Yes … and his name is DMX.

Q: Are you following the presidential race?
DMX: Not at all.

Q: You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
DMX: His name is Barack?!

Q:Barack Obama, yeah.
DMX: Barack?!

Q:Barack.
DMX: What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Q:Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
DMX: Barack Obama?

Q:Yeah.
DMX: What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

Q: You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
DMX: I ain’t really paying much attention.

Q:I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black …
DMX: Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

Q: So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
DMX: Nope.

Halfway through this interview it becomes pretty clear that this cartoon lives in his own world. Thank goodness I grew out of gangsta rap a while ago!

Via Kottke

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Every once in while I get reminded that some people have way too much time on their hands! In the past 12-18 months I have been slowly switching webhosting companies as I search for more reliable, personal and courteous service. The webhosting company I left was called BlueHost

and the webhosting company I now use is called A Small Orange.

(Some of you sharp ones will have figured out by now where this post is going!)

Bluehost’s primary colour is, naturally, blue. A Small Orange’s primary colour is, naturally, orange. Kibaki’s Party of National Unity primary colour is blue and Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement primary colour is orange. If this was not proof enough that I am Odinga’s number one fanboy, the mere fact that I choose a Webhosting company with the word orange in its name and now display a button with an orange is proof enough for some that mentalacrobatics.com is embedded within Odinga’s camp. Hehe.

People, sometimes a webhost is a webhost and not a declaration of political affiliation! Honest!

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7 random thoughts from that blogger called Mentalacrobatics

1. I find it amazing how many single women in Kenya wear a wedding ring on their ring finger. The few I know tell me they do that to scare away the seedy and slimy men that approach them. That doesn’t make sense to me. Seedy and slimy men will not be scared away by a wedding ring. In fact if anything that just increases your appeal to such characters. However, all decent, honourable and normal guys once they spot the wedding ring will keep a respectful distance in the courting game. A wedding ring is like kryptonite to single men, believe me. Then the same Kenyan women complain that there are no suitable men around to marry! Well remove the fake wedding rings and then see what happens!
2. It is unbelievably hard to get some people to put a simple and small piece of code on their blog. These are not the people who do not know how to upload the ringcode. Those ones usually ask for help. Rather it is mainly experience bloggers who for one reason or another can not be bothered to upload the ringcode yet want to be counted as a KBW member. The excuses they give are many, for example: I don’t have time (it takes less than 20 seconds), It is to big (the ring code is about 1 byte big) it doesn’t fit in with my template (you can format the font to your hearts content so long as it can be read and clicked) . excuses excuses excuses. I believe the reason they have this attitude is because it is so easy to become a KBW member. If we charged USD 50.00 per month and insisted on 10,000 word blog posts weekly to qualify for membership, they would probably have the ringcode up, with flashing lights, in an instance.
3. We all have our pet peeves, the little things that irritate us. One of mine is when people wrongly interchange the terms hacker and cracker. For those who do not know:

   A hacker is a person intensely interested in the arcane and recondite workings of any computer operating system. Most often, hackers are programmers. As such, hackers obtain advanced knowledge of operating systems and programming languages. They may know of holes within systems and the reasons for such holes. Hackers constantly seek further knowledge, freely share what they have discovered, and never, ever intentionally damage data.

   A cracker is a person who breaks into or otherwise violates the system integrity of remote machines, with malicious intent. Crackers, having gained unauthorized access, destroy vital data, deny legitimate users service, or basically cause problems for their targets. Crackers can easily be identified because their actions are malicious.

   At least have the decency to know what you are accusing someone of before you go banging on about it over and over again.

4. Every relationship reaches a point where you think, hmmmm, this could actually work, or alternatively, damn, this will never work. For me that point usually comes during an unexpected crisis and how the other person reacts to it.

   For example, having a puncture is inconvenient, having a puncture at 3am in the still of the night, is scary, having a puncture at 3am in the still of the night on a dark stretch of Thika Road notorious for muggings and carjacking is a bloody crisis, even more so when you are with a date you are trying to impress! There I was going through all the potential options in my head:

   • Stop and change the tire right there – ARE YOU MAD?
   • Stop and wait for help – From whom? This is not Gotham where you can fire up the Bat Signal and wait for Batman
   • Drive to a police station – HEHEHEHEHE yeah right “Kihjana ghucha gipande hii”
   • Drive on to a safer place, probably a petrol station and change the tire there, knowing full well that you will complete destroy the flat tire that is on the wheel. Sacrifice the tire to save your life – hmm ok

   While I’m doing all this thinking inside I’m saying all these reassuring things out loud, we’ll be fine etc, I’ve done this before etc, don’t worry. Basically just trying to keep things calm and give her no reason to panic.Then I realise that while I’ve been thinking she was saying the same things to me, as in her first reaction was not to panic but to reassure me in case I was about to panic.

   At that point I would start to think, hmmm this could work you know.

   As opposed to those who start shouting and sulking over something simple as looking for a parking space in town!

5. You know those guys who make a big deal of how much they hate football? The ones who say things like, “football just doesn’t make sense and I don’t follow it” you know those guys, the ones who go to the supermarket during the world cup final because, “it will be empty with everybody at home watching the game” you know those clowns right. Guys who come in when you are watching a game and try to change the channel to the MTV Base during half time when you are trying to follow the analysis? You know those guys right? Well every single one of them is now a Chelsea fan. That’s why we look down on you, you chelski muppets. I know 2, TWO, genuine Chelsea fans from East Africa, two of my bros who have been with Chelsea from back in the day, even before akina Viali etc were playing at Chelsea, which to be honest was the first time many of us even noticed that silly team. And those two bros of mine hate these new school Chelsea fans more than we do, hehe!




6. African society is governed by a set of rules which you learn at an early age. These rules come and go, one topic of conversation is always which tribe is more traditional than the other. But one thing we all share across the board are the terms of respect and indeed status that are given to the brothers and sisters of our parents.

   For example, in English my mother’s sister is my aunt and my father’s sister is my aunt. In our culture, my mother’s sister is Mamamti and my father’s sister is Senje. Dare you call a Mamti Senje, one of my brother’s did once, we haven’t seen him since!

   In a similar way in English my father’s brother is uncle and my mother’s brother is uncle. In our culture my father’s brother is Papamti and my mother’s brother is Khotsa.

   It extends, the husband of a Mamamti automatically becomes a Papamti etc.

   We really do not have a specific word for cousin. I call my male cousins, brother and my female cousins, sister. (That is why I always say, me and my brothers, we are many (see story 5 above). I like this. It means I have brothers who are Kisii, Luo, Kikuyu, Kamba, Swahili, Maasai etc. I got back up!

   This one doesn’t extend as automatically. I only call my cousin’s husband brother if I feel he is worthy!

   My friends are used to this arrangement now and so when I introduce them to one of my brothers they ask me, “is this your brother, brother ….. or just your brother?”

7. A so called friend who happens to live in the states sent me this picture the other day.
   
   
   

   They took it with the camera on their phone while watching the latest episode of 24 and sent it to taunt me because they know it will be at least 3 days before I get my hands on the latest episodes. This has to rank amongst the cruellest SMS I have ever received.

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The company says the new tariff, called Mambo 6, that begins on Monday, will cover between 11pm and 5am every day.

11PM to 5Am???

Forget Mambo 6 this is the Booty Call tariff.
You heard it here first.

(Just drinking Sprite, telling it as it is!)

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I am an information junkie. I used to be one of those people with a million different email subscriptions flying into my email inbox each day. News lists, global security information lists, sports, technology, you name it I had it. One day last year I revolted and unsubscribed to all of them except two. Why? First of all it was information overload! Secondly the growth and wide availability of RSS feeds and other ways to get information means I no longer need to fill my email inbox to get the information I want. Now I am signed up to only two daily email lists on my main email account and both are vital reading and if you don’t have them you should get them!

One is The Global Voices daily digest (blogs) written by David Sasaki and his bunch of merry men and women. The other is The Fiver (football) written by a bunch of nutters in Fiver Towers. (OK I admit I do have one or two other weekly email subscriptions that such a pillar of society such as myself has no business reading, step forward Holy Moly!) What lists out there are worth a look.

So which RSS Feeds am I reading or do I think are worth reading, or do I feel I should be reading? All is revealed on the MentalGator. Yeah I noticed some of you noticing my site pulling your feeds and was bound to oust me before long so I might as well publicise it. It is quite small, I will try to keep it under 30 feeds, unlike the monster that is the KENYAUNLIMITED AGGREGATOR! It is rough around the edges, needs a serious css over haul and some options need changing but it will do for now. If this all works out then, I’ll change the software that powers the KenyaUnlimited aggregator to this one.

It’s been a while since I shook with laughter while reading a blog post but Greg Black got me laughing and holding my head at the same time while I was reading this.

The guys at Very Sawa Technology Studios are on to something with the launch of Jahazi. When you have White African, Kobia, JKE, and the Skunkworks crew all ooohing and ahhhing over one of your products its time to start thinking about an IPO.

And finally

KBW exists. And KBW exists primarily because its members want it to exist and contribute to help it exist in various ways, not because Mentalacrobatics started it or the KBW Admin Team helps sustain it, although those are factors as well. If KBW members do not want KBW to exist it will not. It really is a simple as that. That is why, at the end of the day, my opinion on each and every attack on KBW is not that important and why I will not comment on each and every blog post that mentions KBW negatively.

If KBW loses credibility then bloggers will simply leave KBW and no others will join. In the same way, if the Admin Team can not be trusted then KBW members will simply stop conferring with, contributing to and indeed trusting that Admin Team.

I can tell you honestly that when I fire up Thunderbird each morning the KBW admin email address is the most active of all the email addresses and of those messages new member registration and new members requesting assistance take up a healthy number. Do not take my word for it, look for yourself.

KBW does have its share of yahoos. What is healthy is that we all have different opinions on what constitutes a yahoo, and believe me I have my opinion as well. I can take the personal attacks, they stopped bothering me a long time. (When cartoons email your parents to inform them that their son is confusing the youth of Kenya on behalf of StateHouse and should be arrested – you learn to laugh at life – otherwise you can go mad).

This does raise interesting questions on the issue of ownership of the Kenyan blogosphere. Methinks I have just found the right topic for my next podcast.

I was talking last night with another veteran of Kenyan online communities and we were reflecting about the back-in-the-day days. If it is beef and “online war” you are after let me tell you right now KBW is the wrong place to look. We are but a bunch of amateurs.

In 1997 as an innocent 1st year undergrad I joined an online community called KenyaOnline. Walalala. VITA! This was just before the 1997 general election and I tell you MPs, aspiring MPs, their cronies, even MINISTERS (apparently writing anonymously – remind you of anything) were all throwing, what the KOL community called, online rungus at each other. I must admit I found it brilliant to start of with.

By the time 2002 had come along and those same wazee, wabunge and wamweshimwas were still throwing insults at each other it had become tiring. However things mellow out and KenyaOnline is still going strong in its current incarnation on yahoo groups.

Any of you who were around for the drama on mlevi.com, rcbown.com – remember when rcbowen was THE Kenyan page on the internet – if you weren’t in his guest book then you basically didn’t exist online – and even at the height of drama on mashada.com then you know that KBW is a relatively stable place and actually quite quiet in comparison.

There many who like to cultivate a them and us mentality about this whole online thing. The KBW Admin Team is always accessible, if you have any concerns then you know where to find us.

With our numbers growing and our membership diversifying, with the power or blogs increasing and recognition of bloggers growing day by day I am confident, as I always have been from that day 1 when I was the ONLY member of KBW, that this project that we are all involved in, is here to stay.

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Today he’s not too impressed

Hehehe – I’m sure this storyline will keep me laughing for a while.

Meanwhile have you notice how similar these two characters look?

© Mentalacrobatics for Mentalacrobatics, 2007. | Permalink | 4 comments

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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!

© Mentalacrobatics for Mentalacrobatics, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments

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There’s a chicken waiting to cross the road.
A duck runs up to it and says,
“Don’t do it mate, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Hat tip: Victorious - you guy, you are a muppet for real, banage!

© Mentalacrobatics for Mentalacrobatics, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments

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