August 2005

Happy BlogDay2005!

Find out more about Blog Day at the BlogDay Website.
Read the original post from the man who started it all.

The idea is to link blogs that are not from the same country or area of interest which puts all you KBW and African blogs out, woiyee!

Here are my five BlogDay2005 recommendations:

Blogjam
This is guy is crazy in a interesting way. The kind of guy you always want to visit but are to chicken to live with. The kind of guy who fattens up garden snails and then shows us how to cook them, the kind of guy who recreates Carni in his London flat. The guy behind KittenWar and Despot or Sexpot. Check him out.

Death’s Door, the view from the Spanish announcers table
The man is funny in a should-I-be-laughing-at-this way. The kind of person you’d be lucky to kill some time with at a bar.

Erotica Lee 2 [NSFW]
A photoblog that is Not Safe For Work (i.e. if you are at work or school do not click on the link. Seriously!) I like it because am just that kind of guy. The images are different and help pass the time when you’re waiting for a parcel to be delivered.

Gadgetopia
All about gadgets and technology on and offline. Interesting stuff. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

MsMind
You know the kind of blog you are not sure why you bookmarked it in the first place but keep dropping in to read. Well this is one of mine. So this is for the voyeur in me. I don’t even think she knows I read, well until today anyway.

Big up to maitha who did the Kiswahili translation for the BlogDay website. (Phew! At least I managed to mention one KBW member in this post!)

Overheard:
There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

As you all know our new proposed constitution is out and I encourage you all to read it. The more people we have examining the intentions of our political elite the better. It’s not too bad I’ve all ready gone through it once.

A word of advice though, don’t do what I did and open the link and hit print. It is a massive 184 pages containing 48602 words!

Football’s coming home or why Liverpool will win the premiership.
(A non biased analysis of the English Premier League.)

Let’s cut straight to the chase. The champion will come from one of the following four clubs: CSKA London, the Gooners, the Buccaneers, or The Mighty Liverpool Football Club,CoE. Forget Spurs or Man City and don’t even mention the bitter blues from Goodison Park, kua serious.

CSKA London
Like the old Roman Empire, the new Roman Empire will crack from within. Last season everything was rosy. None of those guys had won the premiership and they all wanted it. So everyone has happy to sit on the bench and keep the peace because they wanted that medal. Now that they’ve won it the noisy dissent has all ready started. First Carvalho complaining about being on the bench and revealing that he hasn’t liked Maureen since back in the day. Of course he was cut down speedily. But the Robben came out and said the same but he was pampered. Hiayaa favouritism! On top of all that internal pressure this is also a World Cup season; everyone is playing for a place in their country’s national team in hope of making the world cup squad. No one wants to be on the bench. Is Joe Cole going to be happy coming behind SWP this season? Nope. How about Glen Johnson who has all ready been dropped. Nope. Duff? Nope? And Drogba who isn’t even guaranteed to start for Ivory Coast? Nope! Things are going to be malaria in Little Moscow I tell you. Then there is the dreaded North West. To win the Premiership you have to survive the North West. Liverpool CoE, Everton, Man Utd, Man City, Bolton, Blackburn and now Wigan. You saw how far Wigan pushed Chelski? Yeah last season Chelski survived but that’s because we didn’t know your style, but as LFC CoE showed in the Champion’s League semi-final we have wised up to Maureen’s tactics. And last season there were too many London clubs who just lie down and get spanked. One of them went down last season and was replaced by a North West club which six less points at least. So Chelski are out.

Number of Chelski players short-listed for the prestigious UEFA Club Football Awards:3

The Gooners
There was only one thing missing from Arsenal’s, well, arsenal. Only one thing required to turn the gooners from a good team to a great team. Only one last trick to learn and the scary thing is they actually learnt it in the FA Cup final last season against the Buccaneers. Arsenal learnt how to win ugly. How to be outplayed a whole match but still win. How to play like crap against a team playing the game of their lives and still win. And then what did the clowns go and do? They went and sold Vieria. Yani what the hell was being burnt in London the day that deal went through? Its like that annual bhangi burning session had relocated from Nai to London. Ati the young ones can do the business. Please, you guys have all ready made Drogba look like he’s a good striker twice this season. Then you go and curse Henry by making him captain. Strikers aren’t captains because they don’t score when they are captains. Pele was never captain of Brazil. Only one other Premiership club has a striker as captain and look where Newcastle are on the table. Boss when you are relying on Cygan for goals things are elephant. Even Nike know. Why do you think they hooked ya’ll up with ridiculous purple kit. I mean honestly can you see champions wearing purple? No I didn’t think you would.

Number of gooners short-listed for the prestigious UEFA Club Football Awards: 0

The Manchester Buccaneers
The Buccaneers are in decline. Sir Alex has flipped the script (he thinks Alan Smith is a midfielder and Wes Brown can play in the premiership). Your players do not want to travel together. Your fans hate your management, your management do not know anything about football, the fans hate the manager, drug addicts don’t want to sign for you, and you’re the second team in Manchester behind Man City. Even Nike know you’re crap (watch out for the purple strip which must be on its way soon). Players who have rejected you so far this month: Owen, Cicinho, Ballack, Essien, John Mikel Obi. The NHS wants to become van Nistelrooy’s personal sponsor because the guy is sick 90% of the time. You’ll be lucky to win the Carling Cup with a starting midfield of Keane, Fletcher, Scholes, and Park. And whatever happened to Saha? And Fortune? Things are so thick even Phil Neville left. Rearrange the following words: sinking abandoning ship rats a.

Number of Buccaneer players short-listed for the prestigious UEFA Club Football Awards: 0

The mighty Liverpool Football Club, CoE
Let’s briefly go back to One Night in May, this club has winning ways. Winning is in the blood. You are talking about a club that held the supposedly mighty CSKA London goalless for 180 minutes. A club that scored against the best defence in the world 3 times in 6 minutes. A club that beat the Scudetto champions over two legs. A club that doesn’t know how to lose the big games. You’re talking about worthy successors to the legacy of 18 times champions. Of the top four clubs Liverpool, CoE, is the only one on the way up. Everyone wants to join the party. Even the captain realised he would be nuts to defect to chelski and Owen knows he made the biggest blunder since the Buccaneers let Sir Alex stay when he defected to Real Madrid. None of you have fans even close to those at Anfield, even our chairman’s number plate reads “Kop1″. We needed steel in midfield, have you seen the miro they call Momo? Imagine, Gerrard, Xavi and Momo together at the heart of the team. DAMN! We signed the best keeper in La Liga, the best player in the world drives our midfield and we have the fastest striker in the world feeding the one of the most clinical finishers around. Then we have the old heads to keep the younger players feet on the ground. And in Rafa you have the man to lead the club to the Promised Land. No silly “I am the special one” nonsense from him.

Number of Liverpool, CoE, players short-listed for the prestigious UEFA Club Football Awards: 4
European player of the year: S. Gerrard, winning captain, LFC, Champions of Europe.

In a clean up operation carried out over the weekend I found a box which held a mountain of memories. Letters from former sweetie sukaris, my ticket for Safari Sevens 1 (well half the ticket stub), a back stage pass from the “Acquire the Fire” gospel concert held on the eve of the new millennium, an entry stub from the 1996 Calcutta Cup Match, an original LFC CoE official supporter’s membership club certificate, a Ford-Asili membership card (which served as my fake id for the disco before I got my kitambulisho) signed by Matiba and a many more things which would just incriminate me further if I mentioned them here.

The most interesting, to me anyway, was a phone bill from around 6 years ago. It is reassuring that some of the people who were important to me (including the obvious such as family and extended family) then are still important to me today, many of the names from the old bill would feature on my phone bill today. What was thought provoking was the number of people whom I felt were important to me then but have drifted away since.

This inspired me to dig up some old floppy disks which held copies (hand typed in notepad) of my mobile phone contact list, which I updated approximately every 6 months (back in the day I was organised like that). The first thing that jumped at me is the size. My phone book peaked in 1999/2000. I would have easily filled up all 500 spaces available on SIM and phone and then some. That is kidogo scary as in 2000 I didn’t even know some of the people who have become very important tight buddies today. Who were all those people and what did I talk to them about? Since 2002 the size went down rather quickly which is not surprising as I took the decision to keep the number of people in my phone book down. Forget being one of those networking gurus with everyone and their pet goat’s number organising bashes with a diverse quoro. Si if you know what you like stick to that? And, honestly, if you really need someone’s number you tend to find you can get it with a little bit of searching or asking around.

Checking my phone right now it tells me I have 78 numbers stored which is a massive drop when you consider that includes family, includes two numbers for various people at work (vital), and most of the other names have at least 2 numbers stored to each name and some even have three. From 500+ names to under 50 names and the sky has yet to fall on my head and I have never been stranded anywhere thus far. (O.K I cheat a little bit as there are some numbers that I store on my computer but not on my phone and upload into my phone when I think I’ll need them.) There was a time when I would delete a whole lot of numbers completely, even from the computer. If the person called or sent a txt then I would save the number again. At least then you know that the friendship is two way (and believe me with 500+ numbers many of those “friendships” must have been one way.)

What surprises me is that even in the last year things have changed dramatically. At least two people who were tight buddies no longer feature in my phone book. As in since August last year, waa! On the other side however you meet new people and get a long like house on fire and you understand what that writer meant when they talked about, “new old friends”.

I better make a memo to check again in August 2006. What changes will have came by then I wonder? By the way, if you are over 25 then you have most likely all ready met the person you are going to marry if you are going to get married. Which means ebu go through your mobile phone book, the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with is in there!

Another day, another trophy. Only 5 more to go this season eh.

Haha!
We get to spank Chelski and give Maureen nightmares all over again. In fact we should lose to Anderlecht on purpose just so we can dump CSKA London in the UEFA cup! Hehehe!

A Mentalacrobatics decree: It has come to my attention that readers of this blog do not show the necessary respect. From now on any mention of Liverpool Football Club, CoE, should be immediately followed by, “Champions of Europe” as above. A few examples:
Liverpool, Champions of Europe,
Liverpool, CoE,
LFC, CoE,
The Mighty Reds, CoE,

Employ this immediately. Warning: persistent offenders will be punished.
Punishments include:

1. In the first instance: Having to watch a full Arsenal champion’s league match (where, as has become an annual tradition, some nobody team will etch out a boring 1 – 1 draw at Highbury)
2. If you continue offending: having to listen to that cd of Russian folk music that they play at every Chelski home game, or maybe even having to sit in on one of Maureen’s press conferences.
3. And if I’m really angry your punishment will consist of the most horrible fate ever known to befall man. That is you will be forced to become a season ticket holder at the Manchester Buccaneers.

You have been warned!

Phew!
The upgrade to Movabletype 3.2 seemed harmless enough.
If you notice anything broken (apart from my writing!) please let me know.
(People with jokes about broken hearts, ka kando!)

“I’m in the house like a Manji bisquit…”

The greatest lyric in a Kenyan hip-hop song ever.
by K-South (I think, Msanii_XL can probably confirm )

Check out this roundabout that pumps water! Instead of having to choose between playing and fetching water kids can now do both. Brilliant!
[Via boingboing]

Things I was surprised to enjoy last weekend:

1. Drinking vodka. With the right accompaniments and the necessary know-how on how to employ those accompaniments effectively, vodka can actually be quite sawa.
2. Watching a reality show. That’s it, X-Factor looks like the show that might convert me into a reality TV watcher.
3. Taking a long walk in London at night.

Just goes to show that sometimes it is not what you’re doing but who you are doing it with that counts.

Leave him alone! He won our only gold medal of this championship, he can call his kid whatever he wants! (It could have been worse, imagine if the championships were being held at Intercourse, Pennsylvania or at Kumamoto, Japan.)

Well done Limo. We salute you and the whole 5000 metres team.

(Pictures from BBC and Getty Images).

This summer’s Ashes series has just done it for me. For those of you who don’t watch cricket, style up, you don’t know what you’re missing. Glenn McGrath destroying England with the new ball in the first test, England’s two run victory in the second. This series is threatening to take over my life for the next few weeks. Especially now the carnival has moved to Manchester. Never one to sit on the fence, I’m going with England. This is probably the only time I will support England to win anything, mainly because the Aussie press is even more irritating than the British tabloids.

Kenyans hold amusing opinions on cricket, most of which centre upon the ridiculous idea that cricket is a “white mans game”. In fact if you examine the criticism levelled at cricket and go back to 1990 those are exactly the same things that people were saying about rugby, and look at how rugby has become vogue and cool.

Bloody hell we are frigging World Cup semi-finalists at cricket for crying out loud, ebu start showing some necessary respect.

As for rugby, the new seasons starts at the end of September and us card carrying members of the Front
Row
Union are meant to be in a serious pre-season training camp which so far has consisted of a debate on the hypothetical question of the exact texture of the ultimate half time orange. It’s good to see the Boks knocking the stuffing out of the Wallabies and the All Blacks.

Let the rambling continue.

LOL Mshairi has done it this time!
Check out her limerick on Murungaru’s ban from Britian.
I’ve been laughing so hard i was inspired to come out with one of my own:

This is a tale of two C’s
A Transport Minister and a Home Secretary.
Charles said to Chris:
“You’re taking the piss,
forget Britain when you travel overseas!”