.

"Oi mate, we won't have any of that carrying on in this pub."

The Reverend looked up at the landlord and said,

"But you don't understand. I know this woman, I'm Pastor Fluff."

The landlord nodded and said, "Oh well, if you're that far in, you might as well finish."

The second joke also involves Pastor Fluff.

A few months later Pastor Fluff fell on hard times and is forced to sell his beloved horse.

He explains to the new owner, "Remember now, you say, "Praise the Lord" to go and "Amen" to stop."

"Okay, I've got it!" the new owner says.

The owner goes to the pub and gets hammered. He comes out and wants to go home. He gets of the horse and says, "Giddap" to no result.

"Oh yeah, Praise the Lord" he says, and the horse starts off.

The horse starts to gallop and the owner is fast approaching a cliff.

"Stop, Whoa, Fecken Stop, Oh Lord what am I supposed to say? Ah yes!"

"AMEN!"

The horse stops an inch from the edge of the cliff.

The owner wipes his brow, looks over the cliff and sighs, "Praise the Lord".

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

Anger Management

Salamu

Today I am talking about anger and anger management.

I was reminded about this topic last week when I was watching Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon. There is a scene where Lee is training a young fighter and tells him to never attack in a fit of rage because it clouds the mind.

And one doesn’t realize it until it happens to you. Last week Friday as I was sitting at work overlooking the beautiful Durban Harbor I saw this squall coming in which brought bad weather with it. Now when there is bad weather, people that normally drive like shit go completely loopy and completely disobey the rules of the road. Town becomes gridlocked and it takes me an hour to travel five blocks between my parking garage and the motorway that takes me home.

This is not the ideal way to spend a Friday night because when all you want to do is get home and relax you end up haning to negotiate spending an hour of your life in traffic (an hour which you will never get back) trying to live with savage taxi drivers that get their licenses from lucky packets or vending machines.

Anger manifests in different ways in different people, meaning no two people experience the same build up to anger. The first sign of anger with me is that I switch the radio off because I cannot deal with noise around me. I must drive in complete silence. Second, I feel a stabbing pain starting in my chest that gets stronger and stronger as the anger builds. Then I start blowing my hooter and banging my steering wheel. And eventually I open my window and go full agro on the person who I deem is pissing me off.

I am generally not an aggressive person and my girlfriend can testify to that. But when I am angry I am one of the most dangerous people alive. My grandfather always told me that there is nothing more dangerous than a wild animal that has been cornered with no means of escape. In essence this animal has to fight for its life. Humans are the same…when we are pushed to our limits, when we feel sick to our stomachs and all we see is red we become that cornered animal. See that Lion at the top of my page...that's what you become!

Thankfully this does not happen to me often, but it is not a nice place to be. What mechanisms are there to control your anger? How does one channel them positively?

Two of my favorite comedies of all time are Anger Management and Analyze This.

Anger Management is a great show about a normal working guy (Adam Sandler) that is forced to attend an anger management courses with a Psychologist (Jack Nicolson). Basically Sandler is put in very explosive situations where, like me, he could have gone full agro on people. In one situation Nicolson encourages Sandler to sing the song from the musical Westside Story: I Feel Pretty. This achieves its objectives as it has a calming effect on Sandler.

Analyze This is the first movie in a two part series about a mob boss (Robert DeNiro) who struggles with his anger and is encouraged to see a psychiatrist (Billy Crystal). In one particular scene DeNiro says that an instinctive reaction when he gets angry is to pull out his gat and start shooting people. He gets angry during the session and Crystal urges him to shoot the cushion on the couch. This achieves its objectives as it has a calming effect on DeNiro.

Now I am not likely to break out into song singing I Feel So Pretty in traffic and I am also unlikely to pull out a gat and shoot my car seat. (Although this may have a great effect on the people who piss me off in traffic because after I shoot the car seat I would point to them and say: You’re Next).

I have a different coping mechanism. Once the initial rage passes and I can once again face my radio I put on a CD which has Chris Rock’s comedy on it. Laughing at Chris Rock making fun of black people is quite enjoyable when it is all you see when you drive around Durban.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

Pappas on the Square...A highly recommended evening of culinary delight

Salamu

My Niggas!

It’s not often that I write about restaurants as up until now I have never really been to one that has been stand out enough in every department to warrant free publicity. However, this weekend Pappas on the Square really hit the mark in every department.

The restaurant is situated in Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton and if one was to procure a table by the window you would be able to sit out and overlook the hustle and bustle of what has become one of Johannesburg’s best meeting places and culinary locales.

It was here that I decided to take my girlfriend for a belated Valentine’s Day dinner.

A well prepared Lamb Shank should fall off the bone

Pappas offers Greek cuisine of the finest quality. I have a real soft spot for Greek cuisine as it is strikingly similar to cuisine from my people… the Lebanese.  

A good evening has to start with a good waiter. This is non-negotiable as nothing is more annoying than terrible service. A good waiter needs to greet you with a smile, a good knowledge of his menu and common sense enough to not be over bearing. He needs to take your order and crack suitable jokes throughout the evening at appropriate times. We were served by a gentleman named Blackie who was perfect in every sense of the word.

The next important aspect is the food. There has to be a wide selection of food to choose from which is of the finest quality and prepared to perfection. Greek cuisine is known for its rich flavors which engulfs your senses and encourages your anticipation with every bite. A highly recommended meal at Papas is the kleftiko. I am known to be a fan of the lamb, and a well prepared lamb shank is a sure way to put you in my good books. The portion looked like it came from a sheep rather than a lamb but the taste was far from it. The meat was falling off the bone and was dripping with the flavorsome goodness that only the Greeks can capture. My girlfriend had a trout which was also fresh and well prepared.

Adding beauty to a classy joint

What rounds off the evening well at Papas is that the décor inside the restaurant is minimalistic in that it doesn’t distract you. The managers are attentive to your every need and one of the biggest features of the restaurant is that the music is soft and ambient rather than loud and abrasive. Let’s be honest…you would prefer to talk to your date in a dulcet tone rather than scream at her. Yes the music does get turned up when the belly dancers come on and the Greeks lose their shit enough to break plates. But I never said I was a prude and didn’t appreciate a good plate throwing session.

Pappas on the Square comes highly recommended in my books. It is a good evening out with freshly prepared food, good service and an awesome atmosphere, a place truly worthy of this post. If you are at a loose end of where to go this weekend… go to the square… A little bit of Greece is waiting to enchant you.

Till next time my Niggas!

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!

Talking about stereotypes

Salamu

My Niggas!

The topic of the day is stereotypes.

Uncle Ruckus. One of the worst offenders of stereotypical labeling behavior

For those who have been living under a rock their whole lives and are not aware of what a stereotype is…this is how the urban dictionary (the only trustworthy dictionary in the world in my opinion) defines it: A stereotype is used to catergorize a group of people. People don't understand that type of person, so they put them into classifications, thinking that everyone who is that needs to be like that, or anyone who acts like their classifications is one.

This can be based on:

Race

Gender

Religion

Tribal

Societal

Macroeconomic

Residential Areas

But why are we talking about this today? Because it amazes me how we unconsciously revert to stereotypical behavior. I was brought up in South Africa which is historically one of the most stereotypical nations in the world. Now I was born in the generation after apartheid. So I never oppressed no one. And I am generally not a racist person. But I am guilty of being stereotypical.

I was talking to a friend over Facebook and he told me about this study done by Stats SA about people living in Fourways and their love for Mixed Martial Arts. I immediately jumped in and said that they must be Lebanese (of the South African variety) that love watching Rocky movies and are developing Sylvester Stallone speech impediments. He then said that they probably wear Tapout shirts as well.

Now this paints the picture of any Lebanese person found walking around Booysens on any given day. But does that mean that all South African Lebanese people are like this? Hell No.

It’s the same with the Portuguese. If I had R5 for every time a Portuguese person (who’s decedents came from mainland Portugal) insulted a Portuguese person (Who’s descendants came from Madeira), I’d be a very rich person with own yacht and a R180-million mansion in Umhlanga.

Probably fought so well because his ancestors had to fight
off lions and elephants? Probably Not. 

Back to this friend I had the talk about the Lebanese with. We went to university together and we used to keep in touch with the current happenings in US Sport (Basketball, Baseball and American Football…not so much Ice Hockey) and every week it was the same people in the news. LeBron James, Barry Bonds, Michael Johnson. And I one day asked him why he thought it was that the main people grabbing the headlines were black. The heavyweight division in Boxing was owned by good black boxers from Joe Louis till Lennox Lewis. A time span stretching 40 years.

“You see Jon. The black man is a naturally athletic person. Historically they spent all their years running away from lions and elephants and shit. And then there were civil wars so they had to be physically strong to survive. Then slave traders came and shipped these people off to America. But the athletic gene stayed true,” was his reply.

How much of this is true? It is true that historically...first nation people of Africa had to hunt and fend off wild beasts and this continued long into our history because industrialization only came to Africa much later than the rest of the world. But can we use this as a reasoning behind the new generations athletic exploits?

Surely there must be a better reason behind this. But will we bother to look for it? i bet you there are millions of people in the world that use the same rationale as my friend above. 

And it happens with everyone. I challenge you to watch the news or a movie….when you see behavior that you think is typical of a specific racial/religious/residential area person, insult them like you usually would and then think back to this post.

Our world is FULL of stereotypes. One of my favorite shows The Boondocks is full of racial stereotypes. The movie Rush Hour is full of racial stereotypes. Bad Boys (Will Smith and Martin Lawrence) is full of Socio Economical and Class based stereotypes. One time I got stopped by the police who were doing a routine check on drivers licences. When they asked me for my licence the first thing I said was: "Why...is it because I am black?" I didn't event need to think about it.

Will the world move beyond these stereotypes? No they won’t. Because it has become unconsciously ingrained in every human being that society needs to be put into specific boxes. The ideals of the hippies that lived during the time of free love that the whole world is one nation is a bullshit ideal and will never be realized.

Ooops I did it again.

Till next time my Niggas!

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!