Archive for March, 2007
(Logo designed by the talented White African.)
BarCamp Kenya is in full flow at the Civil Engineering Lecture Hall at the University of Nairobi (Directions, call 0724-334558 if you get lost) and remarkably there is free wi-fi here. There around 100 people here (and growing) the discussions are interesting and passionate. Full report and photos later.
Manze free wi-fi, for that alone if you are in Nairobi you should get here faster.
Tags: 
barcampkenya
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Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 2:37 PM
Mentalacrobatics.com may go down in the next few hours (yeah I know – you’re all devastated).
But then again, Mentalacrobatics.com may not go down at all. It all depends on how your DNS Server gods handle a server move.
If Mentalacrobatics does go down, it should be back up by early next week.
If Mentalacrobatics doesn’t go down, then it should be up now.
(I’ve just realised how rude this post will sound to some people. Get ya heads out of the gutter you kids!)
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Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 4:37 PM
Steve Cram is one of Britain’s top all time athletes. He won gold medals in the Commonwealth Games, European Championships and World Championships and a silver medal in the Olympics all in 1500m in the mid 1980’s.
You would think that a guy with his experience on the track field would know one or two things about respect and fair play but his article in The Guardian is anything but fair play and is, frankly, borderline racist.
Cram’s main beef seems to be the Kenyan crowd cheering when Bekele pulled out of the race on the final lap. How can Cram be so sure of the reasons behind the crowds’ celebrations? After all they had just seen the junior Kenyan men and women totally dominate and sweep the medals. Maybe the crowd were still on a high because of that. Anyone who has been to a major Kenyan sporting event knows that it is noise and singing the whole may through. If you do not believe just ask any non Kenyan who has been to the LA Sevens or London Sevens rugby tournaments. It doesn’t matter if Georgia is playing Argentina in the semi-final of the bowl, you can be sure that the Kenyans will still be making noise.
Anyway back to the article. According to Cram the crowd’s celebrations were “shocking” and the crowd was “delirious”. Apparently Kenyans showed a, “distasteful example of sporting rivalry prompting unacceptable levels of animosity [and] … proved to be lacking in the sportsmanship that athletics is used to.” He goes on to mention that next year when the championship is held in Edinburgh, the crowd will be “partisan but sporting”. Ok so when the Kenyans (read Africans) celebrate they are shocking, distasteful, full of animosity and delirious, but when the crowd in Edinburgh (read Europeans) celebrate they will be, “partisan but sporting”.
He then goes on to suggest that holding the championship in Mombasa was a mistake because of the extreme weather conditions. Yes it was hot and humid. Cram then goes on to say that the driving rain of Edinburgh would be better.
OK what? If this guy had his way all athletic events would be held in the rain of Great Britain. These same bogus excuses they are spouting now about the weather being unacceptable in Mombasa is the same stuff they said about the Olympics in Athens when many European athletes found the conditions too hard. Biggest example: Britain’s Paula Radcliffe.
I remember reading an article on one the greatest athletes we will ever see (and my close personal buddy) Michael Johnson. One evening during a training session the heavens open and torrential rain started pouring. All the other athletes went in but Johnson and his coach stayed out running and practicing in the heavy rain until they finished their session. When the reporters asked Johnson why he stayed out he told them, “One day I may have to race under these conditions and I want to be ready.” Now that is preparation for you. Only the Ethiopians know why their challenge at this year’s Cross Country championship went pear shaped. There had been rumours of some discord in the Ethiopian camp and this article mentions just how ill prepared for the conditions they were.
Cram then goes on to say that when the Cross Country championship is held in Edinburgh next year Cross Country will be, “really home.” LOL. What a muppet. Kenya is the spiritual home of long distance running Cram, upende usipende.
Now this article got me thinking. It is clear that Cram has something against Kenyans. So I did some quick investigating. When you look at all the medals Cram has won, which I mentioned above, there is one medal missing from his collection, that one medal which is the King of Medals, the Olympic gold medal. Cram never won an Olympic gold medal. In Seoul in 1988 he was the favourite to win. Instead he was upstaged by a young upstart called Peter Rono who won the Gold. Which country did Rono win the Gold medal for? Well you do not need me to tell you that. Suddenly Cram’s distaste for Kenya makes sense. Oh well, another one bites the dust. Cram should just be happy he was running long distance before Kenyan athletics organised itself to be the force it is today. Otherwise even the few medals he won would just be rumours.
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Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 1:12 PM
A quick update to the official dictionary
domi-na-tion
n.
1.
a. Control or power over another or others.
b. The exercise of such control or power.
c. The Kenyan Cross Country team
Cross Country came home and we showed the world how long distance running is done. Domination has a new definition.
From the podium sweep in the junior women’s race that opened the competition to the top-four sweep in the junior men’s, the hosts clearly illustrated that, for now, no nation on earth can match the cross country depth produced in this east African nation.
Ati for now. For now, for yesterday, for tomorrow, for the day before yesterday, for the day after tomorrow. Forever. I wonder why some of the countries turned up to be honest. But I guess a holiday in Mombasa for one hours running isn’t such a bad deal.
Where we really show our domination is in the team standings and in the team medals. To do well in the team events you can not have one superstar and 5 Muppets. You all have to be on point.
Senior men:
1st Kenya: 28 points (the lower the points the better)
2nd Morocco: 146 points!!!!
That is a spanking of 118 points between first and second! One hundred and eighteen points. Hehehe. That is the equivalent of a 10-0 spanking in football.
Senior women:
1st Ethiopia: 19 points
2nd Kenya: 26 points
We pushed the Ethiopians hard. And oh yeah the Dutch lady who won this race is called Lornah Kiplagat. Yeah go figure.
Junior men:
1st Kenya: 10 points (i.e. basically a perfect score)
2nd Eritrea: 44 points
The junior men just take the cake. They won their ninth title in a row and have won 19 of the last 20 championships. This year Kenyan runners came in 1,2,3,4.
Junior women:
1st Kenya: 13 points (i.e. near perfection)
2nd Eritrea: 33 points
What a day!
The good: the immense pride the Kenyan athletes showed. The heroes in the Junior men’s team could hardly walk on to the podium to receive their medals. That’s how much effort they put into the race.
The crowd, Kenyans came out to support their athletes but also to support all the runners clapping all the athletes around the course.
The bad: I found the coverage in the Kenyan press of Bekele’s retirement one lap from the end distasteful. There is no need to gloat childishly. If the Kenyan athletes and crowd can show Bekele respect then reporters can to. Remember this is a man who many said was too scared to take the Kenyans on in their own backyard when he nearly retired from Cross Country last year. He came, he ran, he didn’t finish. We won yes but that guy is still a champion.
The ugly: How in the hell did that soldier manage to hoist up the Kenyan flag upside down during the Junior women’s medal ceremony? I mean upside down? How? On the bright side he managed to complete confuse Baks who was looking at the flag like huh?? That soldier will be posted to Mandera for the next 10 years.
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Meanwhile the next day the Harambee stars were busy beating Swaziland 2-0 at Kasarani. Cue for politicans to talk about, “bringing football home to Kenya like we brought cross country home” as they start to talk of a Nairobi Olympic bid for 2016.
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Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
(Logo designed by the talented White African.)
The most exciting event happening this coming weekend in Nairobi is BarCamp Kenya. Put together by David Kariuki, Eric Magutu, Riyaz Bachani, Josiah Mugambi and Nick Muttai BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.
Date: Saturday - 31 March 2007
Time: 13:00 – 18:00
Where: University of Nairobi, Civil Engineering Lecture Theatre, Directions, call 0724-334558 if you get lost
Price: Mandela a.k.a free
This is going to be such an interesting event, go to the website and check out the presentations already lined up. But this isn’t your typical conference. Come along yes, but come along ready to participate, engage, network, and share ideas.
I have met a few people who think you have to be invited, or that it is going to be a formal event. Some think that this is going to be one of those massive international conferences. No no no! Turn up and let’s talk. That is what it is about. No excuses!
A special plea to our sisters: come out for this and get involved! The list looks very male heavy at the moment.
(and people tell me there is nothing going on in Nairobi! There is a lot going on in Nairobi).
Tags: barcampkenya
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Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 1:43 PM
The shadiest person in Nairobi is:
A guy driving a BMW fast
While talking on his mobile phone
In Nairobi morning rush hour traffic
Jumps a red light (still on the phone)
Almost hits you
Looks up at you when you swerve to avoid him and hoots angrily
Drives past you sticking up his middle finger
and best (worst) of all
His rear license plate reads: “Benjamins” .
LOL. Ati Benjamins. What a muppet.
Since he is in Kenya his plate should read, “Elephants” because if Puff Daddy had sang that song here it would have been, “All about the Elephants baby!”
The most useless and shadiest guy in Nairobi.
If he wants a cool license plate he should borrow a clue from this guy and get one which looks like this:
Oh yeah baby rm -rf /! Now that would impress the ladies!
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Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 3:32 PM
$ mysql -u root -password foobar
Where is the password?
Just messing around with MySQL 
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Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 PM
It is not losing to New Zealand that is hard to take, they are a top side, it is the manner in which we lost. To lose by 148 runs is hard to take. We bowled adequately but there was no real threat there and we looked half hearted in the field. You can’t give away 29 extras including 21 wides when you are playing a better team and expect to remain competitive.
After winning the World Cricket League Division 1 championship in Nairobi last month, the Kenyan cricketers were quoted saying they had won “their world cup” implying that the real world cup is just gravy. Perhaps this subconsciously affected their play. There was a lack of intensity amongst our play. Intensity in sport is learnt. It comes from playing regular and competitive 1st class games.
The ICC need to get their act together and schedule more regular matches between the test nations and association nations. The current format of meeting every two years in a tournament is bogus for the development of the game.
Talking with some friends on Saturday we were debating what tactics Kenya should employ if they found themselves having to chase 300+ runs for a win. We all agreed; forget batting “within yourselves” and taking the chances that fall your way. You need madness and in cricket that means you need to get into Twenty20 mode from the get go. The purists of the game will probably choke on that, but you watch the South African domestic Twenty20 cricket championship and it quickly becomes clear how they were able to chase down Australia in March last year in the greatest One Day International ever played. Australia made 434 the highest score ever made in a one day international by a distance. Then the South African batsmen came to the crease with a Twenty20 on steroids attitude and chased down the total making 439. That’s what Kenya should have done. It you’re going down, go down in blaze of glory! Kidogo madness!
I still think we can beat England with or without their redemption song flowing in their ears. If they bat first and post a huge total, I hope our batsmen come out looking like madmen on a mission! If the rain comes we are screwed, that 148 runs loss has messed up our run average. On the bright side though, winning the World Cricket League Division 1 championship meant we qualified for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup to be held in South Africa later this year, we’ll be sure to pick up some tricks!
[MsK stop watching cricket – you see what you did!]
Tags: 
cricket | 
cricket world cup | 
cwc2007
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Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 11:48 AM
This sign brightens up my daily commute. Every day I see it, every day I laugh. Sometimes I laugh until the people in the car behind me start getting worried looks on their faces.
If you know, you know.
If you don’t know, then you probably do not want to know!
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Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 4:08 PM
First of all watching the TV shots of the crowds at the games it is clear that I am currently a few hundred miles from where I should be. I wish Kenyan women would take a leaf from their West Indian counterparts and come bask with me in the sun. No wonder cricket is increasingly becoming popular around these parts.
As shown below, Kamande has the best wicket celebration of any bowler at this world cup.
Saturday was a brilliant day at the Cricket World Cup with the revenge of the minnows, Bangladesh beating India and even more spectacular, Ireland beating Pakistan, and on St. Patrick’s weekend too.
The African teams have had mixed results with, Kenya and South Africa easily winning their opening games. Zimbabwe drew with Ireland and lost to the West Indies leaving them with a must win game against Pakistan.
It looks like in every major tournament Kenya suffers some serious bad timing. In the middle of 1999 World Cup Tendulkar lost his father. He flew back to England to play immediately after attending his father’s funeral. The match was against Kenya. Of course the man was on a mission as he was batting for his father and scored the first century of that World Cup in a fantastic innings. This time round, we play get to play England after half their team was caught drunk and their main player Flintoff had to be rescued from the ocean on his paddle boat. They were all fined or dropped for their match against Canada and have been slaughtered in the international and local press so they all want redemption and are eager to play the best game of their lives. Who is that game against? Kenya.
Today’s match against New Zealand will be a tough one to say the least. But I feel Kenya can spank England. England have no wicket takers, their formidable bowling attack of Monty and Flintoff averages one wicket each per match in ODI, and they only have two batsmen Pietersen and Collingwood. Sunday should be a good game. Of course I still believe we can beat New Zealand today, and then the match against England would be very very interesting.
As for South Africa, those guys are on a mission and they look menacing. Gibbs six sixes in an over was amazing to watch, unless you were Daan van Bunge (hehehe ati the guy is called bunge – perhaps we should get Gibbs to come and knock some of our MPs for six). Luuk van Troost, the Dutch captain said, “I didn’t know where to put my players anymore, it was a nightmare!” and on the bowling side Makhaya Ntini hasn’t even played yet and must be raring to go after the birth of his second child.
R.I.P Bob Woolmer.
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Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 3:57 PM
You hear a lot of nonsense about why Kenyans dominate long distance running. I’ve blogged about it before so no need to repeat myself there. I believe most important reason Kenyan runners are so dominating is because no one else trains like them.
In school we used to have some crazy sports teachers. One of them used to tell us that he would push us so hard so that nothing in game could ever come close to the intensity of training. That way when in the middle of a tough match you could draw the team together and tell them, “listen this is no where near as bad as that session we had last week, if we survived that surely we can beat these clowns.”
That seems to be the approach the Kenyan Cross Country Team coaches have taken. With less than two weeks before the World Cross Country championships take place for the first time on Kenyan soil in Mombasa, the Kenyan Cross Country team moved to Embu on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. In one of those sports reports which do not make it to the online edition of the paper, some members of the team had a couple of training session which involved running up the side of the mountain through in the bush. Up a side of the mountain, through the bush. Don’t give me any crap about Kenyans winning medals simply because they have, “these massive lungs”.
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Our first match at the cricket World Cup starts in 30mins time. 16.30 Kenyan time. What excuse can you give your boss to leave the office early knowing that the man will never appreciate your passion for the game? If we work out a list of excuses we can rotate them amongst us and we’ll all end up watching the game. Anyone know of any pubs in Nairobi showing the matches live?
At the world cup itself Michael Holding’s comments that “minnows” should not be allowed to compete at the World Cup are just silly. First of all Mr Holding should remind himself that a cricketing minnow country called Kenya spanked his very own West Indies in the 1996 world cup in what is one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time. And Kenya made it to the semi final last time around and although test nations like to say that was just because New Zealand refused to play in Nairobi (because Cape Town is so much safer you see) they conveniently forget we had to beat Sri Lanka to get there and nearly, nearly beat India in the semis as well.
Back to the West Indies a couple of years ago the Australian press were wondering, loudly, what the point of Australia playing the West Indies in a test series was as the WI were, according to the Australian press, crap. Legend after West Indian cricket legend appeared on Sky Sports to tell the Australians to shut up and remember that when Australia was crap at cricket the West Indies were amongst their strongest supporters arguing for their right to play test cricket. How quickly these legends forget. After Kenya I normally support the West Indies, this time forget them, its all about minnow power. (Yeah I know the government will probably not recall ambassadors on the back of this blog post but who knows.)
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I have a video clip from the first few minutes of the Mater Heart Run. Watch it and see if you can spot the Vice President’s undercover security team. They really blend into the crowd.
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A decade or so or more ago when I was in high school if students wanted time away from school they go on strike protestesting against the, “quality of the food”, the “quality of the teachers”, which would result in the whole school being suspended by that authorities = holiday. Now days school kids are on a whole new level, they manage to hire some ghosts to possess the whole school. I wonder how long that Kenya Times writer has been waiting to use the words “ghost buster” in an article. These ghosts/spirits are a bit strange in that they calm down once comforted by the blood of a white goat. I’m trying to imagine approaching my old headmaster, whom we called simply “THE Doctor”, and telling him,
“Sir, everyone has gone mad sir. We think its ghosts or evil spirits or something. We need the blood of a white goat.”
“Inform the school any pupil who has the misfortune of being possessed will have triple detention on Sunday.”
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 5:02 PM
Before I even start this post properly check out this out:
Now that right there is a piece of history ladies and gentlemen. (If you do not know who Joginder Singh and David Doig are and do not know the significance of this Mitsubishi Colt Lancer 1600 GSR and dare call yourself a fan of the Safari Rally, run to wikipedia and get yourself an education before you embarrass yourself here.)
Ok let’s beginning:
Let me be honest here, the main reason we love the Safari Rally is that it gives the opportunity to mess about like kids again.
You get to put stickers on your car without looking like muppet, comme ca:
You get to wear a shirt with many badges without looking like you mugged a scout, comme ca:
The spectator stage at Athi River was brilliant but dustier than Michuki’s copy of MauMau Heroes
That’s a rally car, honest.
Oh look, there’s another one.
I hear last year they sent trucks around to sprinkle water to hold down the dust, this year we got the proper full rally experience.
Sanity, however, finally checked in and we headed to the more majestic surroundings of KICC for the finish.
As usual Mzee Jomo was area, nothing moves that man, he just sits there challenging you to impress him.
First up to try and impress Mzee Kenyatta were Conrad Rautenbach and Pete Marsh, winners of the Safari Rally 2007.
Conrad is the youngest winner ever at only 22 years old. So while Mugabe spent his weekend beating up his own people a couple of Zimbabweans (who happen to be white) were busy beating other rally drivers and flying their country’s flag proudly.
Here is the winning car. Did you know that it (insert your own car statistics that you managed to download from Google a minute before to impress the people around you.)
Here are the top three cars of Safari Rally 2007.
And here are the men who drove and navigated them. Conrad Rautenbach/Peter Mash (Zimbabwe, Subaru Impreza - on the ramp) 2:3043; Carl Tundo/Tim Jessop, (Kenya, Subaru Impreza - the blue car) 2;32.54; Andrea Navarra/Guido d’Amore (Italy, Fiat Punto - the one not on the ramp and not the blue one) 2:34.04. Enjoy the champagne guys!
I will upload the full sized pictures and a couple of more pictures on to flickr sometime this century. If anyone has a picture of Steve Gacheru’s car bursting into flames in Elmentaita which almost started a bush fire please share!
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Support the Kenya Blogs Webring International Women’s Day campaign!
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 1:42 PM
Question: How did 20,000+ people in green t shirts managed to shut down Nairobi on Saturday?
Answer: The Mater Heart Run 2007
It was heart warming to see so many children taking part in the run. It truly was a family affair. Watching the scouts running around trying to give anyone and everyone a map of the run was fun as well. Well done everyone. I just hope that all of those people selling t-shirts prove as dedicated to the cause as those who turned up to walk/run. Many tshirts were sold on the day without receipts – I hope all the money makes it to the hospital.
Now the scary stuff – the first runners were back in under 30mins. This included a runner who is blind and was running with a friend. 10km in under 30minutes on a normal Saturday morning and you’re not even a professional runner. That’s Kenyans for you!
Enough of the chat here are a selection of picks. I’ll upload the rest on to flickr soon.
The warmest smile in Kenya
A section of the huge crowd
The warm up
To the left, to the left.
Bit more warming up
The VP is in a very good mood for a guy about to walk 10KM!
Let’s get this party started. VP flags us off.
Kids out in support
All hold hands
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Les éditeurs du journal Français Le Monde ont du goût et ils l’ont démontré en mentionnant Mentalacrobatics dans leur article sur le Forum Social Mondial. J’avoue n’avoir rien compris à l’article mais vous pouvez le consulter sur le site web du Monde (moyennant abonnement) ou encore cliquez ici pour une copie officieuse.
“Merci à MM qui m’a parlé de l’article et à Alice Backer, Editeur Francophonie à Global Voices, qui a traduit ce billet.”
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Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 3:32 PM
The Matar Heart Run in support of children undergoing heart surgery at the Mater Hospital Nairobi.
When: March 10th 2007, 7.00 am
Flag off: 7.15am
Where: Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi
Distance: 10 kilometres
Open to: Everybody (including bloggers)
How do you enter? Buy a Mater Heart Run t-shirt from most supermarkets, shopping malls and some petrol stations
Prices: Adults: KSH 1000.00; Children: KSH. 600.00
Do you have to run: No! Just buy a t-shirt and turn up or turn up and buy a t-shirt. And then just sit and enjoy the sun.
See you there!
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Support the Kenya Blogs Webring International Women’s Day campaign!
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Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
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