_EX Wars

I have an accute case of Bloggers block if there ever was one. I can't for the life of me come up with an original idea for a post this week. I have a few ideas brewing but they require some time to gel and definately when I can get some free time I will dive right in.

So in the mean time I will do another one like this. This week I have noted alot of men vs women wars erupting all over KBW I guess it is the same old story since men and women always never seem to get along despite the fact that we are always struggling to hook up with someone to complain about.

It seems to have started last week when HnH's old half decided to crawl back after being dumped by his new half only to encounter the scathing and utter wrath of his past. then Archer who introduces us to the potato wars (not this tato!) beginging with a chick who decides to play mind games and tempt her jamaa with her pal in order to test his loyalty but tough luck cos he failed the test but the question is who actually lost since she lost the jamaa (probably the pal as well!), Baadaye he chomoas a take-away chips episode with a new age sophisticated babe which leaves a poor dude as leftover. Inexes after last weeks fiasco with Rihanna look-a-like is busy reminding us of his undergraduate tally.

Klara got us thinking of how to handle a tricky situation like getting invited to an Ex's wedding would I go, maybe depending on the nature of the parting I guess it can serve as a form of closure cos you are resigned to the fact that she is no longer available while still single the possibility always lingers. Talking of Exes and weddings Mocha is perplexed by the Ex who doesn't know how to tell her he is getting married and then an old friend confesses he has been getting some Bill Clinton action on the side while still considering himself to be faithful to his mama I don't think that trick can work again, Meanwhile while dishing out this issues Mocha still lets her share in some beautiful shots. Gishungwa had us questioning whether we are in love or in lust my take is that isn't possible to have both wrapped up in one Yaani Lust for the one you love? We are still all waiting very patiently for Unyc's story to unravel.

Top prize leo is 3N who has organized a Seminar in Kigali for Kenyan men to scope out the action with the hutu and tutsi babes since Kenyan Mamas have declared their disinterest in us. Apparently I will be one of the resource persons. My my what to say?

The question I ask is why cant we just get along?

Not only bad things happen in Kenya this sounds good

Easy Sunday

I',m having an easy sunday today so after my tough week I decided to come up to the office and catch up on some blogs but to my disappointment it seems that KBWers seem to have taken the weekend off, even the aggregator is down so all that is left is going back over last weeks posts and seeing if there are any new comments. So to keep my bored self busy I have decided to do a weeks digest of whats been happening in the kenyan blogland. In the meantime a little social bookmarking wont hurt as well.

First I got an email from these people on my yahoo email which I don't even use much, looks interesting but I don't think I'm ready to move to another blogging service right now. Inexes bounced back on the blog scene this time in Dar where he seems to having drama with Rihana look a like and her Mshikaji he has polished up his swahili as well, welcome back bro. EGM on the other hand was very much around less pictures but more geekstuff his latest on capturing Youtube videos is one I will definately be studying in detail when I have some free time. Kayliz gives us a view of second life while Archer updated us on his late night chats and introduced us to his dog sunkuli but is now looking for an upgrade for his Nokia 6600. BTW I succumbed to Nokia mania and got myself a cheap 1110i to resuscitate my Safaricom line which despite M's exposition ,I still retain some of the Kenya peculiar calling habits and suffer which Safaricon have translated into incredible profits. Half n Half entertained us with a Cheeky quiz then went full blast at a desparate clueless ex, and apparently is still scoring in her war againist BAT, keep it up. Betty has abandoned hard labour and is busy reminding us of girlie playground songs was it hopskotch? :-)

Aegeus finally revealled the real story of the 7's after party with Wanja and 10 wild ladies, hitting the dusty road and gave us his weekend plans, I wish I could join you there and why did you stop bolding? Talking of parties Chatterly gave us a lowdown of what cuts at Kenyan Bashes in the US made me feel that our home made parties are not that bad afterall while Aco gave us some humerous flashbacks of Kenyan parties gone wrong at home. Komi made us look at our calling while Unyc and her co-conspirator kept us in suspense waiting for Part IV in the meantime part III continues to elicit all manner of requests looks like some peeps are expecting an orgy, as for me, I just want to know whether I come out alive seeing that I have a penchant for knocking trees and apparently Mungikis might be around. Majonzi had us examining the issue of Models I don't mind looking at them though but it seems most of us forget they are supposed to be selling clothes not their bodies. Mwangi apart from having rodent problems has been posting cryptic clues on his hanjamaz making those of us who are poor at riddles look slow. Modo took us on a humerous ride with him on his daily endevour not be be confused with a Mungiki. Bomseh decided to give us some kibwagizo's on his posts. Mocha gave a much demanded expose' and Farmgal took top honours for being a sport and giving us a peek at what happens on hen nites unfortunately peeps just want more and I can hear the chants of show us more.

Missing in action though were, Klara, Ichiena and Princess I hope you step up next week.

On a happier note my leave application is on the bosses desk and if he agrees its going to be 4 weeks of sleeping and full muenjoyos. I can't wait.

I like my new keyboard!

Long Week now Numb with Relief

Leo ni Friday lakini I am too numb to do the usual Friday Stuff.

It's been an unusually tough and bloody long week, swamped with jobo. Its a surprise that I was able to squeeze time to blog regardless, this was not helped by the fact peeps put up either very long deep posts, technical posts and crypic posts that require more mental capacity than I could spare plus the suspense. Lakini thank you all for helping me keep my sanity.

Fortunately it has all worked out and the company can keep its certification otherwise I wouldn't be able to face the boss on Monday since the project is my baby.

Leo nitarudi nyumbani mapema, take a shower and doze on the sofa, aki thats performing very poorly for a Furahiday.(yes! even here in Embu we get some action occassionally)

What I would do for a massage right now. Kesho nikiamka nikiwa freshi I'll be back at full mental.

Cheers!

A Comic Voyage

Inspired by Mwaris history of book reading it brought back my earliest memories of what introduced me to reading and got me hooked. From a very early age I remember getting attracted to comic books in those days I remember there was a small bookshop next to citymarket where an elderly Asian lady used to sell used books and any time I had the opportunity to go into town with my dad we used to make it a point to drop there. At one end there was a big pile of comic books and I ussually used to make a beeline for it straight away and plead with dad to buy as many as possible.

Some of the earliest comic books I fell in love with were the British children comic books of the day such as:

• Beano: Who can forget Dennis the Menace and his ally Gnasher, Minnie the Minx, Rodger the Dodger and the Bash Street Kids
• Dandy: Remember Desparate Dan and his apetite for Cowpies, Korky the cat, Desparate Dawg
• The Beezer & Topper: The Banana Bunch, Colonel Blink the Shortsighted Gink, Pop Dick and Harry, The Hillys and the Billys and my all time favorite - The Numskulls which I believe inspired a Sitcom

While I was enjoying these british comics I also started picking the Disney comics and quickly went through tens of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Tweety and Sylvester.

Before long the superhero DC Comics came my way and I discovered Superman, Batman, Spiderman and the Fantastic Four. At this stage I was hooked and it helped that my mum was in UK for a while back then and when she came back she had a full trunk full of Superhero comics. I totally loved Superman and I believe he is the coolest of all superheros and I secretly fantasized that I had the supepowers of superman.

Further along on my voyage I started getting interested in the the Archie and Jughead comics it was at this time that Yaya centre was opening and there was a nice little bookshop called Bookstop where they also sold secondhand books and comics and using the pretext of going to buy comics for my small bro I used to make sure that I put in a number of Archie comics which of course were for me to read first. The Archie characters were priceless, I always enjoyed the tag of war between Veronica and Betty for Archies attention (I always rooted for Betty though), Jughead and his love of food laziness and hate of girls (Ethel was it?) and how was Big Moose despite being rather slow was able to bag such a lovely girl as Midge which caused Reggie alot of pain whenever he tried to slice in.Also not to be forgotten was the Adventures of Tintin many of the breaktimes in school were spent comparing notes on the number of Tintins we had read and by Std 6 I am pretty sure I had read them all, My first was Cigars of the Pharoahs and my favorite was Explorers on the Moon. Again the Characters were unforgetable, Captain Haddock, Bianca Castafiore, Proffesor Calculus, Tompson and Thompson and who could forget Snowy. My favorite character was of course the drunk always swearing Captain Haddock with his "Billions of billious blue blistering barnacles in ten thousand thundering typhoons"

Now the ultimate classic is Asterix and for your information I am not yet over this one and I am capable of snatching it from your baby bro so watch out :-). I find the Asterix strips so creative, humerous and entertaining I clearly remember my first one which is still my all time favorite - Asterix and Cleopatra "That nose!" The naming of the characters was hillarous, Unhygenix the fishmonger and his wife Bacteria, Fulliautomatix the blacksmith, Vitaltatistatistix the chief, A Roman centurion named Poisonus Fungus or Crismus Bonus the sterotypes and puns of the various European Tribes is quite uncanny. It always made me laugh out loud whenever Cacofonix the Bard was tied up during the banquent except in one adventure, The banquets which everyone had a whole wildboar to themselves. Obelix my favorite charactor was never allowed by Getafix the druid to have a sip of Magic potion cos he fell in a cauldron when he was a baby except in one instance in Asterix and Cleopatra.

This Frisky Gaul and his obese friend Obelix in their myriad adventures has kept me entertained for over 20 years and I am sure many more to come.

All pictures from Wikipedia.com

No News is Good News?

I think Not.
After todays morning explosion is took it think like an hour before scattered rumours started filtering into the office about a blast in Nairobi. Of course with the typical Kenyan rumour mill there were already around 101 different theories floating around and that was even before morning tea was served.
Being away from news sources in the office apart from the internet I wasn't able to get any verifiable facts until around lunch time when I checked the newsfeeds on my newsreader from CNN, BBC and Reuters they were still bila story from Nairobi. Of course Google news searches for Nairobi picked up the news feeds from around 10.00 am. I was late for lunch time news at 1.00PM and when I got to the house all the channels had live coverage of KANU's Special Delegates meeting so again no news updates for me. Speculation was rife as people rushed into all sorts of conclusions blaming this and that group or persons, blaming the government, blaming the opposition, blaming foreigners, looking for religious, political, social and economic angles.
As a typical news junkie you can imagine my frustration as I searched for information about the blast since all my folks and and alot of my friends are in Nairobi but from all those I have heard from I guess they should be all OK.
Perhaps the blast was too minimal or inconsequential to the world media to attract widespread and quick coverage but I still wonder how it would have been if it featured one American or if the hotel in question was the one associated with a certain pseudocelebrity who is currently languisihing in an American Jail the coverage would have been any different. As the country grapples with addressing the role of the media, the media bill and the information superhighway I hope we shall be able to find a solution to this information gap when it comes to breaking news.
As I struggle along trying to get more news I pray for anyone who might have been affected or hurt in todays events. Since I don't want to miss the 7.00PM news let me sign off now.

5 Reasons Why I Blog

Ichiena the funny one decided to challenge me by tagging me to do a podcast on 5 reasons why I blog. I Fond this extremely difficult cos 1. I thought I blogged for no reason at all, just cos I can really and 2. I didn't even know how to start in uploading a podcast. Being a fella who thrives on challenges I thought I should at least give it a go and since I google everything it was not long before I had completed Podcasting 101 and I believe now I am ready to post my premiere podcast. Although I won't make a habit of it (too much like work!) I enjoyed making it and maybe if you ask enough I will do some more.
I used a background of images from Embu where I live for the Video so that some of you can get a perspective of where I am coming from. As I listened to myself I realise I still have a sligth stutter I hope you will forgive me for that but those who know me can tell that my stammering has improved a whole lot since them days.
Otherwise ji-enjoy.

Live Weekend

Quite a hectic Madaraka day weekend I had. Its been a while since I enjoyed 3 whole days of no-work pressure. It was also time for me to travel downtown (not upcountry like most folks) to spend some time with the folks. I was also able to catch up with several friends as well including one very senior blogger who we grew up with. There were several highlights of the weekend but I will only talk about two of them.

Sawa Sawa Concert.

Despite a very busy schedule on Saturday I was able to drag my self to the Aboretum to catch a glimpse of the Sawa Sawa festival that featured among others Jazz Maestro - Hugh Masekela and Roots Reggae icon - Burning Spear. As can be expected for any free concert in the city the whole area around Aboretum was jam packed with people up to State House Road and therefore despite my enthusiasm and that of my posse we were not able to see much of what was going on stage but I generally liked the atmosphere which was largely peaceful and lively. I had my doubts initally especially after the rowdy scenes that have been experienced in reggae concerts in the past. I was able to pick a few nice CD's of local music to enjoy including Eric Wainainas Twende Twende. Unfortunately I couldn't stay long and was not able to see the fellow who brought us out there i.e. Hugh cos we had advance tickets for our next assignment.

Pirates of the Caribean - At Worlds End.

At long last after 7 days of anticipation since it opened I was able to watch Pirates 3 over at Nu-Metro we arrived just in time to grab popcorn and drinks and sink into our seats to watch this years mega blockbuster. I had to admit the massive expectations that were heaped on this movie were impossible to surmount but it not deter my desire to lap it up. The movie of the year finally opened and I sat back to enjoy the ride.


Enjoy I did! Captain Jack Sparrow and the rest of the Pirates cast did not disappoint it would take a massive effort to match the levels reached by Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Mans Chest but at Worlds end matched them in quite a number of levels. There some issues I had with the overall movie but I'm dead certain I will watch it again and again, I believe it is the small and suttle things that you don't notice at the first screening that make for a great collectors movie. I already have DVD's of th first 2 and I am pretty sure as soon as P3 is available on www.amazon.co.uk I will be one of the first buyers.

Parts I liked

• What is a pirate movie without elaborate sword fights and canon fights - some critics have said the action scenes were too long but I say there were just what the fans wanted
• The wisecracks were there in plenty as usual and Captain Jack Sparrow was Hillarious as usual my only complain was that there was not as much of him as I would have wanted and I think he did not take as much rum as required.
• Keira Knightely was as ravishing as usual this time the sexiness was more overt as she gave us generous glimpses of her lovely thighs in the Singapore scene and in the last scene just before Will turner goes on his 10 year voyage on the BT - sorry! :-) on the Flying Dutchman.
• For me the movie was a fitting conclusion to the Pirates of the Caribean Trilogy and I hope Disney lets it remain a Trilogy they can make more money by using the movies popularity to sell tickets to its Disneyland rides.

Parts that didn't quite click.

• The movie took too long to introduce Captain Jack and the first sight we saw of him was a humongous nose. It is standard to introduce the main character in the first 5 minutes but I belive it took almost 20 minutes before we saw Jack but when he appeared he took over.
• Very very long over 2.5 hours is quite long for an adventure movie
• Admiral James Norrington deserved a more fitting demise considering his role in the development of the plot.
• What happened to Calypso? Surely that thread deserved a more fitting end

The biggest mystery in the whole movie is: Where was Keira hiding that big fat shotgun that she pulled out from under her clothes? -Just a thought :-)

Tagged Again

What is it with tagging these days I had barely recovered from the first tag then Ichiena went ahead and tagged me to do a podcast and before I had finished figuring this out Aegeus decides to tag me to show what I have on my Home Desk. I will have you know that I do not have a home desk all I have is a dining table which of course doubles as a desk when I dont want to drag my laptop to the couch or the bed. But since this is much easier than the Podcast I will jump ahead and heed Methus Tag and give you a glimpse of what a bloggers desk in shaggs looks like.

My Trusty Toshiba Laptop, my Motorolla Cellphone - important for connecting to the internet, My DJ box - with my ancient CD collection, My PDA - in case I forget what I am actually supposed to be doing, My FHM magazine - for those much needed creative breaks and most important of all My COOKIE JAR - Bliss.