Mouse vs. Cat

I like cats.



A friend, after seeing this video here, linked to it on her Facebook page with the following comment: "You can learn so much from cats. Ignore it or do something about it. Don't waste emotional energy."

Happy Sabbath

A nice original little gospel song by LadySaane (see her YouTube-channel).




Happy Sabbath!

Zip-line . . . ek bedoel foefieslide

Verlede Sondag het ek gaan zip-line, of soos ons in Suid-Afrika daarna verwys, foefie-slide. Ek het saam met 'n groep mense gegaan na 'n zip-line baan tussen die berge. Ons het 'n reeks van nege bane elk so tussen 80 en 300 meter geniet. Ek het dit alles op video opgeneem maar sedert ek my rekenaar geformateer het, het ek nie videoredigeringsprogramme om enige iets met al die video te maak nie.

Dit was 'n lekker gedoente, maar die hele affêre was bietjie uitputtend omdat dit so ver uit Seoul uit is. Ek moes omtrent 'n uur en half per bus en moltrein ry tot by die punt waar ons as 'n groep ontmoet het en vandaar 'n gehuurde bus na die zip-line plek geneem het, sowat drie ure verder. Oppad terug was die verkeer baie sleg -- ek het uiteindelik eers middernag by die huisgekom. Ek het wel op die bus kans gehad om my mees onlangste moltreinboek, Hemmingway se Farewell to Arms, klaar te lees.

Dan Platansky -- One of My Favourite South African Musicians

Dan Platansky is not the most famous South African musician, but he has a strong cult following amongst old school rock and blues connoisseurs. He is an excellent guitarist and really feels the music. He's been hailed the best blues guitarist in South Africa. I've seen him live a couple of times and have never been disappointed in his performances -- except when he stops playing.







Get more of Dan on his website, MySpace and Facebook.

My Brother's List of Links About South African News

Image Source

Every so often my brother sends me a list of links with news related to South Africa. I found the most recent list quite interesting.

The first was a rant by a News24 reader about more tolls roads and less press freedom. A columnist in News24's Finance section wrote about Black Economic Empowerment and how it is changing; changing, we hope, for the better. In the past, BEE had been a nepotistic enrichment of a select group of black people, that benefit the average previously disadvantaged South African very little. A new system is dearly required. Brian Dames, the CEO of Eskom, South Africa's chief electricity supplier announced that there is bound to be more blackouts and electricity shortages next year. The good news is that South Africa unveiled plans to build the world's largest solar power plant, which may start contributing to the power grid by then end of 2012. Finally, MeerKAT, the radio telescope consisting of 64 Gregorian offset antennae is currently being build in the Karoo, and will be one of the world's most powerful radio telescopes. Scientists from everywhere are already standing in line to book research time on it, even though completion is most likely only going to be in about five years.

Ek hunker na iets in Afrikaans

Ek is uitgehonger na Afrikaanse leesstof. Ek soek 'n boek wat ek kan lees op die moltrein. Maar hier in Korea is daar slegs drie Afrikaanse boeke op my boekrak. Die Mugu van Etienne Le Roux, Antjie Krog se 'n Ander Tongval en 'n digbundel, "om te lewe is onnatuurlik" van Gert Vlok Nel. O ja, en die Ou Vertaling van die Afrikaanse Bybel, alhoewel ek my Engelse Bybel meer gebruik. My karige versamelingtjie Afrikaanse boeke hier in Korea het ek elk reeds gelees (die Bybel ook).

Sal ek maar weer 'n Ander Tongval lees? Ek het dit die vorige keer baie geniet en dit is allermins kwaliteit Afrikaans.

As enige iemand my 'n groot guns wil doen, stuur asseblief vir my 'n goeie Afrikaanse boek!

En so van die Afrikaanse os tot op die Afrikaanse wa, hier is die Karen Zoid se nuwe single, "Bly By My":



Die album kom aan die begin van November uit, volgens die blog Singing South African-ness.

Shadow Puppet Artist Raymond Crowe Performs "What a Wonderful World"

Gisteraand: 'n Verjaarsdagpartyjie en 'n singkamer

Een van my oefenmaats by die yusul-klub (die grondwerkklas by The Way Martial Arts Academy of Seoul) het Donderdagverjaar en besluit om gisteraand sy partytjie te hê en gevolglik was byna die hele The Way se volwassenes daar. Omdat dit Sabbat was en omdat ek ook eers per telefoon met 'n ander vriend van Suid-Afrika gekuier het, het ek eers bietjie later daar aan gekom -- teen daardie tyd het die helfde van die groep al heelwat drankies agter die blad gehad. Ek het 'n groot bak kwaliteit roomys gebring en self heerlik daaraan gesmul, saam met koek en pizza en bitterlemoensap.

Na die joligheid by sy huis is ons hele groep na 'n noraebang. Direk vertaal, 'n "singkamer" of beter bekend in die Weste as 'n Karaoke. Ek het "Wonderwall" van Oasis, "Under the Sea" van Little Mermaid en "Bohemian Rhapsody" van Queen gesing. Noraebangs is nogals groot in Korea en selfs die uitlanders geniet dit baie. As jy vir my kom kuier kan ons gaan na 'n noraebang toe.



Ek het probeer om nie te laat uit te bly nie en was omtrent middernag weer by die huis. Die rede was 'n ander avontuur waarvoor ek vroeg vanoggend moes opstaan -- ek het gaan foefieslide!

Giraffe Sex

"Giraffe Love" T-Shirt designed by Hank Green.

I've mentioned before that my post on Kakashi Hatake gets the most views on this blog and can only speculate that my recent post on the same manga character will probably be popular too. It is not that these post are anything special in and of themselves -- it is merely that the character Kakashi is so beloved and has such a vast fan base that anything related to Kakashi gets viewed a lot.

I thought long ago that a post with the keywords "Korea" and "Sex" would get much traffic, but this post is not nearly as popular as the Kakashi post. Another popular post, and one actually related to Korea and somewhat to sex -- or at least genitals -- is the one I wrote about the genetic differences between Caucasians and Asians (Koreans). Since I wrote it in July it has had over 2000 visitors to date, with about 20 visits a day. 

The giraffes in the above photo are South African -- read more. By the way, I'm South African too, but I'm not a giraffe -- just so you know that this is not a self-portrait. According to John Green from the Vlog Brothers (Nerd Fighers) their three most viewed YouTube videos are all somehow related to giraffe sex.



Seeing what makes people end up on this extremely eclectic blog of mine intrigues me. I think there is a part of my graphic design and marketing (some of the stuff I studied) past-life that is still interested in how online marketing functions and how people end up on different websites.

Sex sells, we know that, but it is interesting that the blog post on Korea sex is less viewed than a fairly irrelevant personal account of a fictional animation character like Kakashi. My favourite giraffe video does not involve sex. Instead, it involves grief, which is a little like sex. In the video below are the five stages of grief (the word "grief" looks a little like the word "giraffe", doesn't it?) as acted out by a giraffe.



Now if you want to drive someone crazy, you could play them this giraffe song. I'm sure the average sane person will go nutters after listening to it repeated 10 times. I sure would. How many times can you listen to this song without going bonkers?



Now why did I write a post on giraffe sex again?

Parkour in Olympic Park

This past Sunday I hosted an introductory workshop on Parkour. We met at Olympic Park (South East Seoul) where I showed the attendees most of the basics. We did some precision jumps, a variety of vaults like the monkey vault, lazy vault, turning vault and the like, and also did some wall running. We finished the day with some PK-rolls on some of the grassy slopes in the park. In all, I've been in Korea for nearly four years, but this was the first time to do a proper Parkour session -- I didn't reallise how I've missed it until actually doing it again. How was pleasantly surprised that I could still do the basics with fair ease. I kept myself from doing any crazy stuff. I guess it helped that I'm still quite bruised from a heavy Taekkyeon sparring session I had the previous week. Parkour is such a great workout -- my leg muscles felt sore, in a good way, the days after the jam. The interesting thing about Parkour is that you do not reallise how much you are exercising because it is such a fun playful activity.

Many people (about 16) showed interest to attend the introductory workshop, although only six showed up. I'm guessing that since it was on a Sunday morning most people, when faced between the decision of sleeping in and exercising, chose to stay in bed. If I didn't host the event I would probably have slept in too. Nevertheless, since there was such a big interest I will try and host another workshop -- this time in the afternoon -- before it gets too cold. Unfortunately my Autumn weekends are running out. This coming Sunday I'm going ziplining, sliding with ropes through a forest canopy; the following weekend is Halloween; and the weekend thereafter I'm giving a bride away at a wedding. I also hope to go scuba diving one last time before winter hits us. The last place I'd like to be is in cold water during the winter; I get cold too easily.

Damian Rice -- "9 Crimes"

Free Media Players and Open Source Programs

Since formatting my computer, I've been slowly reinstalling programs as I need them. Unfortunately I do not have the original CDs for some programs with me here in Korea, therefore I'm looking into some open source and freeware alternatives.

I've already mentioned that I use Miro as my podcast and videopod aggregator.

For my audio player I've installed Foobar2000 again. This little program has been my music player of choice now for a couple of years. I enjoy its simplicity and because it uses so little RAM compared to most other media players. Foobar2000 can play practically all known audio formats with ease. True, it is not as fancy looking as most media players, but it is for this exact reason that I like it. It is simple, sufficient, customizable and if I were thinking of making the interface prettier, different skins can be downloaded for it.

My all purpose video player is Gom Player. This is probably the best free video player available. When it requires codecs it will take you to a web page from which you can download the appropriate codecs. One of the best features, I think, of Gom Player is that it can play incomplete files. If you have a video file that is still in the process of being downloaded, Gom Player can actually play those clusters that are already downloaded. Or, if you have a broken video file, Gom Player can play those segments of the file that is not corrupt. It also has a variety of other features like brightness and contrast control, subtitle viewer, screen capture, a playlist that automatically lists similar files and everything else one would expect of a complete video player. I must admit, however, that there have been isolated moments where Gom Player did not play to my utmost satisfaction. In those occasions I fell back to VLC Player. Since formatting my computer I have not yet had any problems with Gom Player, so am yet to install VLC. I will do so only if the need arise.

As my Office Suite I've installed Open Office. This suite contains all the programs one would need for your daily "office" work like a word processor, spread sheet engine, database platform, a presentation designer and a drawing program. I use the word processor the most and find it quite comfortable and efficient. Unfortunately the computer in my office has Microsoft Word. Although Open Office can save documents as a Microsoft Word document and easily read .doc-files, the formatting, i.e. page layout, is different from program to program. This means that when I format a page at home and send the file to my office PC, it looks different. However, as far as normal word processing is concerned, I feel quite comfortable with Open Office. To think that such a great product is free, is a wonderful testimony of what unselfish people can do to better humanity. This program is empowering many people that cannot afford the prices of expensive programs.

The most difficult thing for me is graphic design programs. I studied certain programs during my training as a graphic designer and having to learn how to use new programs is just a nuisance. There are some excellent free open source graphic design programs available -- it is just that I'm frustrated at the slower speed at which I do things now which I did much faster on Photoshop and Corel Draw because I'm so familiar with these.

The first program I'm testing now, in place of Photoshop, is Gimp. It is a wonderful image manipulator with a fully adjustable interface. I'm certain that once I make time to go through the tutorials, I'll be equally adapt at it.

In place of Corel Draw I installed Inkscape, an effective vector graphics editor. Again, it will take me some time to acquaint myself with the tutorials before I'll be able to work with the same ease that I do on Corel Draw, but I'm sure it will be worth the effort in the long run.

I'm also looking into the online graphic manipulation programs discussed in the Rocketboom video below. They will be quite useful on occasions where I do not find myself at my own computer and quickly need to do some basic image editing.





Hopefully you will find some of teh programs on this list useful as well.

Need for Sustainable Fisheries -- Proudly South African

Kakashi Hatake Lives

Image by Namh

I posted in May how intensely I felt the death of Kakashi Hatake, a fictional character that is part of the Naruto series. I could not believe that Kakashi died. I literally felt all the emotions one would feel when you suddenly hear of the death of a real person you know.


I'm not the only one. Of all the posts on my blog the one on Kakashi's death is the most popular. By itself it has had over 7000 views! It usually gets 60-some views per day. The strange thing is that it is not a particularly great post. It's merely my personal musings over the shock I felt when this character died. I guess other people share my love for the Naruto characters, hence the many views of this page.

I'm happy to announce that Kakashi came back to life. Again, I hope I'm not spoiling it to anybody. I'm sure the avid Naruto fans all know this already as the anime episode "Hero of the Hidden Leaf" in which it happened aired on August 26 already. (I don't watch the episodes weekly. They are usually so intense that I cannot handle waiting for the next episode, so instead I skip a number of weeks so that I can watch a lot of episodes in a row.) Yes, our dear Kakashi lives and what is more, in this episode Naruto's years of struggling to get acknowledgement from the village is finally realised. Remember those first episodes where the other villages ignored him, shunned him, ostracised him? Naruto has come such a long way since then and the villages, like so many of his enemies, and all us readers of the manga and viewers of the anime have fallen in love with his cheerful character and indomitable spirit.

I cannot count the many times I've cried watching this anime. Often not tears of sadness, but tears of joy and feeling a tremendous sense of pride and caring for this little mischievous outcast. The author of this manga series is Masashi Kishimoto, a truly masterful storyteller. Time and time again he changes the most flat characters into such rounded people you cannot help but feel a strong sense of empathy for them. Surprisingly, it is Naruto, the main character, which is probably one of the most flat characters. But it is this, his consistent, hard-headed, personal "way of the ninja" -- never to give up -- that is so enduring.

I'm just happy that Kakashi is back again. I guess this is a foretaste of how it must feel when the dead are resurrected.

Placebo -- Take Two Failed

I missed Placebo they first time the came to Korea and was sure not to miss them this time round. I even had my ticket bought for the show quite in advance and have been looking forward to it with much anticipation and excitement. Then I got a text message from the ticketing company. The Placebo concert has been cancelled. Brian Molko, the lead singer, is unwell and his been told by doctors to take a complete rest causing in the cancellation of the tail end of the Battle for the Sun Tour. Scheduled performances in Spain, Portugal, Korean and Japan are affected.

To say that I'm disappointed is an understatement.

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