“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
― Isaac Newton
I am closing my year in style by taking a look back at 2015 at the movies over at my other goodbuddies' house, Bizcommunity.com. Check out my article there.
All I can say is merry Star Wars! Christmas can take a backseat this year ;).
Hello world! I've officially kicked off my Bulletproofreading venture and I am hoping for the best. If you have no idea what I am talking about check out my Facebook Page, like that bad boy and then tell your friends, family and pets all about it! You can also send them my nifty pamphlet with my details.
Journeys have been an overarching
theme in my life of late, whether it’s at work or at home. Journeys are perhaps
one of the overarching themes of all life. That and running a race. All my
teachers in primary school loved comparing life to running a race. I digress,
though. What I want to get at is that when one is on a journey it is good to
stop once in a while and take stock. Just stop, catch your breath, relax and
look back at the way you have come. A little break also allows you to look at
the road ahead and to plan a bit. I recently joined the wonderful people over
at Freelance Cape Town as a freelancer (duh!). Marius Vosloo, the guy who heads
the team up, immediately made me feel welcome and at home. They recently
launched their blog, called Our Voice and it serves as a platform for creative
people to be heard. Marius asked me to write something about my journey as a
freelancer thus far. I haven’t looked back on the way I have come in a while and
this proved to be the perfect opportunity for me to pause, take stock and
reflect on my journey as Charles thus far and to add my voice to theirs and see
what sort of music comes of it.
Dear Reader and fellow traveller, sit
down and rest your feet a while and let me tell you my story.
My name is Charles Siboto and I am a
reader and lover of beautiful stories. I haunt places where I can find good
stories. My love for stories has resulted in me becoming someone who works with
stories, whether they are my own or stories that other people wish to tell. I
mainly prefer stories that other people tell because there is nothing better
for me than getting so caught up in someone else’s visions that you just cannot
help but love and understand that person a bit more than you did before being
moved by their story. I grew up as a reader and from early on I knew that
stories are magic and that I want to be a part of that magic when I grow up. I
never knew in what capacity I would help make and spread more of this magic but
at least I had a general direction in which to start looking for where I can
fit in.
I am not even all that picky in my
love for stories. I love the stories my grandmother told me as a child and
listened to Gcina Mhlope on the radio every Saturday morning on a show she had
that was sponsored by Joko tea. I can’t remember the name of the show but I
loved the monsters she always told of and how the children in the stories
always outsmarted them. I read books, comic books, played video games, watched
movies and listen to weird radio dramas. I landed up studying English
Literature, Linguistics and Literary studies and I loved most of it and hated
some of it. I remember one instance in my fourth year of university where I
read the comic book, Final Crisis by Grant Morrison and had one of the greatest
moments of my life reading a story and it shook me to my core. Final Crisis is
a massive story in its complexity and when Zillo Valla (if my memory serves me
well), one of the beings in charge of protecting the multiverse utters the
following words it just gets me every single time I read that story: "Behold:
we monitors who were faceless once . . . We all have names now, and stories.
There are heroes and villains . . . secrets and lovers." Things like this
unstitch me. Somewhere in that comic book Superman asks that the words, To Be
Continued be carved on his tombstone because humanity’s story never comes to an
end, it always carries on. I read and love J.R.R. Tolkien and he taught me that
some stories can break your heart and yet still strike you with sorrow as sharp
as swords, eucatastrophe he called it, the good ending that breaks your heart.
Stories lead me to where I am today.
My name is Charles Siboto and I am an editor of children’s books by day at one
of South Africa’s biggest publishing houses. This is a great honour and
privilege for me because it was a struggle for me to get my foot in that door
but like any good character in your favourite stories, I persevered and always
kept ongoing. I am also a freelancer in the sense that I use the majority of
my free time to blog and write about books, movies, comic books, video games,
technology, lifestyle events and even a dash of politics for various online
media. I also offer my services as a proofreader and editor to almost just
about anyone who needs it. Interestingly enough, French engineering students
turn up on my doorstep with reports for me to proofread on a regular basis.
This led me to my exciting new venture, Charles Siboto Bulletproofreading for Interns Abroad. A bit of a mouthful, right? But it’s all very exciting and I
hope the venture does well. I have even dabbled in doing voiceovers, officially
becoming the voice of one of our book characters at work, Dogtective William.
This, dear Reader and fellow
traveller, is where I find myself currently. I am juggling a publishing career
and exploring many avenues as a freelancer. I am learning a lot in both spaces
and I love it. I’m working with stories and helping people who tell them find
ways to tell them as clearly as possible, whether it’s an author writing a book
for children or a company that needs content written to succinctly share their
vision. My own story remains, always, to be continued . . .
You really can’t go wrong with wine and it’s even more
difficult to do so with chocolate. This is why a festival dedicated to these
two things is a great idea. Chocolate and wine is by far a much better love
story than Twilight. Almost exactly a month ago I got to be part of this love
story at the 2015 Winelands Chocolate Festival at the beautiful Lourensford Wine Estate in Somerset West, which is part of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
The festival took place from 25 to 26 July. I am in love with the Cape Winelands
and visiting the various wine estates is one of my favourite things to do. The
Lourensford Wine Estate is one of the more beautiful wine farms and provided a
lovely gathering place for lovers of chocolate from all around the country.
My lovable friend and I went on Sunday, the second and last
day of the event. Though the weather looked like it was leaning more towards
the miserable end of things I jumped into my friend’s trusty ol’ Corsa Lite (or
the Erin-mobile, as I like to call it) and off to Somerset West we went with a
song in our hearts and chocolate and wine on our minds. The weather turned out
to be quite mild and lovely by the time we arrived at the venue and we were
immediately taken in by the bustle of chocolate aficionados walking around and
stopping at the various stands to nibble on some chocolate and chat to the
masters of chocolate behind the beautiful and tasty heaps of chocolate goodness
on display everywhere. I am a sucker for chocolate fountains and those bad boys
were on display everywhere. You’d think my friends call me Chocolate Charlie
because of the hue of my skin but, no, Sir, you’d be wrong! They call me
Chocolate Charlie because I’m a sucker for chocolate fountains. Exhibitors at
the festival included chocolatiers like Alexander Avery, Chocolat Frey,
Gayleen’s Decadence, Honest Chocolates (who does not love chocolate that does
not lie to you?), LINDT (a brand that we all know and love) and My Sugar. There
were loads of other chocolatiers in the mix and everyone had a really good
showing.
The food wasn’t to be scoffed at either. There was some mean
grub available from the restaurant, Bistro 13 and three great food trucks. I
you wanted some coffee Origin was on hand to sort you out and the Tipsy Gypsy
Art Bar looked after you needs in terms of drinkables.
We had a great time at the Winelands Chocolate Festival. It
was just amazing soaking up the sun, drinking wine, tasting and buying a whole
lot of chocolate. The venue was just spectacular and the people were all
lovely. This festival definitely goes onto my annual calendar of things to do.
It was also lovely to receive a free gift in the form of a digital gift voucher
for Yuppiechef.com’s Indulgent Chocolate Creations course in my email box a few
days after the festival.
As a movie reviewer/blogger do you ever just wake up
in the afternoon (that’s when everyone wakes up, right?) and just think how
Marvel Studios possesses absolutely no chill? Can they just stop being so
amazing with their movies and series! I am a fan, for sure but it just feels
like I spend half my time writing about some new great thing they did. After
the sheer joy that was Avengers: Age of Ultron I figured I’ll tone down any and
all excitement about Ant-Man. In fact, I’d just wait for it to come out on DVD.
Seriously, they can’t just leave out Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne from the
original Avengers line-up and then hope to somehow make it work now, can they?
They can’t just give Ultron, Pym’s creation to Tony Stark and just get away
with it, can they? I finally went to see Ant-Man and Marvel did all these
things and made it work! Ant-Man is my favourite entry into the Marvel
Cinematic Universe (MCU). I hate Marvel, dammit!
Ant-Man is reminiscent of the Daredevil series in
terms of its scale in the MCU. It takes place after the events of Age of Ultron
and whilst still quite a major event it is more of a closed-in story about
characters that are a bit more accessible than the Avengers. While the Avengers
are busy dropping cities on people characters like Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) are
just trying to get by. The story kicks off with Lang just being released from
prison and trying to make amends with his daughter and keep away from his
former life as a thief. He then gets caught up in some superhero stuff with Dr
Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and the brilliant man’s daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline
Lilly) and eventually becomes Ant-Man. The villain of the piece is Darren Cross
(Corey Stoll) who ends up donning the Yellowjacket suit. Cross’s motives are
very much like those of Loki in Thor, which is to say he is just a whiny child,
really. Loki has a certain charm so ends up working as a character people are
interested in but Marvel still seems to struggle to create compelling villains.
The Kingpin is the only villain they have really done well to date. Pym and
Janet’s backstory is merely hinted at but enough to let you know how they fit
in with Howard Stark and Peggy Carter’s S.H.I.E.L.D.
Like Winter Soldier was a political spy thriller
Ant-Man is a heist film more than a superhero film and a very funny one at
that. This movie knows how to push all the right emotional buttons with the
audience. Scott Lang is the sort of character you can really root for and his
misfit team of friends provide a lot of very funny comic relief in the film. Michael
Peña (Fury, 2014) as Lang’s fast-talking friend, Luis plays the role of the
funny guy to perfection. David Dastmalchian (Animals, 2014) and rapper, T.I.
appear as Lang’s other wacky companions, Kurt and Dave and they also deliver a
pretty solid performance. Ant-Man sees Peyton Reed (Yes Man, 2008) in the
director’s chair and fan favourite, Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,
2010) as one of the screenwriters. Wright was first signed up to direct Ant-Man
in his popular zany style but got replaced with Reed later.
Do you guys remember how much fun old school movies
like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) were? Ant-Man’s action sequences are reminiscent
to that in their hilarity. When Lang shrinks down to the size of an ant he
retains his strength as a normal sized adult male and can also control various
ants with the aid of a device behind his ear created by Pym. This allows for
some really fun action sequences and also introduces us to one of the cooler
characters in the movie, one of the ants that Lang lovingly names Antony.
Ant-Man is a really great entry into the MCU and is
well worth your time. The 3D effects are really good and I imagine seeing it in
IMAX would be great as well. It’s been on the local circuits for a while now so
if you haven’t seen it yet I’d recommend you do so. Take your mom, dad,
grandparents, children and strangers in the street with you.
Seriously, you guys, I am freakin' super hyped about the Deadpool movie project! Since seeing footage last year and the shaky cam Comic-Con stuff I am on-board and I love how aware the project is of the past blunders with Ryan Reynolds and uses Deadpool's breaking the fourth wall shtick to poke fun at stuff like Green Lantern and how the Merc With a Mouth appeared with his mouth sown shut in Wolverine: Origins.
Fox has released the official green and red band trailers and both are just fun, especially how the green band trailer pokes fun at you for not just watching the red band version. The trailers also reminded me that I once liked DMX.
Here are both trailers and the trailer from yesterday with Deadpool narrating the debut of this official trailer. Sonic BOOM!
So Comic-Con 2015 has come and gone and as per usual we were teased with comicy goodness that had us salivating for more and now we have to wait for all that good stuff to come out. But being the industrious geeks we are we will spend the next few months speculating about every little detail in all the trailers we saw.
Here are some of the stuff I thought was cool and look forward to:
Well, Star Wars is obviously going to be the biggest deal for me because that's how my geekiness was born. I have a love/hate relationship with the old movies but I constantly returned to them and I always wanted more of the stories and often read up on all the non-canon lore to get my fix. The Phantom Menace is rather silly but I still watched the nonsense out of it and collected the posters and figurines. Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were okay for me but the old movies were still the most fun, especially The Empire Strikes Back, I love that movie. Looking at this reel from Comic-Con it looks like The Force Awakens is really a labour of love for everyone working on the film. It also looks like J.J. Abrams and his team are making Star Wars fun again, which is great because that's what Star Wars should be. Nobody cared for Anakin's pained facial expressions, what when we had cool shit like Boba Fett, R2-D2 and Chewie dammit!
Marvel have become so big with their Marvel Cinematic Universe that they don't even need to bother showing up at Comic-Con anymore. This gave DC a great chance to show off some things they have planned and although it was not the best showing (they really should have gone bigger with Marvel not being there to hog all the attention) this trailer for Batman V Superman has me a little excited. Man of Steel was more of a miss than a hit and lots of people don't have much faith in the whole Batfleck situation but this trailer gives me some hope. Zack Snyder is good with the darker and more serious stuff, which is why Man of Steel didn't go down so well but add a Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns sort of Batman to the mix and maybe that dark tone can work. I love what Snyder did with Watchmen and the political stuff happening with Super Man in this trailer is very reminiscent of that. Then we also have Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and we know Snyder is not the greatest with how he represents female characters so that could really go any way. I'm really hoping this one is good though, we deserve a good movie with Superman in it. Do good for us, Mr Snyder and crew.
Then there is Suicide Squad and from what I can see in the trailer I'm sold. I can roll with all this silliness. People seem not to be reacting so well to Jared Leto's Joker but I think it can work. Really, this whole thing looks so ridiculous that I can't wait to see it. I'm also pretty much cool with how the members of the squad turned out. Margot Robbie looks fun and sexy as Harley Quinn. Will Smith makes for a decent Deadshot and we have the wonderful Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. I have always thought that in a world of ridiculous villains Captain Boomerang is still quite silly but it works for him and Jai Courtney looks quite cool as the character. The way Adewale Arkinnuoye-Agbaje's Killer Croc looks reminds me of the character in Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Joker graphic novel. So, yeah, I'm pretty hyped about this one.
The official trailer may not be released yet but from the leaked versions floating around the interwebs Deadpool was probably the coolest thing at Comic-Con this year. I'll dare say that it was even cooler than Star Wars in some regards. The Merc With a Mouth has always been a fan favourite and it's good to see that it looks like 20th Century Fox will be doing right by him.
Those are my Comic-Con highlights and there were loads of other stuff to see and love that will be all over the interwebs by now. All I can say is cheers to the next few years of geeky goodness :).
Ladies, gentle-Sirs and beautiful puppies, as an update to my last post, I present to you all of the TEDx Table Mountain 2015 videos in one nifty playlist. These are hot, right off the presses!
I attended the 2015 TEDx TableMountain event at the Artscape Theatre here in Cape Town on 25 May, which is Africa Day. The event's theme was Journeys of Excellence and showcased some of the great work being done by Africans to create a better society for all of us.
Here are some videos of some of the speakers and performers of the event.
Whispers of Wisdom (@Whisperzofwiz) delivering a performance that inspires Africans, especially the youth, to dream bigger than is expected of them.
Dr Tindile Booi’s talk/performance was my favourite of the evening and her way of telling stories, singing and dancing is a thing of beauty to behold.
Dr Gubela Mji spoke about her experience working as a researcher collecting data about how to improve the lives of disabled people but then seeing that research just being stored up in shelves and never being used for anything.
Shadreck Chirikure is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Archaeological Materials Laboratory at the University of Cape Town and he addressed the negative view that people have of Africa as never having produced any technology.
Dr Llewellyn Padayachy, a paediatric neurosurgeon spoke about his research into non-invasive techniques to diagnose and guide the treatment of critical conditions affecting the brain.
Derek Gripper (@derekgripper) translating great African composers whose music is passed down for generations but never written down.
Joseph Wamicha, a young man after my own heart, spoke about how the idea of deeper space exploration and eventually colonisation is not just the stuff of science fiction but something we can work on right now.
Paul Mesarcik (@paulmesarcik) showed a device that he and his team created to detect shack fires before they spread and leave many people homeless.
I hope you guys are well. I haven't written in a while. I've been busy living, dying and questioning everything. Here we are now, though, and I want to speak to you about loss. I love Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy as you know and I feel like a loser in the sense of Peter Quill's speech near the end of that movie. I am someone who has lost a lot of things. My friends and family are losers in this sense too.
Loss is a large part of the human experience. We lose things like keys and cellphones and that can be annoying. We lose friends and lovers and that can be heartbreaking. We lose people to you, Death and we succumb to grief for ourselves left behind and for them and whatever mysterious end or new beginning you offer. As humans we cannot avoid loss; it seems to be one of the prices we pay for the gift of Life.
Loss has been on my mind a lot lately. I look at my life up to this point and realise just how much I have lost and when I weigh it all up against everything I have gained I'm not sure how I feel. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for everything I have and my life is rather charmed in its own weird way. It seems that I've had to lose quite a great deal to get to where I am now. Life seems to be very much like a game of chess in which you sacrifice pieces to win the game. I have been thinking about those pieces lately, the things we lost in the fire as Bastille puts in their song. I miss my sacrificed chess pieces because I loved them and I'm a mildly OCD hoarder. Matter matters to me. I miss all my old books, video games and people.
My reference point in life is always stories, especially in the form of books and like any reader worth their salt (I prefer pepper though) I collect books and fill them as much with memories and emotions as they fill me with good stories, bad stories or just outright weird ones. I have lost many books on my journey. I left some of them with good people that I know will love and cherish them and I have left some of them with people I'm sure won't even care what happens to them. I don't know, I'm just feeling nostalgic and sad for my old things and friends.
To tell you the truth, guys, I'm really just scared of what the future holds for me. I'm almost 30 and have not even achieved half the things I dreamt about when I was 18. I live in limbo, I avoid my family as much as possible except now people are dying and I feel guilty about avoiding them and the girl I love lives on another continent. So, yeah, I'm a little scared moving forward. Life, your fire is hot and I don't know whether I will be consumed or refined by your flames.
Lots of people are doing so much better than me and I won't lie, I hate those people. Fuckin' hard working, intelligent, never-give-up-guts assholes! Lots of people are doing worse than me and I'm lucky that I have a job that I like (and seems to like me), my family still tolerates my shit, I have money for food and beer, I have a girl who loves me, I have friends that like me or at least are nice enough to pretend to like me (pretending goes a long way) and though I have moved a million times in the last two years I have a place to sort of call home. Still, fuck you guys a bit for being so demanding! Life with all your shit, Death with you crazy efficiency (you're probably German) and God for all your silence. Fuck me a bit too, though! You guys are not the biggest asshats to me. In fact I'm a huge asshat to myself in many instances.
Anyhoo, that's just what I'm thinking and feeling at the moment. I just feel like a loser right now and just wanted you guys to know and maybe get a hug. I like hugs.
I like cool things as much as the next person . . . okay
maybe a little more than the next person and last week Thursday I got to go see
a pretty cool thing. I was at The Waiting Room on Long Street to see two bands
that I’d never heard of before but sounded interesting so I gathered my
entourage (I have them just lying around) and with the promise of beer and good
music we headed for The Waiting Room to see TheCITY and Tholakele. I’m glad to
report back that my promise of beer and good music was fulfilled because both
bands blew me away and I had a rocking good time. You should check both bands
out some time.
The Waiting Room is the sort of grungy and intimate place
that draws in cool and artsy people and the crowd consisted of these kinds of
individuals. The setting was cosy with comfy chairs placed facing the small
stage and there was some space for people to dance it up should the music move
them. This was the sort of gig where people get to chatting with each other and
the bands, making friends and just having a good time jamming to some cool
sounds.
Tholakele were first to grace the stage with their African
Jazzy sound. Bronwen Clacherty is the leading lady and vocalist of the band and
her voice is just amazingly rich and with the band performing songs like Ngqo Ngqo Ngqo, Nozimama and Nyemamusasa
they really are an act that is representative of South Africa’s linguistic and
cultural diversity. Bronwen also showcased some remarkable usage of traditional
instruments like bows and something that I’m 93.4% sure is a mbira in adding an
African flavour to their music. Bronwen studied at The South African College of
Music, University of Cape Town and explored musical areas such as Jazz
Vibraphone, Classical Percussion, Cuban Percussion and African Instruments focusing
on South African bows. You can catch some of the songs Tholakele performed on
the night on her Facebook page. You can also catch her hanging out
in the Twitter streets: @Bronwenclack.
TheCITY closed off the night on a very high note with their
heart pumping Future Afro style. The band is made up of Bonj Mpanza on vocals and her voice is powerful and
downright haunting.Clement Carr works magic on the keys, Ryan McArthur rocks out on bass and Ruby
Crowie drives the truck on drums. I was looking forward to this performance
after I had their song, Long for You
stuck in my head from listening to it the previous evening on PopsicleTV.com.
These guys are the epitome of cool and every single song they played had me
singing along, tapping my feet and bobbing my head along to the music. My
favourite three were Long for You, Nguwe and Something Sweet. You can download their EP on iTunes and it’s
pretty damn amazing!
TheCITY and Tholakele are two rocking bands and my entourage
and I had a great time at their gig. As I’d said before, if you have time and
they are in the area it’s well worth your while to pop in and listen to some
good music.
Africa is the continent that gave birth to the human race, it
is a place of abundant natural wealth and it is a place of great beauty. By
rights Africa should be the Eden of our planet but, alas, it is not. When the
rest of the world thinks of Africa they think of war, poverty, laziness and
people who are late for appointments. The rest of the world either looks down
on us or sees us as some sort of charity case. South Africa, like many African
states is a place of vast wealth and crippling poverty all in one place. TEDxTableMountain, like all TEDx events all over the globe, is an independently
organised event that looks to get people together in the spirit of nurturing ideas worth spreading. TED is a
non-profit organisation devoted to spreading good ideas. It started as a
four-day conference in California some 26 years ago and has since spread to the
rest of the word, even darkest Africa. The idea is that thinkers and doers are
asked to give a talk in 18 minutes that will share a great idea. Independent events
are organised under the TEDx name with support from TED. So although Africa has
many problems there are many individuals working hard and working smart to
address our problems. TEDx TableMountain hosted their second event on Monday
night, 25 May and the theme was: Journeys of Excellence. 25 May is also Africa
Day so what better way to celebrate the continent than listening to a great
line-up of speakers explore ideas that can help ease some of our problems or at
least start a conversation that will pave the way to solutions.
This year’s TEDxTableMountain event took place at the
Artscape Theatre and curator, Candice Pelser (@CandicePelser) and her team did
a great job organising the event. I’m a super nerd for any event where people
share ideas and dragged my ever suffering girlfriend with me to the event. We
were welcomed with a ‘passport’ to the talks each and some other cute freebies
and it was all rather cool. The crowd was massive and everyone looked excited
to be there as they stood around chatting. We had to wait a bit longer than
expected to be seated because the previous Africa Day event ran a bit longer
than anticipated. Once everyone was inside the theatre and seated we were ready
to go. Some important and somewhat familiar looking people could be seen in the
front rows, the most recognizable being Premier of the Western Cape, Helen
Zille. I made a mental note to take a selfie with her later.
Our Mistress of Ceremonies for the evening was the beautiful,
delightful and super enthusiastic Chi Mhende (@chi_mhende). The evening saw
some powerful performances by the Ikapa Youth Dance Theatre (http://ikapadancetheatre.co.za/trai/youth-dance-theatre), Derek Gripper (@derekgripper)
translating great African composers whose music is passed down for generations
but never written down and the group, Whispers of Wisdom (@Whisperzofwiz)
delivering a performance that inspires Africans, especially the youth, to dream
bigger than is expected of them. The overarching theme on the evening was that
even though South Africa and the rest of Africa are facing serious and very
large problems Africans can step up to the plate and through individual and
collaborative journeys of excellence we can rise above those problems.
The speakers were made up of Dr Gubela Mji who spoke about
her experience working as a researcher collecting data about how to improve the
lives of disabled people but then seeing that research just being stored up in
shelves and never being used for anything. She formed a network with other
researchers and like-minded individuals to take all the data just sitting
around and started exploring ways to make the date accessible enough so as to
actually be useful in improving the lives of disable people. Paul Mesarcik
(@paulmesarcik) showed a device that he and his team created to detect shack
fires before they spread and leave many people homeless. The device is called
Lumkani, which loosely translates from Xhosa to English as everyone beware. Dr
Llewellyn Padayachy, a paediatric neurosurgeon spoke about his research into
non-invasive techniques to diagnose and guide the treatment of critical
conditions affecting the brain, especially in poor communities in which many
people can’t afford expensive surgeries for diagnosing such conditions. Dr
Tindile Booi is a qualified medical doctor and now works in a psychiatric
context and helps children from difficult backgrounds and teenagers affected by
HIV cope with their situations and helps them believe that life is worth
living. One of the ways she does this is interactive storytelling. Dr Tindile
Booi’s talk/performance was my favourite of the evening and her way of telling
stories, singing and dancing is a thing of beauty to behold.
Shadreck Chirikure is Associate Professor of Archaeology and
Director of the Archaeological Materials Laboratory at the University of Cape
Town and he addressed the negative view that people have of Africa as never
having produced any technology. He explored some old findings to the contrary
and showed that Africa has produced some advanced technology through its
history. Continuing with the technological trend Prof Robert van Zyl showcased
the CubeSat he worked on with his students. The CubeSat is a nanosatellite in
the shape of a cube that can be sent into Space at relatively low cost. Joseph
Wamicha, a young man after my own heart, spoke about how the idea of deeper
space exploration and eventually colonisation is not just the stuff of science
fiction but something we can work on right now. The Earth’s resources are
finite, as we know very well here in Africa, but if we could look beyond the
Earth and tap into the bountiful resources of the universe we could solve many
conflicts here on Earth.
What I took away from the evening is that Africa is more than
just a place of darkness and backward thinking. Yes, we have problems but
Africans are more than capable of surmounting those problems with the wealth of
resources we have. Not resources in terms of gold of silver but rather our
human capital. Africans know hardship but this is also what makes us more
resourceful and think outside of the box. Africans can be excellent and be a
force of good change in the world. Events like TEDxTableMountain are very
important because they provide us with the platform to get together and discuss
our problems and our ideas for solving them.
I finished reading JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy earlier this year after avoiding it for a while but then Christmas happened and I got book vouchers as a gift and the book was on sale at the local bookstore. Christmas made me do it! I enjoyed the book though, it was lots of fun to read. Nothing like Harry Potter, of course. JK Rowling is allowed to write other things, you know ;). It was more like Game of Thrones lite with more normal seeming crazy people (they are all batshit certified). The Casual Vacancy is the story of a small English town largely populated by petty adults and petty school children, all of them preoccupied or affected by petty small town politics in some way. Everyone in this story is downright crazy on some level. JK Rowling knows how to tell a good story, she's not popular for no good reason. Anyhoo, I see that The Casual Vacancy made it onto TV in the form of a miniseries as a joint production by HBO and the BBC. The series consists of three 60-minute episodes and was aired from 15 February to 01 March this year. The series is directed by Jonny Campbell, who has directed a few episodes of Spooks, Doctor Who and the film, Alien Autopsy. The screenplay is by Sarah Phelps who writes for the soap opera, EastEnders.
Some of the names that comprise the cast are Rory Kinnear as Barry Fairbrother, Emily Bevan as Mary Fairbrother. Michael Gambon who played Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies plays the rather sinister Howard Mollison in the series. Julia McKenzie plays his equally conniving wife, Shirley Mollison. Keeley Hawes plays Samantha Mollison. Lolita Chakrabarti portrays Parminder Jawanda and Silas Carson her husband, Vikram Jawanda.
From the two trailers I saw the show looks like it could be fun and I will be getting my mittens on it soon.
I was at Tech Talk Cape Town on Wednesday night and wrote a little something so you can go see what a great and informative time you missed out on. Shame on you!
Winter is coming . . . Well, here in South Africa winter is
actually coming but no one cares about that because the winter that really
matters brings with it fear. To quote Old Nan: “Fear is for the winter, my
little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes
howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its
face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in
darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move
through the woods.” That is winter, Game of Thrones style, my sweet summer
child and we cannot wait.
There be dragons!
It seem that pirates with even more cunning than Salladhor Saan could not wait either and leaked the first four episodes of Season 5. Game of Thrones is already the most pirated show in the world and it looks like this is not about to change. This is a really harsh blow for HBO though as the pirates are now a whole four weeks ahead of everyone and it's likely that the interwebs will be overrun with spoilers in the next few weeks. If you are not a pirate and want to avoid spoilers I would suggest that you avoid going online in any way and just lock yourself in a dark room for the next few weeks. Another blow to HBO is that they timed the release of their standalone streaming service, HBO Go with the release of the new season. This meant that those without cable TV could watch the show at the same time as everyone else but now the pirates are way ahead.
Season 5 is being aired simultaneously here in South Africa as it is in the US and kicks off tonight at 21:00 on HBO, which translates to 03:00 tomorrow morning here. Catch it on DStv's M-Net Edge, channel 102. If you are not a crazy fan person (seriously, you aren't?) you can catch the episodes on Thursday nights at 21:00 on M-Net Edge as well, starting off from 16 April.
Daenerys Targaryen, everyone's favourite Khaleesi
I feel rather bad for HBO with the whole piracy thing and I hope they have a clever response that won't leave viewers who aren't pirates out in the cold.
Anyhoo, another year and another season of our favourite show. Enjoy, everybody. Also, it seems Jon Snow still knows nothing even when he's invited to a dinner party.
Do you guys remember how Ben Affleck ruined Daredevil back in 2003? He was after all responsible for everything wrong in that movie: writing the script, directing the thing, playing Elektra. . . Just everything! Poor sap. The dude made a poor choice in accepting the role, for sure but let's let it go. . . Okay we can let it go after you watch Screen Junkies' hilarious Honest Trailer for Daredevil. Then we can all forgive Batfleck for his portrayal of Marvel's man with no fear as we wait to see him as DC's man with no fear in 2016.
In other news Marvel Studios sure know how to make good movies and their TV efforts are quite okay. They add Daredevil to their cinematic universe and it looks really great. Charlie Cox (The Theory of Everything) is our leading man this time around. All 13 episodes of Season 1 are available on Netflix as of today so prepare to binge-watch, you filthy little glutton, you. Netflix hates us a bit down here in sunny South Africa so let's see how it goes.
You know how in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy far out
in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm
of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun orbited by an utterly
insignificant little blue green planet at a distance of roughly ninety-two
million miles? And you know how the ape-descended life forms are so amazingly
primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea? Well,
being a member of those life forms I am sad to admit that I am always late to
the party. I still think analogue watches are a pretty neat idea. Anyhoo, all I
am saying is that I am behind when it comes to all the cool things. The current
cool thing is the Uber taxi service that originated in the good ol’ US and has
since been spreading in major cities around the world. I live in Cape Town and
tried the service out yesterday and it was pretty freakin’ rockstar as all hell!
I live in Cape Town’s CBD and though the public transport is
better than what you’d find in my home city, Johannesburg, it still leaves a lot
to be desired. Living in the CBD it’s easiest for my housemates and I to get
around using cab services, which are quite cheap in and around the city but are
rarely on time and some of the companies have vehicles that are nowhere near
roadworthy. Some of the companies provide great service though but the thing
that really grinds my gears is when meter taxis refuse to use their meters! I
hate having to haggle for a fair price every time I’m out and just want to get
home. Then there are the overpriced meter at Waterfront that make me want to
pull the little hair I have out. The driver tells you his meter charges R10.00
a km and 5 km later the meter is sitting on R100.00! These things make me very
angry so I was pretty happy to give Uber a go.
Get to the UberCHOPPER!
The whole service is quite seamless. You download the app and
add your credit card details. Some people are a bit concerned about this part
but I figure I buy stuff online on the regular and trust all those folks with
my details so I’ll give this a go. It’s still early days though so if something
shady does go down with my bank account I will let you know and we can go to Uber’s house together and beat them up. Once that’s done you’re ready to ride.
I got my first ride free because of the whole referral thing they have going
on. If you refer a friend to the service and they enter your promo code you
both get R90.00 free credit. A friend referred me so that was pretty nice. I see
they have an offer of R150.00 a referral for both parties now so support a
Charlie boy and enter my promo code when you sign up: mnqxg. I love
me some free stuff and I bet you do too.
Anyhoo, once you’re all signed up and want go out you simply
request one of three types of rides: UberX, UberXL or UberBLACK. X is the normal
one and you get something in the line of a TOYOTA COROLLA, HONDA BRIO AMAZE SEDAN or VOLKSWAGEN POLO picking you up and it’s charged at a base fee of
R5.00, R0.70 per minute in addition to R7.00 a km. The minimum fare is R20.00. The
XL is an SUV when you want to bring more of the gang along and is charged at
the same rate as the XL but with a minimum fare of R30.00. The last option, the
BLACK is the classy one where you get picked up in a BMW 3-SERIES, AUDI A4 or
MERCEDES-BENZ E-CLASS. It’s R15.00 base fee, R1.10 per minute in addition to
R11.00 per km if you feel like balling. If you feel the need to channel your inner Arnie and yell, "Get to the chopper!" Uber has you covered with their UberCHOPPER service. I'm not sure on the pricing for this one though.
The GPS in the app picks up where you are (you can adjust if
it gets the location a little wrong) and then you can type your destination in
and it shows you an estimate of the costs for the vehicle type you’d like to
use. If you’re happy you just click to request a taxi and they send you the
details and photo of the nearest driver. They even show you the driver’s
location as they drive to you on the map. When the taxi arrives you get a text
and are ready to be on your merry way. I took to UberX service and got picked
up in the HONDA and it was very pleasant. The driver didn’t drive at breakneck
speed, he asked if my partner and I would like the aircon on and it was just
all very professional. The driver on the way back even had bottles of still
water in cool holders in the car. When you jump out at your destination you
don’t worry about paying and arguing over price. You get an email with a
receipt of your trip and how much you were charged. In the app you get to rate
the driver as well.
My first Uber experience was uber cool and I’d recommend it
to the masses. Download the app and give it a bash. Enter my promo code and
both of us get R150.00 credit: mnqxg.
