how it all ends

Today ends yet another year, finally, I guess. It's been a long year, as to some extent they all are, and full of ups and downs, again as they all are. This being a Sunday, we went to church today and the pastor spoke about thanksgiving, and to that end I feel the need to mention that I absolutely haven't fallen sick at all this year. The ocassional headache, but never one that lasted more than three hours or even required me to swallow pills for it to go away. I guess that's Providence for you, so I want to say thank you to the Big Guy.

Im not the kind of person that makes resolutions, but I have a general ambition towards which I like to think I work everyday, even if subconciously - to be rich, filthy rich! That said, I don't really have guidlines against which I can measure how I live, but here's my take: If at the end of the year Im still alive, I haven't been kicked out by my parents, I haven't flunked any papers in school and I haven't made any enemies of previous friends then it's been a good year. This year was an extremely good year. I made a couple of new friends [and surprise some are actually guys], very good friends; I passed all my papers and Im still the apple of the parents' eyes; I took on a few contracts that cost me like two weeks worth of sleepless nights then got bailed on by the contractees meaning I didn't get paid for all that work :( and thereby learnt a few things about broken expectations and the corporate world. Like they say, the lessons we learn from pain are the ones the make us the strongest. I believe I've grown plenty stronger.

I've also learnt a thing or two about pride. There was this friend of mine, she and I were really tight - we kinda just hit it off when we met coz I've known her for just about two years, and somehow over this last year we'd lost touch of each other coz I moved to a different town and was too proud to call when I thought I was being snobbed. Anyways, long story short I ate humble pie, called and now we're speaking again. It was a very good feeling, and I'd just like to say that if the only thing standing between someone and their friend is pride they really ought to get their act together - it's not worth losing a friend over coz in the end you end up carrying all this guilt and can't stop thinking what could have been when it was still in your hands to make things right.

And so here I am looking forward to another bright year, as I do at the beginning of every year. All those bad things that happened to me over the last one, I wouldn't give them back if I could, coz I believe they got me where I am today [OK, except a few, which I dare not mention]. If this year doesn't go like clockwork, then Im sure I'll end up having learnt more valuable lessons, so I'll still be grateful for it. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ concerning you, says the Good Book.
END

all is a game

So I was recently listening to Peyton's podcasts [ya I know, its taken me this long to get with the program. But that's ok given where Im from, coz I live in a country where there are people who haven't even heard of iPods, let alone podcasts :)] and she talked about this Nada Surf album: The weight is a gift. The stuff she said I thought was pretty deep so I went looking for it. And I got it [God bless that kid who created bittorrent BTW] and I listened to it and I totally agree with her, it's a rocking album. Anyways, there's a song on there called "Always love" that talks about basically never hating anyone, no matter what they've done to you. Nada Surf say "To make a mountain of your life is just a choice... Always love, hate will get you every time... Even when you want to fight... It helps to write it down, even when you then cross it out..." and Im thinking what! Had to actually do some research to confirm that none of them had any shrink backgrounds or anything, coz I found that song pretty deep. Anyways, I've never really been one of those people who are big on grudges so I liked the song more for my friends than myself. Im your average run-of-the-mill happy guy is who I am.

But I digress - more importantly, there was another song on there that struck me. It's called All is a game, and to me it sounded like about living life to the full, you know. When you're thinking that the weight of your life is too much for you, it's all a game and the last thing anyone of us wants is when it's over to look back and realize we didn't play back when we had the chance to. So currently Im on holidays for four months and Ive been obsessing about getting an internship or a job somewhere so I can make a quick buck, but now, none of that. Im just gonna go ahead and make the most of right now, of today. And if tomorrow I get called in for a job somewhere I'll of course go with open arms, but even if I dont get one, it's still going to be fine. [Good thing I collected a few TV series on DVD to keep me busy just in case. I dont know, maybe it was foresight.] All the same, right now Im going to start doing things I enjoy doing, and keep doing them till the holidays are over if I have to. After all, it really all is just a game. And when stuff starts to go haywire, I'll just remember that the weight is really a gift. If it doesn't kill me - and it won't - it'll make me stronger.
END

pandora tomorrow

OK, you know you've been playing too much Splinter Cell when the lights suddenly go off and you nod your forehead in a bid to put on your night vision goggles. But is such a thing even possible? Can someone possibly ever have 'too much' of Splinter Cell? I think not. In all my gaming life, I don't think I've actually ever come across a game with such depth [barring of course Half Life and System Shock 2, but then those ones appealed coz they weren't all about humans, as is the Splinter Cell series]. This game is all about thinking. Much unlike the Max Paynes and Dooms and Quakes, in Splinter Cell the object is to not shoot at all. Stealth is the name of the game. And the first time I used a guard as a human shield, the moment he felt my gun on his temple views changed so that I was looking at his face and I swear you could see terror in his eyes. Of course the fear wrinkles were all over his forehead, and the AI is just so realistic. You know, you drop a grenade and they dont just stand around asking each other whether or not you want to play catch with them :) - played IGI or the original Hitman Codename 47, anyone? - they run for cover! The patrolling guards out in the gardens react to footprints, and if a guard on rounds doesnt make it back, someone comes to investigate [although this happened to me only once so I dont think it's actually been programmed into the game, musta been the fates working against me, as usual :)]. When two people are working in a room and then the lights in an adjacent room suddenly go off [one learns pretty fast playing Splinter Cell that darkness is your friend, light - not good], they actually come to check who did that. They dont just stand around scratching the backs of their heads - again I need to refer to the Hitmans, Silent Assassin and Contracts. And that part for rappling down high walls, totally killed me. And who could forget the thing where you fork two walls with your feet, and then hang down and strangle a passing guard. Simply breathtaking!

Granted I come from a third world country fast on the track to being relegated to pre-historic, I have never played any of the Metal Gear Solids coz Playstation 2's and XBox's are pretty hard to come by thisides. I hear people say they [the Metal Gear Solids] are pretty solid, no pun intended. But I still insist, before a game comes out that actually beats Splinter Cell at stealth and graphics and AI and playability, Ubisoft will have to have signed off on it and helped in development somehow [I remember the last time a game came out that was better than Half Life it was Half Life 2. Nine years in between and no one surpassed the original Half Life] Once every generation [of hardware platforms] a game comes out that just unquestionably reigns supreme. Well, for me in the 2000's this game is Splinter Cell. And I still havent played Chaos Theory or the fourth one [see third world country above :) ]. Maybe Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood will be nice, maybe TR Legend wont disappoint, maybe Battle for Middle Earth [Lord of the Rings] will go the way of the movies and rule, I hear Path of Neo is all that, and maybe even the True Crime's [Streets of LA and New York City] will leave up to expectations. But my mind is made up, until they release Resident Evil 4 for the PC or something radical like that, no game is taking Splinter Cell's place in my heart.

END

how to save a life

So yesterday was my first time to hear that song called How to save a life by The Fray. And DAMN! I was watching the third One Tree Hill and one of the episodes [the one just after Jimmy shot Peyton in the leg] had the song in it, and it was at a really apt place [the first time Pete - leadsinger for Fallout Boy - came over to Peyton's to see her, I guess to tell her he likes her. And she was limping and all and he was in this classic Escalade stretch limo and it was all so wow]. See songs like these are the reason I fell in love with rock in the first place. That song is just deep. I dont even know how to describe how I felt when I heard it. All I can say is I've felt like that like only five times in the past - first with Arms wide open-Creed, then Flying high-Jem[from The O.C], then Mixtape-Butch Walker[previous season of One Tree Hill, then Because of you-Kelly Clarkson, most recently Saving me-Nickelback. How to save a life is just one of those songs one can't ever get enough of. It's definitely going down into my all-time list. I cannot wait to get the whole song, tho I know it's gonna be a while. Me = totally overwhelmed.

I should probably keep annals of said all-time list so's I dont forget where it is Im coming from 60 years from now when Im old and withered.

Arms wide open - Creed
Because of you - Kelly Clarkson
Away from the sun - 3 Doors Down
Flying high - Jem
Mixtape - Butch Walker
My happy ending - Avril Lavigne
Hands - Jewel
Saving me - Nickelback
How you remind me - Nickelback
Zoe Jane - Staind
Collide - Howie Day
Thank you for loving me - Bon Jovi
To the ends of the earth - Hillsong
Anywhere - Evanescence
Damaged - TLC
Wherever you will go - The Calling
You're beautiful - James Blunt
Heart of the matter - India Arie
Life goes on - Tupac
The voice of truth - Casting Crowns
He's my son - Mark Schulz
Christmas shoes - New Song

...and now...
How to save a life - The Fray

END

house hopping

Here I come again with another one of those tales about parastatal inefficiencies in my country. As with the last time, this was in my uni. Since I'm doing professional exams in a month's time and I have no clue what the course is about, I decided this time that when we close for long hols I wouldn't go home and would instead stay on in school to at least keep the mood going. This way, even if I myself dont per se read anything, maybe some of what my industrious friends read will rub off on me and I won't be totally green, thought I.

The groups that are currently in session are actually fewer than the school was made to handle, so it would appear that we are actually running at below capacity. So si I thought I would just show up, say I want a room, get charged to heaven and back but get the room anyhow. Boy was I wrong! I did show up, I did say I wanted a room, I did get charged to heaven and back [this government, all incompetencies aside, has never been known to shy away from a chance to make a quick buck, which quick buck is of course never ploughed back into bettering the infrastructure - but that is another story for another day], but did I get the room? Of course not. "Why allocate people rooms that are still empty just because those people have applied and paid for the rooms?" thinks our administration. "It would be so much more fun if they were made to sweat for a week or two, so here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna tell that boy to come tomorrow, and to write an essay explaining how he thinks loud music in matatus affects the current status of greenhouse gases." [or some such other tosh, anything to make sure nothing happens on time like it's supposed to.]

And so here I am. In between residences. I have survived thus far by visiting different friends and/or relatives in a round so that none of them feels as though I am infringing, meanwhile conducting research on my upcoming essay on presentation of which I expect I shall be given a room that shall just happen to not have a door, so I can give them another week to repair it and bring it up to standards. I am well aware that this is what I shall be told when I raise a complaint, "You see kijana, this system of ours - [they recently got computerised] - once it has allocated you a room it's impossible to change that allocation for another without it appearing as though you have two rooms. So please just allow us to refurbish this one for you. We apologise for inconveniences" with a smiling face. And so I find myself in the run-up to exams, yet again, house hopping and not spending any considerable amount of time studying for them. This one looks like it'll have to be on me and God. But, He has seen me through before, and He never changes so...

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a trip i took

So si we've now officially closed school, and this being the end of a year [also one of those holidays that last till you drop - five months no less!] we decide, some friends of mine and I, that we are going out with a bang. So what do we do, we step up some cash each, two of us get cars from their parents and off we go to Naivasha to see stuff and to hog. The drive over was pretty uneventful, we just talked and the two cars raced kidogo, we stopped over at the Rift Valley to enjoy the scenery [of course no trip is complete unless something important has been forgotten, and in our case it was film for the camera, so we couldnt take any pictures. Ok, we could, just mental ones though]. Then we got there at 5[!-we still havent had lunch by the way - chicks and their rollers and showers we ended up leaving at four rather than at twelve] so we straight away head off to the restaurant. Roast meat, nothing but roast meat. And it was survival for the fittest. Have you ever seen three kilos disappear in ten minutes? I hadnt before, now I have. And then there was more meat, roast and fried. Twas a really gr8 lunch. Between the eight of us we ate like seven kilos, and sodas on top. Then after that we decided to go see the lake, we went and found there apparently is an entrance fee, so we told we'd be right back, of course we weren't right back. So now on our way from the lake [it was about 30kms off town] mayhem kicked in. We noticed in our car that the battery light was one, the one that usually indicates that the  battery is draining but not getting recharged. At the time we dint think anythign of it. We just went right on to Lord Delamere's estate, and I think at the time we ere the only ones. By now it's 6.30 going on seven and already dark. When we were through with the estate, now thinking ati we head back to Nairobi, the radio in the car went off. Then the lights went off. Then the car itself. By now it's of course dark, really dark. What to do? New town, dont know anyone, cant see anything, obviously dint do Power Mechanics in high school. Anyways, we drove back into town following the other car in darkness and found a petrol station then parked in it. Then started the search for a mechaninc. Luckily there was one of those 911-like services in Naivasha that came to our assistance, and it turned out the problem was a missing belt that must have fallen out, hence the battery wasnt recharging. They start looking and everywhere is closed. Naivasha is I think a ghost town or somethign, it was only 7.45 on a Friday eve and even the bars were closed! So six hours later, the finally found a belt that could almost fit our car, and when I say almost I mean they had to take out AC for it to fit. At this point we really dint care, we just wanted to come back home coz no one had any plans of swatching over there. After all was said and done, were down a further 2K for all the repairs. Thank God for contingency money, Im just thinking what would have been had we all had exact on us :( Now on our way back [it's midnight by the way] it starts raining, and Limuru goes down to 2 degrees sometimes. So there is fog! Real fog, as in now you're on the road now the road has turned right and you havent so you're in the bushes. It was terror! But we made it finally, and at 1.30 in town we decided since we no longer had anything to lose [those who hadnt to ld their parents where the cars were going thinking we'd be back in time and they wouldnt have to had been forced to during the Naivasha debacle so the worst was over] we went for pizzas, then communed and reminisced the day that had been, went to some other restaurant for burgers and finally at 2.30 went back to school to sleep. Those hours between 7.00 and 11.30 when the cars were being repaired were the longest in my recent past, but they made the night all the more interesting, and like they say, what won't kill you can only make you stronger

END

a comp all my own

So I finally have a machine of my own in school. It has been a long journey to this point, full of ups and downs, but I learn that as they say, good things come to those who wait. From where Im sitting, it dont come no better than this [if you know what Im saying]. Of course, as Murphy would have it, every silver lining has a cloud lagging somewhere behind, and mine is that the machine comes at a time when I cant really make any productive use of it. This semester has just been a conspiracy by the lecturers against free time [maybe they finally heard about that whole idle minds and devil's workshops thing], so they have all given like six assingments and five CATs, and all of them almost back-to-back. Obviously my main reasons for wanting the comp in school had nothing to do with research or any of that office productivity crap so I get presented with a classic catch-22: to read, or watch movies and seasons [naturally now that I dont have any free time to spare the seasons come in droves]. I'd really like to say that's a no-brainer, but the days of just showing up in class and still passing appear to be fast disppearing behind me, if my recent CAT results are anything to go by. And then we are now moving to the third year, which is where everything we do now goes towards getting us an average for our degrees.

Our local phone network has also recently launched GPRS, which for those of us who are technology savvy, is a really efficient way to surf the web on phones that are GPRS-enabled. It's made in such a way that unlike WAP, you're paying only for the amount of data sent between you and the server, not for the amount of time you spend online. And webpages can get small, pretty small. So then you can spend a whole hour surfing and end up having been charged only 4 shillings. I know - it's cheaper than even cyber cafes! The moment I learn how to use my phone as a modem for my comp I'll be so set. ISPs and their exorbitant charges can the go straight to hell :)

Oops! There goes my consience, reminding me what the time is again, and that I have a really complex paper tomorrow that I havent read for [don't you hate when that happens?]...

END

letter of appreciation

Came across this letter in a rudge book and it totally cracked me up. :D

Dear Sir,

I am sure the Homestead Retirement Home has thanked you and the many others who made gifts to the home that have brought pleasure and comfort to us residents. But I wish to thank you personally fro the bottom of my heart because I am the recepient of the little portable radio which you gave me. I listen to it constantly when I am awake.

It has been so much company for me. I have wanted a radio of my very own ever since I came to the home to live. We have nice accomodations here and they take very good care of us. There are two of us in each room. My roommate is Martha Nelson. She is 87 and I am 83.

Martha has had a radio of her own ever since she came here ten years ago. She kept it so low I could never hear the programs. When I would ask her to turn it up so I could hear the programs too she wouldnt do it. Bless her, she is a sweet old soul and I suppose she just cant help being that way.

Last week she dropped her radio and it broke into may pieces and cannot be repaired. Last night I was listening to the early evening services of the First Methodist Church and those beautiful old hymns I love so much. Martha asked me to turn the radio up higher so she could hear it too, so naturally I told her to go f*ck herself.

Again, thank you.

I am,
Dorothy Murdock

END

about the movies

Mother Earth has since let up a little on the weather aspect and these days it's bright and shine all day long. But of course, people being people, we are now crying foul that there is no rain. Can never satisfy them, can you?

Anyways, I've watched quite a few movies since I landed here [landed not arrived, BTW], and none of them have turned out to be disappointments. It's like fate is making up for all the boredom I had to perservere when I was on hols. There was Superman Returns - which totally rocked coz Lois has an actual husband on earth but it was so obvious she still had a thing for Clark, and - get this - they have a son [who Lois thinks is Richard's] who actually happens to be impervious to Kryptonite. Cant wait for the next installment - where he'll probably have grown up and taken over where his dad left off [but wait, Superman cant die, can he?], although knowing Hollywood, they'll probably develop a vulnerability for him, maybe even ultraviolet rays just to spice things up, sometimes they suck. Just sometimes.

Then there was X-Men The Last Stand. This one I liked coz Wolverine and Jean finally did something about their feelings [although Cyclops had to die for it to happen, I totally dont mind], but in the end she died. I dont see another sequel for this one. But who knows?

Then Underworld Evolution. THis movie has like six people in it's cast list, everyone - or should I say everything - else being a werewolf, ugly apparition or just plain ugly. But it was thorough. Not just coz Kate Beckinsale is drop-dead gorgeous [where has she been all my life? :)] and moves at the speed of light, but it actually has an emotional side. And Scott Speedman [he of Felicity fame] isn't that bad either, just could have been better. The others weren't so major - Hitch, Man on Fire, V for Vendetta [actually this one was classic - I just dint watch it big screen] and Uptown Girls. Still arranging for M:I-3, tho all sources indicate it's major boredom. But I wanna discover just how boring all by myself. If I have to pay for it and get unjazzed I know I'll probly end up crying foul or raw deal but that matters not for now. We never learn, do we?

END

school so far...

I've been in school for just about a month now, and I can say with all the confidence possible that school so far rocks! First of all, the CATs and gradable assignments have not yet started and they are not even on the horizon, I went and got my transcript for the last semester [the one I was dreading - got some outside help on that :)] and wonder of wonders I actually got a B[!], I have since run into three programs I've always wanted to watch - Smallville season 4, Lost and Smallville season 5, though I havent yet watched them - I intend to make meself copies soon so they are immortalized, and of course who could forget, I've eaten fries so many times I think my heart has a coating three inches thick [this stuff tends to go where it's least wanted]

The temperature these days however comes really close to zero at times so most of us,including yours truly, have come down with the cold. It's a really inconveniencing disease to have, coz just at the time when you've forgotten your handkerchief your nose starts to run! It's almost as though Murphy's Law were true, and it totally blows! But all in all, this looks like it's gonna be a really good semester. Oh, and also, I havent made any enemies yet, in fact, friends. Im really proud of myself.

END

the road once taken

Im a reader of poetry, of sorts. I love to read poetry, but I only do so when there is absolutely nothing else to do, and also when the author is someone Ive heard of before and who's not Shakespeare [I think he's overrated]. So I've read Robert Frost's "The road not taken", and in it he took the path less beaten, and hoped he wouldnt live to regret it. Well, recently when I got to my own fork, I have taken the path well trodden, the one Ive been on countless times before, the one called school. Yes, hard as it is to believe, school is now in session again, and I find Im not very amused with the status quo. This from someone who just a few days ago would have given his right arm to be back in school - the grass truly is greener on the other side I say.

Anyways, other than school being open resulsts for the last semester are out. That was the sem when I decided To hell with uni stuff and concentrated solely on CPA exams, which I myt add I passed with flying colors [Ok, I barely made the passmark but who cares, I passed, didnt I?]. So one can only guess how not dying I am to see my transcript for last sem. The first thing I did when I got to school this time ws to sit down and tell myself I am going to actually make an effort to read this time round in order to make up for any losses,and I know there'll be plenty of those. Im still trynna muster up the courage to go get that piece of paper. One of the best things about uni is that it's totally up to you whether or not you pick them. But I find leaving it in the admin block doesnt change the D's to A's so I'll go pick it one of these fine days.

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my, my how time flies

Damn how it does. Has it been a whole month already? It was a hesht that one. During that month Ive done a lot:

I went back to school for exams - those professional papers we are forced to do because of peer pressure [ts all about fitting in with the in crowd :)]. Actually its a little more than just fitting in. These days if you dont do them you really dont get employed, or get a job as a front-office teller. So damned if you do damned if you dont. Anyways, this occupied a substantial part of the month - the whole of it to be precise. But I have gone thro it unscathed, and mercifully I am still sane.

I had never slept outside the confines of the watchful eyes of my parents [or a respective aunt/uncle], now not only have I, but Ive also slept on a wooden chair - twice, in a club - once, sat on a bench reading all thro the night - once. I swear the worst situation to be in is be in a school where you dont attend and so not have any friends around to accomodate you. The day I slept in a club I dint really sleep - I bot coffee, enough, and I blinked and it was 5AM. My nights were full of drama. But they once told me what wont kill you can only make you stronger, and now I daresay I think I can live on the streets, if only for one week, OK, I lie, ONE DAY, no more than that, otherwise Ill freeze to death, or just die of despair.

Such are the conditions under which I did the exams, so if I get less than distinctions, you'll know why and no one is gonna point fingers.Anyway, now Im back, in my room, with a bed, a hot meal every day and loving every minute of it. These small things we take for granted, wait till they're no longer there.
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the big what if's

These 2 months have been so full of long weekends. It's like every holiday or non-working day fell on a Friday or a Monday. And these short stints at an actual holiday have opened my eyes as to just how much I dislike my job and the environment and conditions under which I work. Not the people, my workmates are nice, and they are doing their best to cope under the circumstances [targets that are too high to meet, lorries backfiring every day - we transport fertilizer to farmers, rain and impassable roads, farmers complaining here even when the fault is clearly not with our office et al], so I like my workmates. The only thing that keeps me going is that in two months school will be open again and it will be back to basking in the sun all day and surfing for free and meeting friends. So for now I have a better tomorrow to look forward to. For now.

But lately Ive gotten to thinking, what happens when there is no brighter future? What would I do if this was it, if this was my calling in life, my niche, my job? What if I was one of my workmates, [you know, 20 years and Im still gonna be at the exact same place]? These things just cant seem to get out of my mind. And now Im continually praying that when Im done with school, I at least get a job I actually like. To me the hours wont really matter [coz I dont have much of a social life anyways so even if I had the time...], and the pay matters yes but not as much as job satisfaction. I just want a job I look forward to on Mondays, a job Im not in a hurry to get away from at 4 on Friday, and most importantly, a job where I work in the back-ends with no nosy bosses looking over my shoulders asking why the email Im sending on company time is not work-related [coz there's gonna be alot of those :)]. I want a job where my performance record will be let to speak for itself, where they wont want to know why I was six minutes late in the morning so long as I meet all my deadlines, and they wont be asking me to follow their methods if I have my own that arent illegal but get things done. If there will be no specific dress-code at the company it will be nice too - I hate dressing up. I dont want to be in the spotlight or dealing direcly with people, unless Im the CEO [in which case all my misgivings about whatever job it will be become moot]. Also one that involves a lot of travelling. And if it's at one of them Fortune 500 firms, I wont complain. If the company happens to be Google then "let Thy will be done on earth.." I havent narrowed it down to anything specific yet, but this much I know - I do NOT want to be a doctor. Or a teacher or an insurance salesman!

If only wishes were horses and beggars actually rode...
END

about the ones in print

This time I wont even bother to talk about the crappy ones. There's just too many. First local, I guess, and here I have to talk about Capital - the radio station, 98.4FM. Some time back [think I was still in fourth back then] they used to run a couple of ads in the Going Out Guide where it was just a blank page with a huge speaker in the middle in isometric projection [dont ask!] then the lowest corner of the speaker had started like melting and was forming itself into a round drop ready to fall off. Then at the bottom of the page it was just written "Capital FM. Sound solution" I swear that ad just jazzed me, so much so that a friend and I had it blown up [Going Out is smaller than the small exercise books people use in primary school] and we stuck it on our wall. Plus the Capital logo of a smiling sun with sky skrapers in the foreground, depicting Nairobi as the city in the sun [when they started they were an only-Nai station] is the best logo I can think of.

KCB have also once had another one in the papers that impressed me. It was first of all a whole page on its own. At the center of the page they'd written: "Want to deal with people who know business? Commercial is our middle name" Literally. Get it? Kenya Commercial Bank? I totally hope that whoever came up with that one was elevated to head of PR for that bank. Also the current ones being run by ABC bank, modelled along the same lines. First there's a picture of a timeline then they say "ABC = Age Breeds Confidence" then explanations about how old hence good they've become, or a pic of many 40-bob coins piled up on top of one another with the text "ABC = Asset Based Capacity" then they talk about how extensive their assets hence capabilities are. Really nice. Simple, everyday language put together in a striking and relevant pose. Nothing can beat that in advertising.

There's that ad for Nestle where a chick appears twice, enjoying a hot chocolate, then they say double the pleasure or something like that. It's currently running. Ok, this one has nothing striking about it, only mentioned it to say I think she's really fly.

OK, international, finally. [I read Fortune, Time and Car so that's how I see these things. OK, maybe FHM as well, but only sometimes]. Citibank. I dont even know why they advertise seeing as they've been the largest bank in the world for like forever with a trillion dollar asset base, but they do. And when they do it's just class. Their ads are usually just on a white page. One has a picture of the Everest in the middle, then beside it they've written "Where would you like it moved?" Just that. Another one has a pyramid, then beside it says "Let's say you wanted twelve more of these." At the bottom the page in both those ads they explain how nothing is impossible with them as your bankers. Those ads are off the chain!

Then there's Infiniti. If you dont [like me] like cars you probably dont know them. They are to Nissan what Lexus are to Toyota [It's a $40,000 luxury car made by a company traditionally associated with cheap cars]. We dont have Infinitis here but they directly compete Beamers, so now you have an idea. I saw one of their ads, for the 2005 G35 [that's their entry level sports sedan. Be clear{been watching FunkMasterFlex :)}, being entry level doesnt mean it's cheap. For Infiniti entry level means $35,000 - Again I guess the figure has to be put in perspective: A Merc, C200 Kompressor is $36,000 and the Lexus IS300 $33,000 in the same market] where the page was just black. The G35 was at the center on a round black pedestal, its color gunmetallic black hence shiny at all the curves-and those are many-so it can be seen despite everything else being black. Then the text at the bottom of the page: "If you're not generic and ordinary, you stand out, no matter how similar your surroundings." Simply elegant.
END

the nicer side of the divide

So now over this Easter that dint happen, I decided to study ads again, this time looking for the good ones. Two went straight to the heart. First is the KCB ad for S&L, where they say "want to live in a thriving community," [and show a hive of bees] "or somewhere a little less crowded?" [show a hermit crab living alone] "Want to move away from nosy neighbors" [show three humming birds squeezing in one nest] etc. That is just the most creative ad I have ever seen. I never tire of watching it! And the best part is: It's by Kenyans. That's the reason I dont buy any of that "Our industry is still young and growing..." mumbo jumbo they hide behind whenever they make substandard stuff [surprisingly very often!].

The other one are actually many different ads, but all for UUnet. Eg. two guys talking in a restaurant then it suddenly becomes full and they cant hear each other, then the commentator says "Want to communicate in an environment with less interference? Come to UUnet" or something to that effect. Or the one where the other guy suddenly starts breaking up and rewinding and fading away, then they [UUnet] ask about reliability. Or the one where a guy goes into another's office and clears away with everything while the owner is busy looking for docs everywhere else, then UUnet ask about security. Those people are just good. Again, a Kenyan company did those ads. As in, the advertiser doesnt have to say a lot, the ad speaks for itself. For me that is just the hallmark of advertising that hits home.

Then there's Fair and Lovely. The one about their 10/- sachets [BTW I noticed that all of a sudden every company was introducing sachets costing between 1 and 15 shillings. My God! Are we really that poor?] So anyways, this lady cant make a sale, then she tries the new Fair and Lovely. The next day [mind you they say the sachet takes four weeks to work its magic :) ] when she comes to work she's glowing. Her colleague [the guy] looks at her first time like "Oh, its just her" and then looks again, stunned. There's something different about her! There's nothing really striking about this ad, but the look on his face right at that time - wide-eyed, astonished - that look is just priceless! I think he really nailed it. And, of course, he's Kenyan.

On the international scene, Oh! Here there are so many class ads. But the one company I have got to mention has to be Closeup [Ok, the company is actually Unilever, but they are a divisionalised bureaucracy - many unrelated products - so there is nothing on the market actually called Unilever]. First that Ultrawhitening ad for back in the day where a guy smiles, chick gets dazzled by his white teeth and knocks her head on a wall, then the sequel where she's now wised up so when he smiles she puts on sunglasses but blows fresh breath his way and he's so captivated he doesnt see the hydrant right in front of him. Needless to say there's a situation. So shiny white teeth and fresh breath, enuff said. Whoever heard of ads with sequels. Those two just rocked, they were so thorough, in the sequel she even had BandAid where she'd knocked herself in the first one. Then there's the recent one for RedHot where a tooth is taking good care of itself. Cracked me up.

Nokia ads arent that bad as well. They're usually pretty deep. It took me a while to realize that the matchstick that lights up in a dark room towards the end of the 6111 ad actually means the 6111's camera has a flash. Neat.

When we return, it's gonna be ads on radio, then ads in print. One is all sound and the other is all visual, so at least in those ones there's less room to mess up as compared to TV which is audiovisual.
END

the easter that was

So last weekend was a long one, Easter Sunday and Good Friday when we celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection not necessarily in that order. Naturally, since I work in a factory, we were expected to go to work because "essential production operations dont stop over holidays" [Memo from the Head of Human Resources]. Now for the permanent employees this usually has monetary implications - if they work over holidays they are paid double the rate, but for us casuals, it's biz as usual. So we staged a ka-small revolution and got sent off. At the time I was thinking that I was gonna be busy, hmmmm, si was I in for a rude shock!

The beginning of my woes was five days before actually, my grandmother falling sick - she developed an eye infection and became allergic to light. Then the doctor gave her medication that you apply every five hours, not morning and evening or after every meal like we are used to, every five hours. So she had come to stay over.

Then there was supposed to be a trip to Mombasa by my dad's workplace for which my mum was being smuggled in. So they were to meet in Eldoret [where he works] and head from there, and I was gonna drive her over then [hopefully] remain with the car and a full tank - all alone. So freedom and mobility . Si I set up plans to go to a certain campsite with some buddes for Eldie. Everything is going according to schedule.

Then comes Thursday. The trip to Mombasa gets cancelled. So Im stuck in Mumias with both parents. But luckily, they decide since they have time on their hands to go shaggs and plant maize, this being the planting season and all. Strike one. They decide to carry the mboch with them. Strike two. On such trips [the ones where the intent is not leisure] it has become a foregone conclusion that I am not expected to attend. So Im remaining at home alone, not Eld as Id have liked but still alone. Strike three. Boy was I wrong!

So anyways, the long and short of it is that, since my paroz were now going shaggs they went with the cars so I was left bila, my ailing grandmother was left in my care because "no one is going to have time there to medicate her", my friends went and had fun anyway, I dint get to eat a lot of junk [usually associated with me being alone hence the cook] since I was cooking for me and her [she's diabetic], I couldnt leave the house to go anywhere in case an emergency arose with her health [aside from the above two conditions she's also asthmatic] so I was holed up in the house all easter watching the clock for the next five hour block, bored and now my salary is going to come short of expectations coz of the two days we refused to go work [Fri and Mon] - us casuals are daily rated. The things we sacrifice in the name of love... If only I had had a good excuse like Im needed at work all weekend, things would have been so much better. But I've learnt that the water-pot usually breaks just when you are at the doorstep. Now Im living every day as it comes.
END

machine heaven, for a while

Today I am working on a machine and a half. It's a Dell no less, those Optiplex GX520's - absolutely top of the range: 3.0GHz with hyperthreading, 512MB RAM, a 224MB graphics card[!] and optical mouse. I tell you this machine moves. It responds even before you give the commands! Ok Im just kidding about that one, but it's every gamer's dream machine and mine too. Too bad it's at the office [you didnt think I meant we'd bought one, did you? Those things cost like a gazillion shillings - ok, 80K but that's still too high for a comp. I dont see us buying one any time soon. At home I have to make do with a clone. A nice one, but still a clone] Oh, did I forget to say the machine is silent? You absolutely cant hear a thing spin in there, I mean the talkback on cellphones is louder than this machine is! Clones of course sound like small tractors when they're running so maybe it's the stark difference between the two that's clouding my judgement. :) Anyways, those people who say nothing's perfect, they havent seen this machine.

I should probably also note that Im on stolen time and it's is in my boss' boss' boss' [you know tall organisation structures, this company has a tall organisation structure - coz believe it or not he also has bosses, like four!] office so if I get caught in here heads are gonna roll. Well, mine mostly. So maybe in the interests of self preservation I should just head back to those dilapidated IBM NetVistas people my level are given [BTW Im just here on a temporary basis, this is not like what I do for a living or anything. When I finally launch myself into the job market I want to hit the ground running]. After turning it on I usually go make phone calls coz people have actually grown old in the past waiting for those machines to boot. If you notice the words coming slower, or not at all, from this point on it'll be coz of the change of machines :(
E..N....D

road trip, or something like it

So jana my mum and I both abandoned work in favor of a road trip that's been long overdue [had a DL for like two years now, and nothing all that time]. Ok, maybe it wasnt so much a road trip as a trip to shaggz, but still, it involved driving long distances and stopping at shopping centers to buy stuff. [again I overstate - we stopped at just one after which it started raining and biz people closed for the day]. So si we fika Kitale. From then on the road to our shaggz is usually a rough road, the kind people sometimes call mud roads. Now this one was a mud road today. Proper, coz of the rain. There was drama! Si the car skidded. It danced. From this side of the road to the other [it's front-wheel]. Battling with mud. Not knowing which water puddles are actually deeper than they look. For a stretch of like 20 minutes. It was a harrowing experience, even for me. Or as I like to put them, experiences that separate the boys from the men :) And that's not all. Coz we were in the middle of a work week, we had to go back home that same day. Couldnt sleep over. We had left home at 2PM and it's a two and a half-hour drive one way. So you can just guess, on our way back it was muddy and deserted and dark. We actually got stuck once, and revved about for like 10 mins I thot we were never gonna get out of there. But being the driver I am [do I say] I skillfully manuevered us out, applying techniques well honed over the times [playing Need for Speed, Gran Turismo and Colin McRae. Ha ha. See? My addiction to games finally paid off!] So anyway, the trip. After that fiasco we actually had to stop at a river [remember we're at shaggz] to clean the car because when a white car becomes twelve shades of brown, people in town just dont understand where we're coming from. That took another twenty minutes.

So now, the moment we hit tarmack it was no-holds-barred. My mum figured none of us [meaning me] had been driving long enough to be able to drive at night. So it's 6.30, we are 30KM past Webuye headed to Mumias. At least one and a half hours, the journey should take. Was I allowed to speed! Now that's just how I like it. Overtaking 18-wheelers back-to-back[the road from Webuye to Bungoma is the one they call the Great North Road, evenings is when trailers to and from Mombasa abound on it aplenty], gliding down valleys, I even tried to race a Range[!] but I have since learned to pick my battles - ours was a Corolla so do I really need to say how that went...

All in all it was a nice way to spend an afternoon that would otherwise have been spent working. Enjoyed meself thoroughly. Plus I got to prove a friend of mine's theory of relativity of speed between VX's, Ranges and other cars: No matter how fast or slow you're moving, when those two cars overtake you it'll be as though you were stationary.
END

sales, marketing and bad advertisements

I watch TV a lot, so I have seen a great many ads come and go, I have marvelled at some, changed channels at some and written hate mail about yet others. One thing I have noticed is that unlike everything else in the world, adverts do not get better with time. One would think that with improvements in level of technology at their disposal, companies would at least create decent ads, so that they too evolve alongside everything else. But no. Those Harpic™ people just had to go and make that thingie about some housewives being interviewed and their toilets getting transformed, and then the ads always end with some cheesy punchline like "Oh my God I cant believe it looks so clean." Puh'leeeese!! I have never understood why that ad was run to begin with, but even pros make mistakes so maybe we can let that pass, but by Jove! It's been running for two years! And to make matters worse, it's an ad for toilet stuff that runs round about supper time [OK, that one I blame the networks for]

Another one is that one for Ushindi™ where the kids go bathe with their clothes on, then the father comes home from work and does the same. Intended message: Ushindi™ washes clothes as well as bodies. But honestly, all at the same time?!?! It does look a lil bit out of this world, then of course there is the pertinent issue of how the clothes are expected to dry on peoples' bodies... [maybe Ushindi™ is absorbent too? :)]

Talk about metaphors being stretched too far, and immediately to mind comes Omo™. A mother and daughter are cooking then the girl puts too much rice bla bla ti bla bla ta... Intended lesson [they even state it]: A little goes a long way. But people who dint do Literature gitch that Omo™ is such a good additive to cook your rice with that it will multiply and overflow. And can we blame them really? There's a kitchen, there's rice overflowing after being cooked and it's an Omo™ ad so go figure

Then there's the Standard group. These people have a product they almost dont need to advertise[News and events], yet somehow they do. Now my only problem with their ads is the length[considering they own the network, maybe a three minute ad is short for them, even tho the rest are like 30seconds each] and the soundtrack. Wherever they get their tracks from, they need to fire those people, or at least reduce loudness to mask how blaring they usually are. Or they could talk to the EABL people.

Now, Im not in marketing, and some have said about me that I wouldnt be able to sell an umbrella to a person for half the price if it was raining, but I believe it doesnt take a rocket scientist to realize when an ad is whack, and most of our ads, truth be told they're just whack. They're supposed to arouse a passion in someone, to make someone wanna see more, to actually create sales where none existed [hence or otherwise increase market share and revenue- the raison d'etre for most marketing departments]. But frankly all they cause one to do is hate on the respective mother company. And then again, maybe it's just me.
END

the mets, and timely info

If you read a lot, then no Im not talking about cops. Im referring to the metereological department. You know, the ones that are supposed to be forecasting weather conditions. Now Ive always thought that a forecast was where you say something that'll happen before it happens, apparently I was wrong! These met people, hmmmm. As we all know it's been raining for like a whole month and some days now, or has it? Because yesterday on the news the mets had a very important announcement to make to the nation: the sesason has now been officially declared rainy. So all that rain we've been seeing, that cant have been rain coz the rain has just been given the government stamp to start falling :) Dont you just love our mets! But, in their defence, they may have found a failsafe method of weather forecasts - talk about events that have already occurred. That way you cant go wrong and everyone's happy, right?

So anyways, now that the rain has officially been declared rain [by the experts, I might add], I guess Im gonna start carrying an umbrella with me, in case it rains on me [like if hasnt been for the past few weeks!]
END

MONEY MONEY MONEY

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why 24, I wonder

Ever since I got that new job, time management has been a downward spiral, and I keep sinking deeper and deeper every day. Isnt it wierd how when you have a whole day to spare with nothing to do you will actually spend it doing nothing coz nothing of interest will come up [am I saying too many "nothing"s? they really should invent a synonym for that word :)], and then when now you have like 20 minutes only to spare there will arise so many events that you wanted to attend but cant - coz between my boss, the Grim Reaper and CPA 23 hours are already accounted for - ? That's the spiral Im talking about. This company I work at is just out of this world: We report to work at seven. SEVEN! and work all the way till 5. It's a holiday camp for hourly rated employees, coz they work a whole of ten hours if they work over lunch hence higher salaries, but a nightmare for the rest. I remember the way I used to have issues waking up at six in high school [despite that then we'd been made to believe that exam success depended on it - the whole "early to bed and early to rise..." thing] and now it's all come back to haunt me, only in school we used to have holidays to look forward to, now there's no such thing. It's just work and work and work.

I have heard about places in the poles where there is sunshine almost all day, so Im sure there even though the earth still goes one complete cycle every 24 hours, the illusion is created of longer days than ours. I used to think that was hell on earth, but now, Id give my right arm to be in a place like that. But, since Im not, I find myself yet again having to give the movies a miss because an "emergency operation" [you'd think this was the CIA :)] has arisen at work and we are required there all Saturday and maybe even Sunday. Yes they're gonna pay us but doesnt Maslow, or Fayol or whoever - those Management theorists - say that past a certain point with people money stops being the only thing that matters? Now that was a bright person, methinks

END

the proverbial "perfect timing"

Has it ever felt like there was a best time for everything to happen, and that if those things dint happen at those times then they'd best even not happen at all? Alongside best timings, have you ever felt there was a time that couldnt possibly be worse for a certain event to occur? Now, have you ever noted that fate actually picks the latter of the times to slate said events? Maybe its just Murphy [see Murphy's Law below] and me then, but as we speak [or as I write, w'ever], today was the day I had made plans for five jioni after work yaani my day was just overflowing, and just my luck it's 4.50PM and the rain has just started falling - cats, dogs and actual raindrops! - the kind that looks like it will go on for two hours! And of course do I really need to add that I have no car waiting to pick me up and drive me home?:( I work at the same company as my mum, but she works till seven at night! I dont like my job that much, at least not yet. Is this fate, or is it just a creation of my mind [again]? Oh well, since it looks like Im gonna be here for a while, now's as good a time as any to take on gmail. Me against the server, one-on-one. We'll see who manages to out-persevere the other. [You can sleep easy Sergey, or Brin, or Page - damn! I used to know those names - there's still much love for gmail. Despite their crappy server, I still prefer them to Yahoo coz when they do work, its... oh! heaven]

Thot for the day - Murphy's Law:
Nothing is as easy as it seems; everything takes longer than you think it will and if anything can go wrong, it will and at the worst possible moment.
END

Let's meet at two at...

Those five words.... If I never hear them again Im starting to think it will still be too soon! Is it that I had a wierd upbringing, I wonder, because when someone says something like that I am usually led to believe they mean that we should meet at two [of course the one that makes sense, not AM :) ] and not 3:27 or 4:50, but I am constantly being proven wrong. I find that people actually say two meaning that's when they shall be starting the journey to our meeting point, which is always invariably six hours away from where they are [coz Id hate to think that people just dont make it on time on purpose in a bid to exasperate]. And so I am forced to look at my childhood and ask myself: What is it they were taught when growing up that I missed that makes me actually show up at two for a meeting slated for two and them at five? How is it that time ceases to be a universal concept when we need to be somewhere by a certain deadline, so that two and five are construed to mean the same thing for some and not for others? And why, why oh why doesnt the same consience that stops people from pulling stick-ups in banks also stop them from holding up others?
I speak like this because in the past week alone I have been held up not once not twice but three times. Three times! The first time from 4.30 to 7.15, the second time from 4.00 to 5.20 and the third time from 6.00 to 6.45 {{{times plus/minus five minutes}}}. I am starting to get so used to waiting I always walk around with a book to read, and if it were possible I'd also carry around a ka-little foldable chair. And the worst part of it all is that I still cant bring myself to go late, it's just not who I am. When I do that my psyche makes kish out of me. Of course after having run myself out of breath I still get there first, then the other person shows up 45 minutes later, strolling and telling me "Heh! That jam was horrendous today. I have never seen anything like it before"{{{until the next time you're late, I add for myself}}} - and this in a small town with a car population of about 200(!), or even in a place where jams are credible but honestly, at two in the afternoon! And so I lend a sympathetic ear to the transport woes [as if I who made it on time came by plane] and they promise it's never gonna happen again and the cycle repeats itself next time.
Im thinking Ill one of these days stop making plans that involve people. Machines are so much easier to work with!

END

first day

So finally I got a casual job, not the kind I wanted but a job anyhow [gotta thank Providence in everything, dont we?] My first day at work, and how did I spend it? Shovelling old invoice books that were being moved "to a new and safer location" for "easier record keeping and reference." Yeah right! These are books that hardly even had pages inside them, they were for 2003 and before [the carbon copies that are supposed to remain at source when an invoice is sent out]. They were so old the pages were white [you know the ones that are usually pink - like the bank deposit slips at, you guessed it, banks ], and we are being told to "handle them carefully" because "they will be needed at a later date." And to make matters worse, there was the equivalent of two truckloads of them, it was just endless. We were only praying we do not catch asthma or anything else [you know how quickly dust accumulates on top of fridges and doorframes? Now imagine three uninterrupted years worth of it!] All this does not come into perspective until one knows what my job is: I was hired to be a clerk. Can you believe that?!!? My contract letter actually cites "Clerical duties" under my job description! OK, so maybe in my employers' defence I was working with books, only Id kinda thought Id be writing in them, not shovelling them around, you know??!?!?! Makes one wanna @#(*&(*&(@#!>. Anyways, hopefully tomorrow and in the days to follow there shall be actual writing involved and less of the menial labor, otherwise I run the risk of actually building up some muscles :)
END

Eureka (I have done it!)

THIS ONE FOR THE COMP LOVERSSo I finally hit a milestone in my IT life last nite. I managed to install Linux and add my own custom packages to it, all from commandline. This process called compilation, it takes on a whole new meaning for programs that were written in C and C++. When I was compiling said packages, I saw characters displayed on screen I dint even know existed, and needless to say the process took 45(!) minutes [I actually timed it to see] for a less than 10MB program - of course Linux itself had taken an hour and a half just to install. The custom packages I was installing were an mp3 player for Linux [it doesnt inherently come with mp3 support coz someone doesnt have as much dou as Microsoft hence probably wouldnt be able to survive an antitrust lawsuit, so they just support open source file formats like ogg and flac - formats virtually no one, and perhaps three other people, in the world uses(!)] and a video player. One gets the rpm's [for Redhat Package Management - equiv of Windows setup files] from the net - or if you're really geeky you write the program yourself in C, me Im not yet up to that level - then compile, install and run. The moment I started watching the How you remind me video for Nickeback inside Linux, I have seldom felt such sense of achievement. I watched it over and over again just to tell myself it's actually real, coz this is something I've been trying to do since like '02. Ts taken me a while, but Ive arrived bigtime, and Im proud of myself.
Next milestone, connect to a Windows network and subsequently the internet from Linux [commandline, of course - none of that samba crap, {{{my bad}}}, stuff]
END

A long, long week

START After my classic weekend at that rocking uni, I decided to go visit an uncle of mine who stays on the other side of town. It had been a while since Id been there so I thot it would be a pleasing exprerience, but I am fast learning to never underestimate fate: no matter how syched up and happy you are, fate will always find a way to get you down. So in my case there was no power. And when I say no power I dont mean for 20mins or even three hours, I mean for FIVE days, two of them in the weekend. Ati sijui wires were cut, the transformer was missing a thingamajic or other and crap like that. And then there's Kenya Power[KPLC]. These people are just in a league of their own. They are very efficient, unlike parastatals in Kenya, or so they like to think of themselves. For all those five days we had no power, in the spirit of efficiency and quick response, they would come early in the morning [very early, at around 11.30 :) ] - and proceed to sit around their van and study the cabling talking among themselves. At around 8.00PM they would head, after a long, hard day's work, and the routine would repeat itself the next day. You know us people were just there wondering, what happened to all the actual engineers who used to work at KPLC? and is the strategy here gonna be to sit the catastrophe out ama are we actually going to see some work being done? I even ended up missing Scrubs! and it was a continuation from last week :( Anyways, all's well that ends well, I guess, and it seems their sitting and studying strategy does work, [albeit not as fast as some others like actually fixing the problem] because we now have power. It's been a long wait, but after the first two days you're pretty much used to it I daresay. So we're celebrating, alongside the rain like the rest of the country, the return of power. ENDIT

Friendships do last forever

START I recently caught up with some of my old buddes for high school at [ge this, coz things like these dont happen at places like these] a classical concert. Id met one of them earlier and he happened to be going so managed to drag me along and boy am I glad I went, coz these were people whom I hadnt seen in like two years going on three, and we just up and picked up where we had left off as if nothing had happened, never mind all the changes our lives had been in since 2002! Turns out the only thing we had in common was that we once knew each other, oh, and our love for classical [well, theirs more than mine coz I have since diversified into rock :) ] Some of us were driving, others had lil missus's by our sides, and yet others were dressed in crisp suits, but all that dint matter. We were friends, and we had a lot of catching up to do, and catch up we did! Now that I think about it, did we even listen to the Morzat rehearsal? Maybe just a lil bit.
And alongside meeting some of these friends comes new stuff, and for all gamers alike at a time like now [at least in Kenya and other nyuma places where we get stuff next year or the one after], it dont come any newer than Need for Speed Most Wanted, the latest in the Need for Speed series from Electronic Arts, and yours truly is now the proud owner! I love my friends. [I know what you're thinking, Im not materialistic. I love them regardless of what they give me and what they dont give me] ENDIT

Classic weekend

START For the weekend I went to a friend's uni to visit and slept over mpaka Sunday. I tell you their place absolutely rocks. It's like when anything new gets produced, the producers themselves make sure these people get a copy to sample, [either that or they are just that good at pirating stuff] and sometimes they even get it before it's released to the mass market. Case in point: two programs titled CSI New York and 24 season 5 - those are the ones currently showing in the States on their respective producers' networks, and here the guys already have the entire seasons on not one not two but like sixty hard drives for entertainment - and their parents are sitting at home happy thier kids are in uni doing engineering. Hmmm... si ignorance is bliss! I got to watch the two seasons plus a host of other movies so now I can say Im way up. In fact on Friday and Saturday we dint even sleep coz there was so much to do and so little time to do it in.
In other unrelated news(TM) [that phrase has been used by the BBC so many times I think they should have patented it by now], I dropped my CV's and applications for the job at several places successfully and so now the waiting game begins. Too bad I may have to do the waiting in Western. For those of us that live in Kenya, we'll know that there's not an inkling of life those sides, but oh for choices. Im just gonna try and make the best of a bad situation and if I manage to stay sane doing it so much the better. But on the brighter side, with nothing else to do I might even get some studying done for my June exams, which would be very nice coz I do NOT want to pull another stunt like the one last November for the Dec exams. T almost killed me :) ENDIT

One for the holidays

START It's that time of the year once again when school is closed [can I get an Oh yeah!] and I realise that it's what makes up my life, coz I have no clue whatsoever what to do with myself. And this time it's a long one... like Id said before - a whole of four months, maybe even five, and that's on the lower side!! So in order to avoid developing any bad habits[the devil's workshops and idle minds thing] - BTW would you believe so far I have none! I kid you not, my self control is massive I tell you! - I am looking for employment. Also coz "I would like to gain much needed hands-on experience in the fields of commerce and IT, and get exposed to the working world where I can apply concepts learned in class for an all-round aspect..." Syc! That's just what I write on my CV to jazz prospectives, the real reason is I want some quick cash, and past experience has proved that parents are not the way to go for such needs, especially if the reason I need the cash is not so that I can pay my small sis' school fee or buy myself Commerce text books.

Im so hoping I find something here in the big city [the one in the sun, as our govt would have us believe], coz I also want to avoid having to go home. Us people stay so far away from civilisation someone actually described our place as "..in the back of beyond.." :) Yaani nothing ever happens there plus the only people I could call good friends - people you look forward to seeing again - have since moved out. But on the upside, if Im there I'll be better placed to save up for that comp I want, there's really nothing to spend cash on thosides. A small town "is a place where there's nowhere to go that you shouldn't be going" and that's classic us. But it's all good, life is still sweet. ENDIT

The whole group thang

START So recently I decided to become a member of a group in church. Ive never done anything like this before, you know community development, cleaning the environment, youth groups, mumbo-jumbo... hell - going through primary and high school I wasnt even a member of the Science club! despite common belief that it helped a lot of its members do well in the examinations. See Im just not a group person. Things we do alone, those ones I love. It's probably why Id go to a movie but I wouldnt go raving - coz at the movies no one expects you to be talking, they actually expect you to be silent and consider talk a nuisance. Also why my fave pastime is computer games, and why "making friends and meeting new people" are nowhere on my list of hobbies. When I started reading Digests [Readers Digest], I came across this quote from Jay Leno that just blew me away: "I love mankind and humanity; it's people I cant stand" I just loved that one, and I think I share his sentiments.

Anyways, the church group. We come up with lyrics to accompany people when they are singing during service, kinda like a slide show. Actually it is a slide show. We have already met like thrice we've even done one show for one weekend and Im proud to report the commitment bug hasn't bitten me yet and I still show up on time for all meetings, and I actually like it in the group. ENDIT

Sweet guys finish last

START There are two different types of guys, methinks, the type that's cocky, arrogant, and often annoyingly good-looking, and miraculously, this is the type that always seems to get the girl, no matter how badly they treat her. Then there's Guys Like Me. Guys Like Me are polite, considerate blokes who possess a fundamental respect and high regard for women - characteristics often summed up by that one word: 'Sweet'. Which makes us about as sexy as stamp collectors. 'Sweet' in this regard isnt really a compliment. "You're so sweet" translates into "I dont want to have s*x with you". Take it form me, when it comes to pulling, us Sweet Guys really do finish last.

By sweet, I dont mean out and out losers. Sweet guys can actually be good-looking, sporty and sociable, but they're just not like the alpha-male studs who go around believing that any woman who wont sleep with them is either insane or a lesbian. These guys are overconfident, do not fear rejection and will hit on any woman they find attractive.

Unfortunately, us Sweet Guys wont subscribe to this philosophy. We fear rejection too much. Naturally this means we soon grow accustomed to disappointments.

Thankfully, it seems the tables are finally turining in our favour. After years of having been sandkicked in our faces in the game of love, it seems Sweet Guys are now in demand. Today, the blockbuster heroes are more likely to be complex, anguished types like Tobey Maguire (Spiderman), or Jake Gyllenhaal (The day after tomorrow). Witness too the success of sensitive male TV characters like Ross (Friends) and Yuen(Off-center). And then of course there's the story of Chris Martin, lead singer for Coldplay who once quipped about his succes with women "I've been turned down more times than a stereo", and yet ended up marrying a Hollywood beauty in the shape of Gwyneth Paltrow. There is, after all, light at the end of the tunnel for Us, and that makes me happy. ENDIT

#@!&*$(@)(*$&*()#&*) !!!

Is it just my net connection or does this happen to everyone? Today Blogger has just taken me 1hr 35mins!! [I literally timed it] to open. I swear if I dint need these machines tomorrow, Im guessing one would be in pieces right about now. Alternatively my Chief Information Officer, were I the Google CEO, would have found himself very jobless, very suddenly! But if wishes were horses...

Anyways, over the weekend I got myself signed up for a network marketing plan that's supposed to make me healthy wealthy and wise in six months, and if Im lucky I should get a Beamer(TM) - that's a BMW, 'case we have normal people out there who arent car freaks like yours truly - for "my very hard work" in uplifting my employers' net worths in about 6 years, but lets face it, I suck at marketing so Im not getting rich any time soon and the Beamer(TM) will probably go to my next of kin if I even get it at all. So Ill just sit back and wait for Providence to smile upon me so that at least I can get a monthly check, no matter what the amount. Healthy... wouldnt say I had problems in that department to begin with. I am an upwardly mobile thriving Kenyan youth still in my prime, so I'll think about their heatlh improvement in another, say 70 years? ya.

And on a happier note... Oh ya, forgot, there are no happy notes today since nothing seems to be working like it should, starting of course with this here blogger

Life is good

START Its still exam season thisides but with a twist this time - the paper Id said was coming last week, the one that's everyone's nemesis - ya, that one - it came and shock on us all it was doable!! as in it was actually set in English and not Greek like we'd all thought and everything did look familiar! It was almost an anticlimax, the way we had waited for this experience where you go stare at the paper for two hours and hand in your near-empty script [unless of course you count crap as content :) ], but all's well that ends well. Now we can only hope, the way honorable people do: may the best man win.

So now Im taking a break for the weekend to go bring my sanity level back up to par from the hectic last week, maybe even have some fun while at it. Hopefully next week will be a lot lighter. And speaking of light, I need to start carrying my stuff little by little home in prep for the oncoming hols [the ones that last forever, mpaka man fast vergisst, dass man noch Student ist. - did I mention I could speak German? Oh ya, I can, a lil bit] otherwise Im gonna need to hire a truck, or maybe just three muscle men :)
ENDIT

And the list goes on

START Last time I said I was a games fan, not? Today I was just going to a friend's place to say hi [actually I was gonna get some music, whoever goes to someone's place to 'just say hi' in this day and age? :-) ] and the guy had Hidden and Dangerous! Does life rock or what? [I know it's kinda old but these are the kinds of things that only get better with age, you know, like good wine] So now I cant wait to finish my exams so I can get gaming seriously, coz I also recently stumbled upon Oppsing Forces(Half life) and Midnight Club II.

And speaking of exams, the one coming on Friday is just my nemesis, mine and everyone else's in my class. Has there ever been a time you felt like even if you read and prepared and no matter how hard you tried it just wouldn't make a difference? That's me, so here I am blogging sted of reading.

Came across a classic quote on my sojourns yesterday night: Those who enjoy what they do invariably do well. Dont remember who it's by though. Pretty neat methinks ENDIT

New download manager

START Im the kind of guy who's into anything computers [let's face it, specifically games, but I also know the technical stuff] and my mission in school is to beat the networks. Since we have proxies that are now on and now off, I cant use P-2-P's to download stuff from the net, so till recently Ive had to be relying on the donwload manager for Mozilla nd Internet Explorer and those are, at best, shaky. At worst they jsut plain dont work! Anyways, I got another one [its actually more a downlaod accelerator] called Metaproducts Download Express that absolutely rocks! First the downloads are like 300 times faster and the best thing is that they actually come! Our connection is dial-up but I managed to download a 22MB file in 10 at a time when even graphical websites [has anyone seen grammy.com recently - your patience will hit new levels if you're not on satellite!] were not opening ati internet is slow. Im just so jazzed. ENDIT

Im free

So last Dec si I did an exam in a professional course, and I was trying to crash the stuff people take six months to do in one month [I started studying in November coz ati I thought long holidays are better spent elsehow] and it was stress. I hit limits I dint even know I have, but now the results have come and whadya know - I passed. Im so happy yaani and this is just proof for all the atheists out there that there is a higher power [can I get a Amen] out there coz how else can one explain me passing? (((some say Im a bright fellow, but Im not one to blow my own horn :-) )))


Now that all that anxiety is over, I have sworn to myself that I am going to get into that culture where I prepare for exams well in advance so I have ample time to do everything I need to do. But who are we kidding? Next season it will be business as usual, lounge all sem, panic just before exam then hopefully pass, and the cycle of life goes on.