Tag: south africa

Categories
Entertainment Music

My Joke Fest: 10 Reasons To Skip the Coke Zero Fest

{{es|Botella de 237cc de Coca-Cola Zero, comer...
Image via Wikipedia
  1. The name: “Coke Zero Fest” – what kind of a loser goes to a Zero Fest? Rather go to a Hero Fest…
  2. Mass dehydration and hunger at the first Coke Fest (Metallica/Centurion) was not cool – I’m still thirsty from that one.
  3. There’s no such thing as a quick beer. 1 beer = 45 minute wait. And the bar “cooling off” period? WTF? All that does is create a huge backlog of demand and massive queues when it is over.
  4. Standing ankle deep in piss overflow water in the “toilet” area while Chris Cornell plays Blackhole Sun is now a fond memory. Not cool.
  5. Lies from Big Concerts last year – ‘Separate concession stands and toilets for Golden Circle ticket holders’ – Fork out 600 bucks and it never happened.
  6. Confused South African artist line-up. Again. And those 5FM presenters. Eish.
  7. Eyethu events will probably be involved again. This is bad.
  8. Bullet for My Valentine and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus have cancelled. Like Guns ‘n Roses cancelled two years ago. Low ticket sales are probably the reason this time.
  9. Rubbish rules, that aren’t even enforced when you get there.
  10. They keep moving the bloody venue around.

On the upside, you can go and get your money back from Computicket, which is a first. If I had a ticket, I’d be first in that queue, thank you very much.

Congratulations Big Concerts, 5FM, Nando’s and Jack Daniels – You are the proud sponsors of another complete musical fuck up.

Categories
Technology

Google Maps South Africa Updated… At Last

Google Maps on Apple iPhone
Image by niallkennedy via Flickr

In a move probably more related to a push from Apple and Vodafone over the uselessness of the iPhone‘s mapping ability than out of Google‘s own world domination attempts, Google Maps has finally been updated with a vastly more comprehensive detail level on maps in South Africa.

So its good news for all us tech junkies who are too lazy to bother with paper maps, but for the likes of Streetmaps, Brabys and various other South African map printing companies it spells time to rethink or get out.

Updated Street Level Google Maps
Updated Street Level Google Maps

Best we keep an eye out for Google Street View Cars clogging our streets in the near future, but my hopes aren’t high, so I’ll take that one with a pinch of salt, but it is likely the directions feature should become available as soon as Google points their route crunchers at the new mapping data.

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Categories
Entertainment Sports TV

World Cup 2010 – Let the Ticket Scalping Begin!

FIFA
Image via Wikipedia

Friday 20th February 2009 is D-Day for those South African soccer fans who want to attend a match in the 2010 Soccer World Cup. They’ll either have to be willing to fork out huge chunks of cash for a prime spot, or buy up all the cheap seats going for at least R140.  (One wonders if South African flag coloured binoculars will be complimentary with the purchase?)

From mg.co.za:

“In order to facilitate the access of ordinary South African football fans to a tournament that might otherwise be beyond their reach, Fifa has blocked off about 16% of the tickets — all the cheapest category four tickets — for South African residents.”

If FIFA truly wanted to be charitable towards South Africa, they’d give a cross section of all ticket categories at reduced prices.

“Tickets for the tournament go on sale to the general public on Friday on Fifa’s website, fifa.com, and through nationwide branches of South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB), a national World Cup sponsor.

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA - DECEMBER 12: A general...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This sale starts online at 1pm (11am GMT) and runs until March 31.”

Yes, because Internet penetration in this country sucks so bad and the crime is so bad that we have to sell tickets at the bank or nobody will be able to buy them?!!? Either way, you still have to wait a further month after parting with your money to see if you win the lucky draw to get your ticket(s).

Either way, I predict thousands of these tickets are going to end up in foreign hands, at a premium of course. The opportunity to make a quick buck is way too high. This is South Africa, the land of corruption, after all.

So sports fans, best you go find yourself a long queue on Friday. Or, like me, you can just kick back and watch the games in High Definition on TV.

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Categories
Computing

Google Zeitgeist 2008 for South Africa

For those of you interested in seeing what South Africans search for, here’s the Google Zeitgeist 2008 for South Africa. It’s actually quite boring in some places. I mean who googles for yahoo? Or googling for facebook? Or the worst – googling for google? An indication perhaps of immaturity in South African search usage? I thought so, until I looked at some of the US and UK trends, and we’re not that far away from them…

Some of the most popular searches included Load Shedding and of course the FIFA 2010 World Cup. This year’s Zeitgeist also reflects important South African concerns like Xenophobia, along with rising interest in new developments like the Gautrain. South Africans were keen to stay up to date on politics, with high volumes of searches around Thabo Mbeki’s resignation, and around international events like the elections in the USA and Zimbabwe. Take a look below to get sense of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, in South Africa for 2008.

Fastest Rising

  1. gumtree
  2. facebook
  3. lotto
  4. eskom
  5. youtube
  6. beeld
  7. news 24
  8. yahoo mail
  9. chuck norris
  10. beijing olympics

Most Popular

  1. facebook
  2. cape times
  3. games
  4. map
  5. yahoo
  6. news
  7. jobs
  8. google
  9. gmail
  10. pictures

Top Politicians

  1. jacob zuma
  2. thabo mbeki
  3. trevor manuel
  4. julius malema
  5. kgalema motlanthe
  6. helen zille
  7. fikile mbalula
  8. terror lekota
  9. mbhazima shilowa
  10. mongosuthu buthelezi

Top Newsworthy

  1. load shedding
  2. fifa 2010 world cup
  3. beijing olympics
  4. barack obama
  5. global warming
  6. euro 2008
  7. xenophobia
  8. adt (home and office security service)
  9. zimbabwe election
  10. cope (congress of the people

    11. political party)

Top Sports Teams

  1. the sharks
  2. kaizer chiefs
  3. the lions
  4. mamelodi sundowns
  5. bafana bafana
  6. orlando pirates
  7. stormers
  8. the springboks
  9. cheetahs
  10. proteas

Top Local Celebs

  1. dj sbu
  2. dj fresh
  3. dj cleo
  4. kelly khumalo
  5. danny k
  6. ryk neethling
  7. khanyi mbau
  8. connie ferguson
  9. gareth cliff
  10. loyiso bala
Categories
Freedom

Diamonds are only De Beers’ Best Friend

Ever since watching the absolutely horrifying Blood Diamond (the movie where Leo DiCaprio can for like to talk wif a Souf Efriken accent), I’ve had a rather bitter taste in my mouth when it comes to any glassy rock, and their biggest monopolistic producer, who, it is claimed, deliberately stockpile the rocks to increase scarcity and therefore value. (And in doing so have probably directly and indirectly funded decades of wars in Africa).

This has led to some very strong negative sentiment towards ever buying a diamond (sorry ladies), and I tend to take out this sentiment on the poor salespeople behind the counter who try to divert my cubic zirconia preference elsewhere: “A Diamond? What? Have you ever seen the movie Blood Diamond!!!???”

Of course De Beers claim with a straight face that all their diamonds are 100% conflict free, but why would they ever say anything else, right?

As a monopoly, and a very controversial one at that, De Beers should be ready for parody in any way shape or form. Apparently they aren’t. De Beers was recently criticised in the following advert featured in a fake edition of the New York Times which was distributed in New York City on 12 November 2008:

The real New York Times had a good chuckle about the whole pardoy, but in contrast De Beers responded, well, with the typical legal sideswipe in the internet era – go after the domain registrar that hosts the domain name entry for the site, because they simply cannot ever get a real win against comment covered by free speech rights (that’s free speech in De Beers’ home, South Africa, never mind the First Amendment stuff the yanks use).

The sad truth is that large corporates will continue to exploit these backhand techniques, chasing the softer targets instead of taking a head on confrontation, or even better, actually embracing the criticism and firing directly back at it with facts and truths.

Sucks to them. As a consumer I’ll just keep my conscience clear and stick with the man-made rocks. (And besides I don’t have money for jewels like that, or even someone to give it to!!!)

By the way, given the fast growing economic depression, poor sales predict an artificially large drop in diamond production in the De Beers stable.