Genesis

Well, so much for 2013. People laughed at me in February when I told then how many shopping days their were until Christmas…

For me, 2013 was a year of contrasts, but with news or events that either shocked or awed.

I can still remember the first time I heard about Oscar making his Valentines day one he’d never ever forget. The first insert in the breaking news on 702 hardly registered as I went about my morning routine of trying to wake up and work up the energy and desire to go to work. As the day and the week wore on, I eventually grew totally numb. I have my own thoughts about what actually happened that night, time will tell if I was right. Or the Not Prosecuting Anyone will make such a mess of this that this will become like the Kennedy assassination.

If memory serves, the next item on the agenda was the news about the cost of Nkandla. I think we can all agree, that Boo likes to live large, like many in his employ. In all honesty I don’t think the R200 million is all that was spent. Rumors abound that the roads were also upgraded to the tune of about half a billion, with plans to build a small R2 billion city in close proximity to our new temporary national keypoint – whatever the fuck that is.

I made the biggest financial mistake of my life this year, when I took my car to Car Service City [They should call themselves Shitty Car Service]. All I wanted was a basic service. They stripped my car and ‘found’ other items that needed attention, which as it turns out they didn’t. I was quoted R800 and was eventually charged in excess of R8000. I took my car back to them and they messed it up even more. So finally out of desperation I took my car to the manufacturer who restored her to her former self. So what should’ve cost less than a grand, ended up costing me twenty. This dent in my finances really messed me up. If you think I’m talking crap or exaggerating, take a spin past www.hellopeter.com and have a look at what other victims have to say.

Number 1 or Boo as he’s know known – allowed his pals to use Waterkloof to land a private plane there so that the Guptas pals could attend a wedding. We all know that Boo authorised this and that he then lied about not doing so. The Guptas also launched the best comedy or to some, the best sci fi channel available on Dstv. Neither the Guptas of the royal shower-head have have shown any signs of remorse or regret.

OUTA, put up a very brave fight and took the e-toll saga to court, and after a very long and very drawn out battle, they lost the fight. I don’t doubt for a minute that the courts were told which way to rule. Every time someone from Satanral is interviewed they only offer numbers that can’t be substantiated or veiled threats as to what will happen if you dare not abide by the user pay principal, which doesn’t apply to ANC members. The Unions have offered token resistance to the idea and their lame attempts to resist e-tolls have amounted to almost enough to fill a thimble with warm piss.

All I can say about the Rugby is that it sucked. Heyneke Meyer did not impress me at all, and I’m a Blue Bulls fan. Next world cup might as well stay in New Zealand for all the good he’s going to do us. Nice to see the Great White in charge of the Sharks, they may be our only hope to defeat the evil empire, oh wait, that’s from Star Wars…..

My Sister-in-law very kindly gave me her old Samsung tablet, the 8.9 inch one. Not having ever had a tablet before, I thought this was one of those gifts that was going to sit and gather dust alongside all my other tech toys. I installed the Kindle application on it and the rest as they say, is history. A few weeks ago, I read an article on how to upgrade the operating system on it, to a newer version. Which I duly did. After much sweating and cursing and some really badly written articles on how to do this, I managed to upgrade the OS from Honeycomb to Jelly Bean and am loving it. Hopefully one day soon, I’ll even be able to upgrade it to KitKat – who knows… a few nights ago I installed a game called Candy Crush on it for my Wife to play – haven’t seen my Tablet since…

Mugabe ‘won’ another election – the champagne is on ice for the day he exits the stage.

Man of Steel came out, watched it twice, and it sucked twice. Iron Man 3 was great, as was Fast and Furious 6 [RIP Paul Walker]. I loved the Lone Ranger and Thor 2. Hobbit 2 was good, just a tad long and ended abruptly, liked the She-Elf though, even if she wasn’t in the book. Looking forward to seeing the final chapter next year – Peter, please tell me the third one is the last – and have you ever heard of the Silmarillion ?

Winter was great, we never even turned on our beloved dust covered gas heater. The Rain has been great as well. Nothing like getting your annual rainfall at 4 o’ clock every day just as you’re about to go home.

It was during the end of our nice warm Winter and the Start of our rain filled Summer that I chanced upon 2 new Metal Bands. Powerwolf and Battle Beast. They are 2 of the finest Metal bands I have ever come across. I also noticed that Bring me the Horizon released a new album entitled: Sempiternal. To put it mildly, this album blew me away. I rate it as one of the best Metal albums I have ever heard, ever. It is not for the faint of heart, but if you want a much heavier Linkin Park, then give your ears a present and give this album a listen.

Strikes also did a lot of damage to SA’s international reputation, with the ANC choosing to not get involved as they need the votes come 2014.

Another highlight was the acquisition of a second-hand Kindle from a good friend. Being an avid reader, and owning over 700 paperbacks, the Kindle has allowed me to enjoy new authors at a rate I previously couldn’t afford and no longer have space to store. The Kindle store allows you to buy books so cheaply that I bought about 50 over the last 6 months or so. I love the fact that the books are stored in the ‘cloud’ so that if you need to restore them to a new device.

Both the Arms deal and Marikana have become the farces the ANC want them to be.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots of great things that happened this year, but hey shit happens.

On 5 December 2013 @ 8.50 the greatest leader South Africa has ever seen, passed quietly into the night. I was in Cape Town on 11 February 1990 when he gave his first speech after being released from prison. At that point I had no idea who Nelson Mandela was, or why such a fuss was being made about his release. At the time, I was doing my national service in the police force and my unit (a Riot Unit) had been deployed into the Cape Town to keep the peace. As the years rolled by, I watched a man who had every right to be spitting mad at the people who’d put him in jail and effectively stolen over a quarter of his life, mold a country into what it is today. What SA could’ve been and what she has become, are 2 very different stories. Courtesy of a Man who decided that Intellect can build so much more than fists can tear down, we are almost a united SA.

The leadership of the ANC has slid downhill since he stepped down. But in 2014, we will go to the polls and hopefully, hopefully, people will vote with Madiba in mind and not for that disgrace that currently sits on the throne. If they vote for him, he will have another 5 years to enrich himself at our cost and his party will continue to party instead of working for the very people that elected them. Anyone with even half a brain, can see the damage JZ’s done to the SA brand and to his very own ANC brand. Unfortunately he’s a master at chess and has his pieces are in place already.

2014 will be either a great year for SA or one where the dark lord sour on gets his grubby hands on the ring and ushers in a new dark age. Only our votes can stop this from happening.

After the fall of apartheid, Jacob Zuma came back from exile and became MEC for Economic Affairs and Tourism in KwaZulu-Natal. He decided to build a house. At Nkandla. That he couldn’t afford. This wasn’t a problem, though. Other people could afford it. The initial payments were made in 2000, by Nora Fakude-Nkuna, an Mpumalanga businesswoman. Other payments were made by Vivian Reddy and Schabir Shaik. Loans, apparently. Loans that Zuma simply had no reasonable prospect of repaying. At least not in cash money.

2. Nkandla sits at the heart of the questions surrounding the arms deal.

Remember Shaik? Sick guy? Keen golfer? He went to jail for corruption. One of the things that got him sent off for his brief stay in some of our nation’s finest hospitals was the deal he made in securing an irregular annual R500 000 payment for Zuma. The first payment of this amount was for R250 000. It went towards Nkandla.

3. Two hundred million? Hah!

Nkandla is a quiet little place. It has a rather sparsely spread population of about 115000 people. That’s fewer than live in Diepsloot. They don’t have much. But they do have a new road. A nice, shiny R582 000 000 road. That happens to go right past the President’s shiny new home.

That might seem a little excessive for a poor and sparsely populated area, but it’s not. You see, a town is being planned. A shiny new town just round the corner from Zuma’s shiny new home. A town that is set to cost R2 billion.

4. Nkandla sits at the heart of the ANC’s obsession with secrecy.

It is pretty damn hard to justify what’s going on that little hill in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn’t it be easier not to have to justify anything at all? So out came that dusty old apartheid law, The National Key Points Act. No, we aren’t going to answer any questions about the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money that we’re pouring into the back end of nowhere. We’d love to, but we can’t. It’s a matter of national security.

That must have been nice, to be able to deftly sidestep all those ugly questions the press kept asking. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got the government thinking about other ways to use the law to control the media.

5. The Public Protector is about to get her butt kicked. Because of Nkandla.

I like Thuli Madonsela. She seems to me to be a woman of great integrity and very little fear. It’s going to be sad to see her go. And go she will.

Do not ever underestimate our President. The man is a frighteningly good player of power games. If you ever doubt this, draw yourself up a list of those who have crossed him or stood in his way, and look at where they are now. You can start with Mbeki and Malema and work your way down to Vusi Pikoli.

And now, through no fault of her own, Thuli Madonsela has stood in his way. And the security cluster are starting to loosen up their shoulders and strap on their brass knuckles. I’m going to miss her.

So what does all of this mean for us ordinary citizens? A great deal. It means that those who lead us can no longer look us in the eye. They aren’t the good guys anymore. They aren’t building a nation. They’re building a house on a hill near Eshowe. And it’s making them look like a joke.

It all boils down to a single, simple, question; what about Nkandla?

No money to pay health department bills? what about Nkandla?

Cutting up government credit cards and eliminating wasteful expenditure? what about Nkandla?

Taking a stand against corruption? But what about Nkandla?

No money to build new schools? But what about Nkandla?

E-tolls needed to pay for roads? But what about Nkandla?

And the answer to that question? There simply isn’t one. Good people, with the best interests of their country at heart, have to look down at their feet and shrug their shoulders, and part with a little bit of what made them good. Bad people, pushed into a corner by the lack of an answer, set their jaws and start shouting words like racist and counter revolutionary in the hope that the dust will obscure the million Rand cattle kraal and the Astroturf soccer pitch.

So what should we do? I don’t know. But here’s my suggestion. Build it. Get it done. It’s been thirteen years, and cost us vastly more than mere money. Call in the army and set them to work digging foundations and painting walls. Shut down the hospitals and the schools and the police and pour all of our taxes into the dust of Nkandla until that one, single man looks up at it one day and says It’s done now. I have taken enough.

Then we can issue a blanket pardon for every dodgy deed ever done in the name of Nkandla. We can pile up all the records on a great big pyre and burn them. Every dodgy loan agreement, every classified document, every inflated tender. Just burn them. Purify that hill with fire.

And then we can go back to building a nation again. The good people in our government will be able to look us in the eye again, and the bad ones can stop throwing stones. We can focus on building schools and not throwing books into rivers. We can corner corrupt politicians and bring them to justice without them pointing at Nkandla and saying What about that? We can give our leaders their soul back.

Until our President decides Nkandla needs a high security entertainment centre. Then it’s back to square-one again

Source

Re-loading a PC’s OS is nothing when compared to upgrading the OS on a Samsung Tablet. I must’ve read about a thousand posts/guides on how to do this, of which about ten, actually got me about halfway. Then I managed to find the missing steps on YouTube.

And, to make it even more fun, I have an old outdated Tablet, I mean the thing is like REALLY OLD, must be at least 3 years old. Sometimes companies product lines evolve so fast, that as you open the box to retrieve your ‘new’ purchase, an article is being typed up to advise that the product has been end of lifed and is no longer supported.

I’m sure that by the end of Decemebr we’ll be on version 26544165165164.02 of Firefox.

The Upgrade to ICS is relatively simple, you need 2 files, pretty much any version of Odin and the ICS Rom itself. Press the volume button down and then and the same time press and hold the power button. This will take you into the recovery mode, when the little Android robot appears, press the power button up twice.

This will take you into the Odin option. On your PC, open up Odin, check the AP box, point Odin at the Rom file [Should be in the form of a Tar file] – it will initialise and then you should be able to click start. Takes about 5 minutes from start to finish.

http://androidromupdate.com/2012/12/13/install-upgrade-samsung-galaxy-tab-8-9-gt-p7300-to-official-android-4-0-4-ice-cream-sandwich-p7300xxlq6/ – in case you get stuck

If you want to upgrade from ICS to Jelly Bean, I’d suggest seeing a therapist as you will need to get your hands on some prozac. This process is so different when compared to what I wrote above, it might as well be a different planet.

Jelly Bean requires installing a thing called a clockword mod, which is done the same way as you install ICS. Then you have to find a stable rom and its google apps brother – both will be in the form of Zip files which you access through the Clockwork mod menu. Something I learnt the hard way. You have to copy the zip files into the root of your SD card first, before you wipe the OS off. If like me you didn’t know this, you can then re-install the ICS rom in Bulgarian, then after 2 hours of trying to find the change language option, reboot and then install Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean then tells you that the keyboard doesn’t work and BOY is that fun trying to fix [it can’t be fixed by the way – you have to find a stable rom and then wipe and install it]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/ – these guys have everything you need, and lots you won’t understand – like when I was able to make phone calls on my state of the ark tablet, but was not able to hang up the call.

If you are not faint of heart and like the term, dirty install, then this is something you might enjoy attempting, if not, then go rake up some leaves or something.

In 2014 – SA will have what is probably the most important election we’ve ever had.

The sad thing is that masses will express their collective ignorance and vote with fear in their hearts and minds and vote the ANC back into power. And by doing so, will give the Royal Showerhead another 5 years of robbing SA blind.

Even a blind man can see that the ANC is rotten to it’s core, every appointment they make is to further their desire to steal and enrich themselves before they are eventually ousted.

How many police commissioners must we go through before the people realise that Zuma wants a MORON there, he wants the special policing units impotent, as this keeps the spotlight off him and his bullshit.

In any other country, an Nkandla or a Guptgate would’ve resulted in someone ending up in jail or at the very least, unemployed. Bot not in SA. Zuma sits on an NGO with his cousin, and it was just awarded a tender for a BILLION RAND – nothing wrong with that.

Every time Zuma pockets a few million, and we do nothing, WE empower him. We act as an enabler.

Next year we get an opportunity to FIGHT THE FUTURE.

Use it, before the ANC legislate us into a new era of apart-hate.

We are halfway through November and the Springboks have one game left to play before they scatter before the four winds again. We gave Scotland a klap of note and the guys are hugging each other and have tears in their eyes. Guys ! It was SCOTLAND we beat, everybody beat them. I’ll reserve my other comments for after the game against France.

Super rugby was a waste of time as was the Currie Cup – and by this I mean from a Bull’s point of view, from a Ludeke and Pienaar point of view. If the Bull’s management are going to insist on employing the dumb and dumber of rugby coaches we will continue to fail. I had a good laugh the other day after reading about plans to upgrade Loftus to the tune of over a Billion Rand. What’s the POINT !! Unless we win games, the stadium can have golden toilet seats in it for all the goods it’s going to do.

I am not optimistic about our chances of winning the next rugby world cup. I’ll even go so far as to say we won’t even make the semis. The reason for this is simple. Heyneke doesn’t have the guys for a long enough period each season to get them into a unit that can seriously contest the next RWC. Super Rugby takes a huge chuck of they year, and leaves many broken bodies in its wake. Then the guys take a breather and go play the Tri-Nations (or whatever the frack it’s called these days). Then it’s back to Super Rugby. And somewhere in between we have the Currie Cup. Now the greedy guys at Sarfu want to increase the number teams we have in Super Rugby to 6. Soon Super Rugby will run for 12 months and it’ll be like soccer with so many games on, you’ll want to barf. And, with so many teams in it, I believe that the quality of the games will decline so as it become ridiculous.

I’m sorry to say this, but the future of Rugby does not look all shiny and bright, but quite the opposite.

It’s called a Protea Son, and it WILTS under pressure.

What can I say ? My team, the Blue bulls sucked on so many different levels that it defies belief. And to think that a few years ago, my team was winning trophies hand over fist !

Heyneke Meyer took over the coaching of the Sprinkgboks and talked tough about having a plan to get them back on track. I must’ve misunderstood the plan, as I expected to at least bare some fruit during the course of 2012 !

I watched game after game with the Bokke getting their asses handed to them in almost every one. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s alot of talent and experience in the current team. It’s not like he chose a team of unknows put the green and gold jerseys on them and sent them off praying for the best. I was horrified as  watched the Boks play a kind if rugby I never thought I’d see. The kind of rugby you’d expect from a country that’s just started playing the game.

For the first time ever, every victory just made us look worse. The last game against England was a shocker. When a coach tells the world that a win by any margin is acceotable, I know he’s full of shit.

We didn’t win the world cup twice because of our looks, we won it because we’re a damn fine rugby playing nation with some of the best talent the rugby world has to offer.

I say this grudgingly, because I’m not a fan at all of the All Blanks – but you have to admire their consistency. Hopefully, HM has a plan, that will see the Bokke rise again from the ashes of Div’s half assed attempt to coach the Bokke.

So the cANCer has pretty much wrapped up their policy conference and re-elected Zuma for another 1000 years [this is an exxageration but it may as well be as he’s redefined the word: useless].

There has been alot of media coverage of this circus and lots of people waving their arms in the air as they think that his second term will be different to his first. To be honest, all Zuma has to do, to make his second term different from his first, is change a lightbulb on any street anywhere in South Africa – this would constitute a 100% more fruitful productivity than during his first term.

That his minions voted him back in after all the scandals surrounding him, proves to me that they are not interested in the facts, but only in the rewards their votes will bring them. As is being evidenced by the cleaning of the ANC house that is currently underway – by this I mean they’re getting rid of anyone who dared vote against fatso.

Putting this idiot back in charge, is very big F U to the people of SA. There is no doubt in my mind that Zuma is just as corrupt as that sack of human garbage Mugabe.

Scary times lie ahead for our beautiful country as Zuma and his cronies sink their claws deeper into her. Don’t be surprised when they come for you in the dead of night..

Chronology of events:

31 October 2012 – request to change tarriff plan emailed to customerservice@cellc.co.za

7 November 2012 – follow up sent to same address

14 November 2012 – follow up sent again

27 November 2012 – received email from CellC requesting I contact them, which I did by email

3 December 2012 – sent additional info that they required

21 December 2012 – sent follow up email requesting feedback – out of office reply received

I’ve been a client of CellC’s for a long time now, over the years I’ve come to accept the fact they they know sweet f all about customer service. The above isn’t the first time I’ve been treated poorly by them – and I doubt it’ll be the last.

Just lodged a complaint on hellopeter let’s see what happens now (for the record, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to resort to hellopeter to sort a cellc issue out either).

A few weeks back, my Wife and I decided to get a new puppy. And since we are both Sharpei mad, the choice was obvious. So she did some research on the internet and found a pretty decent breeder of these gorgeous creatures. We went and had a look at their puppies and after a 2 minute discussion, we bought one. She’s a gun metal blue colour and looks like a wrinkled towel, with very long legs and has eyes that could melt the steel that Wolverine’s skeleton is made out of, at a hundred meters.

This weekend that’s just past, we got the third addition to what we now fondly call The Ark, as we have a house filled with dogs. On Sunday, my wife noticed that Fat Panda, kept walking into things, so we took her to the vet for them to have a look at her eyes, as Sharpei’s are genetically prone to a condition called Entropion. This is when the eyelashes rub up against the eye itself and if left untreated, can cause blindness. This occurs as a result of the numerous folds that a Sharpei has. Our 2 other wrinkle bums have also had to have corrective surgery in this regard.

Now, the point I wish to make here, is that the breeder took our wrinkle bum to their vet, who did sweet F all in the way of remedying the situation, and, in my humble opinion, exacerbated the situation. Even I, as a layman, having no expertise in animal medicine, could see there was a problem here, simply by rolling back the eyelids, I could see that there were eyelashes sticking out, and that they must’ve been making contact, quite painfully so, given Fat Pandas scrunched up face, with the eyes themselves.

The vet we have, is a very decent and brilliant human being and doctor. The vet who did this, is lucky it’s illegal for me to kill him, if that ever changes, the only thing that will beat him to the hospital, is the headlights of the ambulance he’s in.