Genesis

For a week in September, we had no water at all. We were forced to buy water from Makro, who very kindly discounted the cost of same to help us and people in a similar situation. Despite the discount we spent in 2 days about R900 on bottled water. For the record, this is what our monthly bill usually amounts too…

So come October, I download our water and rates bill [as is the norm for this time of year, the Post Office flunkies are on strike and no mail has been delivered for about 3 months now – but I get all of mine by email so I’m not phased, haven’t posted a letter in almost a decade]. Lo and behold, despite the week of no water, there is no difference in the amount the municipality has charged us.

Yesterday the new Minister of Finance alluded to the fact that due to shortages in revenue, we can expect tax hikes next year. This is quite fucking annoying as the reason for the shortfall is due to the fact that for 6 months there were strikes in the platinum sector, corruption within the ruling party has hit new heights, our president has built himself a house to the tune of R250 million using tax payers money. Service delivery is all but non-existent, Zumas cabinet is so bloated it looks like that character from Star Wars Jabba the Hut.

It worries me that we are at the mercy of a government that is totally out of control headed up by a lying [and if the rumors are true – disease ridden] president. There is a small minority in SA that actually work and pay taxes, and a majority sitting idly by hand outstretched demanding everything for free.

Add to this, the government has already indicated that it wants to institute free healthcare for all of the voters dumb enough to vote for it.

Sitting on the sidelines is the EFF party who since being sworn in, have not done a single days work. Malema sits in his dark corner, wearing his red beret and Zuma continues to make himself the most unpopular president SA has ever had.

So in summary, the ANC are killing SA, and if/when they are voted out, there is a good chance that Malema will be voted in.

Then we are really fucked.

Ok, so I haven’t restarted or rebooted my kindle for a couple of months now. On Saturday, I had a problem with a book that wasn’t indexing properly, so I deleted the book and in a moment of absolute, wish I had a time machine, madness, rebooted my Kindle.

First thing I noticed is that no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to connect to to my WiFi.

After about 8 very frustrating hours I was finally able to get my WiFi and my Kindle to ‘talk’ to each other.

If you are ever in a situation where you have no choice but to reset your kindle, I’d suggest you make a copy of the entire documents folder, this will save you having to download the books from your cloud account again – which if you’re like me and have over a hundred books on your device, is a real life saver. Then after the reset you simply copy it back onto your device.

After all the fun I’ve had, I have become very wary of what I’ve come to call stealth updates, that manifest problems much later on, so that you battle to connect the problem to the actual cause, in my case, the firmware update that was done without me being aware of it, in June.

The Kindle is a really great device and I use mine daily as I am an avid reader. But. I am now a lot more cautious now when it comes to rebooting the device as I know the hell that awaits me. A Kindle that can’t connect to Wifi [and mine only has the WiFi option] is pretty much a dead duck.

There are numerous threads on the Amazon website about this issue, some posted quite recently. Lots of people were not able to overcome the issue. I guess I just got lucky.

I have been a client of Amazon since 1997. And have always enjoyed dealing with them. But over the last 2 years or so, I’ve noticed that their pricing is no longer as competitive as it used to be. They take a margin on the exchange rate and charge a premium to ship goods to where I live – or simply refuse as our beloved postal system, when not on their annual strike, steals half the stuff that comes across their counters. They also charge a fortune for their hardware. I had to wait years before I was finally able to buy my beloved Kindle second hand from a good friend.

I see that on Tuesday 21 October, they are launching their new Kindle called The Voyage, but it comes with price tag of over $200 which I am just not willing to pay, especially after the fun I had with my current one.

In a world that has become profit driven, businesses still haven’t learnt that price is everything to those who don’t have bottomless pockets.

I used to order from Amazon on a monthly basis – but haven’t done so in over 18 months.

Supporting the local guys, just makes more sense – for now at least.

Handy Information

The final will be between the lions and western province.

As much as I’d like to believe that the Bulls can make it to the finals and win, I just don’t see it.

Year after year Frans Ludeke serves up a steaming pile of crap and calls it a game plan. Initially he coasted on Heyneke Meyers momentum, which wore out a good few years ago.

Now we have to be content with  finishing ninth on the log. Gone are the heady days of hammering every team in sight into the ground.

Then the Currie Cup rolls around and the fun begins again.

As the arguments rage about what sentence Oscar should get, it is clear to me that it won’t fit the crime.

With all due respect to the useless Judge who allowed Oscar to sit there and be his pathetic self, instead of sending him to a room where he could watch the proceedings via a camera.

This case is a travesty in so many ways. South Africa is supposed to be championing the rights of women everywhere.

Proof yet again, that he who has the money, can present the best case.

The NPA has done an okay job of attempting to nail Oscar, but the best the NPA has to offer, has seen people like Zuma walk away from being accused of corruption and rape to become president. Now there is war raging within the NPA – they should consider a name change to: Not Prosecuting Anybody.

Well done to then players and the coaching staff on another dismal super rugby campaign.

Frans Ludeke’s attempt at raising the dead in an effort to get the team on track was never going to yield the kind of results he so desperately needed.

The ONLY thing I liked about this season was that FINALLY Zane Kirchner wasn’t in it.

The same goes for all the other teams with the exception of the Sharks – who actually showed up.

The rest of the teams should return their pay cheques and go get jobs emptying dustbins.

All the New Zealand teams have put their hands up for the world cup as have about half of the Australian teams.

I don’t envy Heyneke Meyer trying to build a team that even stands a chance in the 4 nations and then in the world cup.

From what I can see now, and I really HOPE I’m wrong, the contest will come down to England and New Zealand.

So the report in all of it’s 400 plus pages of glory was finally released to the public. And guess what, there were no surprises contained in it.

I listed to an interview with Thuli Madonsela on 702 yesterday afternoon, and was blown away. She has the unenviable task of protecting the public, and lately she’s been protecting us from the very government that is supposed to running the country and repairing the damage done by apartheid etc.

A president fresh out of court after having faced rape charges was never going to be a good place to start a presidency. If anything, the case was a sham and the wheels were greased so that Zuma could become number 1. Unfortunately all of the number 1 things he’s good at, are not things that are worth bragging about. I honestly didn’t think anyone could do a worse job than Mbeki – boy was I wrong !

He has spent most of his 5 years in office, lying about his activities, upgrading his house and allowing his sponsors to land a plane at one of our air force bases. His party has introduced legislation that allows for the lies to be concealed, roads to be tolled and what can only be called a cluster fuck of an arms deal inquiry and an inquiry into Marikana. And if that wasn’t bad enough, we got to enjoy a blast from the past courtesy of eskom and there were blackouts all over our beautiful country.

The ANC should seriously consider changing its name to Another National Crisis. They are so desperate for votes that they won’t take the unions on and get the people back to work, regardless of what this means to our economy. In SA our GDP forecast is always being revised down.

If the good people of SA give the ANC the mandate they so desperately seek, you can bet your hard earned money that they will introduce more laws to cover up the shit they’ve pulled, and, to keep Zuma out of jail, he’ll more than likely amend the constitution to allow him to stay on the throne until the sun falls into the sea.

In term 1 Zuma has stolen in excess of R200 million – what do you think he’s going to do for an encore ?

Can be very convenient when looking for specialty items, and very frustrating when ordering from overseas. I tried to order 2 items at a total cost of £6.50 and was quoted £23 as the cost to ship the items to me. I ordered a cover for my phone and a magnetic cable charger. Not items that weigh as much as small car, which is when you expect to pay hefty shipping charges.

Doing business in an economy as bad as the world’s is currently is hard enough without having a brain fart and ripping people off.

Last year a good friend of mine very kindly bought Fast and Furious 6 for me. The Advert on the Takealot website stated that the version they were selling, was the extended edition. When the movie arrived, he noticed that it wasn’t the Extended Edition and queried it with them.

The tone of their response was basically a F you. I joined the debate as I didn’t think the tone was appropriate. I had in the past year also had cause to query an item I’d bought from them that had died 6 months after I bought it. They arranged for a courier to collect the item and instead of returning a repaired version to ms, they gave me a brand new one – I recall being very chuffed at the time.

Back to the Fast 6 debacle. We debated via email the fact that the item ordered wasn’t what was supplied. After numerous emails they advised that it was not their fault but their suppliers and that under no circumstances were they going to refund my friend. He eventually reported them to the Advertising Standards Authority which had no effect at all. All this for an item that cost R185 !

Last year I bought another item from them, despite my now knowing that what is advertised and what one gets, may be very different.

Today, I tried to order something and was advised that my account has been suspended – guess they dynamited the bridge without my even being aware of it.

In closing, I have been a client of theirs since they were dvdsa then became shopping matrix, then Take2  and now takealot. I have been buying online since the late 90’s and on occasion have had cause to query lost items etc. Amazon in the States, does not treat you like dog shit and make out like you are a criminal, they either refund you promptly or dispatch a replacement at their cost without batting an eyelid.

I am a believer in giving companies a second chance, but that philosophy doesn’t work, when you are a client of Takealot’s, seems they don’t believe in engaging with their clients, and would rather lose a seasoned shopper like myself – which in today’s economy, is just plain STUPID.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy right next door to you, there lived a man called Zuma…..

after doing lots of bad and stupid things, he decided that he wanted to be president

so he summoned his minions and they made it happen

when he became president, he decided that he wanted a nice BIG ass house, this was done

then his pals the Guptas asked if they could land a plane at Waterkloof, this was done

as each year passed, the minions got fatter and the poor got poorer and lots of money was stolen by Zuma and his minions

then, as the time came for the people to vote for the president and his minions again, he stood before them and told them a good story

the people went quiet as they listened to the lies tumble out of the fat leaders mouth, he stood there and talked about all he and his minions had done for the benefit of the country the people looked around them, and wondered if the president was on drugs as not one of them, could see the things he was referring too..

on 7 May we will get the chance to get OUR story right, please please, make sure you use your chance.

One of the worst decisions I made in 2013 from a Phone Upgrade point of view, was to upgrade my trusty E63 to the Lumia 720. It is easily the most frustrating, most annoying phone I’ve ever had. A few months ago, for no reason that I could clearly discern, the camera lens decided that it was no longer going to focus. I tried every thing I could think of to fix this, from resetting the phone to factory default to buying apps that helped, but did not fix the problem. After many weeks of irritating myself to no end I finally threw in the towel and gave up.

A few weeks later, I happened to accidentally engage the camera application and noticed to my utter joy, that the problem had somehow, remedied itself.

Yesterday, the problem came back. A factory reset, bricked the phone. After about 8 hours of searching I stumbled across an article written by a guy who had had a similar problem. He’d managed to solve it via a piece of software that Nokia released to fix the problem I was having (the annoying spinning gears). At 1.30 this morning my phone was finally restored to working order. The camera, still not focussing, no matter what I do – and this includes a few attempts at manually refocusing the damn thing by throwing it at the wall and drop kicking it across the room.

If you are thinking up getting a Lumia, I’d suggest you don’t. As far as I know, and this from reading threads in forums from around the world. Nokia are aware of the problem, but have chosen to do sweet fuck all about it. I have been a loyal Nokia client for over a decade now. That door is closed. 2014 will start a new relationship with a phone that isn’t as full of shit as this one is.

Happy new year and all that.