Roald Dahl Day

The anniversary of Roald Dahl's birthday was on 13 September, now known as Roald Dahl Day. even Google honored him by a reworking of its logo, adding in the golden ticketed Wonka Bar, the Giant Peach and Matilda.


Through my childhood years Roald Dahl has been one of my favorite authors and I hope many children for years to come get to experience his excellent works.
I personally can never quite decide on my favorite Dahl book, it difficult to choose between Charlie Bucket, Matilda, James Trotter or the BFG. Somehow though when I think Dahl I think Willy Wonka, so I guess Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is my favorite.

There are also a few good adult books like Henry Sugar, Boy and Going Solo. but he is best known for the way he captures the imagination of children.

It's sad that so few people read books these days, unless they're following the masses and buying the latest Harry Potter to use as a paper weight.

I sincerely hope more people return to reading the stories and novels put out there, the Chocolate Factory awaits.

Becoming an Idol

And so as it was pre-ordained I return to the blog. Ok so it wasn't pre-ordained but it is kind of a return. I've been seriously neglecting the blog so in the up and coming weeks, you occasional people who come to see if theres anything new, will be dazzled by new posts and a change to the look of the blog.

In my absence there have been many movies watched, the start of the premier league (woohoo!!) and a few other eventful events - most of which I don't remember well enough to blog about.

Though I have been slightly addicted to Idols over the past couple of weeks, which is so strange, because I hardly ever watch television, but there’s something about Idols which just keeps me going back. C'mon you know you watch it too. There have been some great auditions, and then there have been some by Cliff Jennings. I saw his two performances, I saw the judges grill him, and I saw him hand over his CD single, yes the one with the poster in his sexy pose. I had a funny feeling that the audition might have been fake, it was just too unbelievable, and especially with his friend filming his performances. Well there've been a few of such performances but Cliff stood out.

I guess someone should have told the judges though cos Gareth made it very public he was not impressed.
Tho and heres my question for this blog cos there might be something that I missed - but Gareth told Cliff that he'd play his single on his show "tomorrow" - and according to the articles now out he was gonna play it on 03 Sept - I don't get that cos these shows are recorded from like April/May. So why did he wait till the audition was shown on TV.

And lastly , I guess the indian population in SA were fairly afraid of this idols thing, or maybe too busy singing the "chutney numbers" at an aunts party to show up for the auditions. Well the good ones anyway.

Oh well it makes for good TV at last, now on the the top 10.....

Tags and words collide

Oh no! I’ve been tagged by Waseem and have to post 8 things about myself.. the pressure!!
I will participate but I can’t promise to tag more people. It might take too much work to find bloggers(victims) who wouldn’t be annoyed with me. Maybe I’ll just tag Hamza since he’s already been tagged, and Yuraaz to create a blog and write those 8 things.
And so begins the 8 :

1. I’ve sat through a few Maths lectures at “the artist formerly know as UND”, during this time I was studying at Natal Tech (DIT, DUT, I have no idea what they felt like calling it today). The lecturer up there refused to use X’s and Y’s for some arb reason and proceeded to teach differentiation and vectors using funny squiggly lines he called squiggles and thingamabobs. I was confused.

2. A much younger slimmer trimmer me, once (Matric) took part in the Mr Kharwastan competition in our cultural day event, after much coaxing (the reasons behind this will remain a mystery) – I was beaten by the new Std 6 dwarf boy – Lesson learnt: “No matter how suave and debonair you appear the cuteness factor always wins”

3. My gaming addiction began the day my dad brought home the 8bit Exellence, and all my uncles and aunts were of the opinion that this black box would damage our TV. Well after collecting many mushrooms and saving Princess Toadstool from Koopa many times, the TV was still in great condition, so there goes that myth. And now everyone owns some kind of console.

4. I drove for 1,5years with no licence and was only stopped once (which I’ve got away with no bribe or fine) and a few speeding fines. If you’re the cop that let me go on my way that day in November, outside Orient School, thank you.

5. I watched Thundercats avidly when I was younger. I downloaded a few episodes recently – I have no idea why I ever watched that show. Couldn’t they come up with better names than Liono, Tigero and Panthero, something like Stringfella Hawk or Face maybe. “Thundercats Ho!!” I also enjoyed Gummi Bears – I have nothing bad to say about that.

6. I’ve learnt firsthand that dogs really are natural enemies to the mailman and paperboy. Waseem’s mentioned in his blog of our escapades as paperboys – well delivering the Sunday Tribune is no happy task, and it was on one of these fateful Sundays that I was bitten by a dog. The dog was 6 feet tall, had massive teeth and was as fast as lightning – oh well it wasn’t that big but it was a pretty nasty piece of work, the owners were very apologetic though.

7. I love fast cars and am slowly working my way up to the fancy sports car I can only drive on weekends. Till then I’ll stick to the 220km/h speed limit, and slow down at the speed traps.

8. My current movie watching record stands at watching Aladdin, 7 times in 2 days, for which I was joined by Waseem (bro) and Shaista(sis). We have no idea why we did that, but the movie had to be returned to the video hire place the next day, well it was a pretty good movie anyway. I do however think that this is no match for the movie watching powers of my cousin Yuraaz (n1temare), who knows every line from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (the Ivan Ooze one).

My 8 things are all random things that happened to pop into my head after I typed in the number, there is no hidden link through each one, so please stop looking for it.
And thank you for reading 8 things about me, hopefully you’ve at least smiled while reminiscing the episodes of Thundercats you’ve watched, while singing the Gummi Bears song, or for the younger guys looked up Thundercats on Wikipedia.

“Dashing and Daring, Courageous and caring, ” – c’mon you know you want to….

The World will be watching

With all the hype about backup plans to the World Cup, and FIFA may take it away from SA rumors, the 2010 World Cup is still quite a hot topic among the masses, as it is among the office here. I think working next to the changing Durban stadium helps keep that conversation alive.

Well it’s quite disappointing when you hear fellow South Africans, saying they should take the World Cup away from SA. “That SA will never manage it.” “Crime is too high.” “They’ll never have the stadiums ready in time.” And whatever other hundreds of reasons that are put forward.

Yes crime is quite high in SA, and maybe most South Africans don’t exactly have the best work ethic in the world, but it seems that people are neglecting to consider what the World Cup event itself means for the SA.

The recent speed up in stadium and other developments have caused our Rates to be increased, as we near 2010 food and other essential prices will probably rise, and traveling the streets will be a lot more difficult with all the construction. These are all things a guy I know brought up with me, and said he’d rather pay less rates and not have the World Cup here. These are things that I will experience along with all the other South Africans, yet I still maintain that the World Cup will be great for SA, and it’s not just about me being a football supporter.

The opportunity to host the world cup has created some 150000 jobs, opened up great opportunities for local businesses (big and small), and come Tournament month and the few weeks surrounding it, the local economy will boom. The country will be full of international visitors. The new stadium plans look quite wondrous and should be taking shape soon. What’s not to be excited about?

We've hosted major international events, but the Football World Cup is in a class of its own. Come June 2010, the eyes of millions of visitors and billions of TV viewers will be focused on the southern tip of Africa. I really believe SA will not disappoint.

Ok that’s basically me trying to convince the few out there that the World Cup 2010 is something to be excited about. I just don’t understand the people that don’t want the World Cup here, how is the country to progress if we don’t make the effort?

In a mere three years the worlds eyes will be on our country, and they will come to know what a Vuvuzela does, that Lions don’t walk our streets, and what a great place it would be to visit.

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Well after much coercion from my brother, and that it's kinda dumb to have a blog with no posts, at last the debut blog is created.

The football season is over and Manchester Utd look like they’re set to buy a whole new team, the much awaited xbox is yet to arrive, and it’s a Monday so I find myself with a bit of time to say hello to the world of bloggers.

From what I’ve seen of the blogs out there the first post has been designed to allow the occasional visitor to drop in and say hello, just to let you know that you’re not completely wasting your time creating a blog, so I’m not gonna drop all my deep philosophical theories on the few people who do drop by to say hello .

I don't care if you lick windows, eat crayons, talk to trees or occasionally imagine that you're on fire or that your hair is chasing you or that the clouds are sending strange messages to you. You hang in there, you're frigging special.
Asta la wego.