Category: 6000 recommends

The (nerdy) sporting weekend

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It’s amazing what can pique your interest, hey?

This weekend, I’ve enjoyed watching some really great sport. The football on Friday was great, but it was Sheffield United, so of course I would be interested, and they won, so of course it would be great.
But it was other events this weekend that made me remember that it takes something extra special to get you invested when you’ve got no skin in the game. And those sort of things are fairly rare.

Sure, there are artificial ways of generating interest, like a small bet on the outcome (thank you, Aston Villa) or a fantasy football match-up (curse you, Aston Villa), but when you are just watching because you enjoy the sport, and you’re not rooting for one side or the other, well, it needs to be wow! to generate that same sort of interest.

That’s happened twice for me this weekend.

This morning’s game in the Australian NRL Finals was a superb watch, with both sides giving it absolutely everything for the whole 80 minutes, and Manly winning only after a – literally – last second field goal attempt missed by a couple of metres. 50,714 in the stands, 26 on the pitch, probably hundreds of thousands in front of their TVs across Australia and the world holding their breath as Matt Burton launched the ball into the Sydney night air. I was in the gym and I had to stop cycling to give my full attention to that last play of the match. Because concentrating and pedaling is hard.
And then the instant juxtaposition of relief, jubilation, heartbreak and despair as my legs realised that they had to start exercising again the rugby result was set in stone.

But even that had nothing on the Geoguessr World Cup final. And I know that I keep banging on about this, but just so you know, I could have been doing something much, much, nerdier this weekend…

…and maybe I did.

But that’s for another blog post.

Because that final. Best of 5 games – or first to 3 if that’s your preference – and wow, did it deliver.

As a very basic introduction, players each start on 6000 points (I know, right?), and lose points the closer their opponent is to the correct location, and the further they are away. Ten 1 minute rounds per game.
When you run out of points, you lose the game.

I’ve just enjoyed watching stuff. I don’t mind who wins. I’m not invested. Yet.

The favourite, a French guy called Blinky, is already up 2-0 and cruising to a crushing victory, and comes within a whisker of wiping his opponent, America’s MK, out and winning the World Cup. Based on the fact they could have been dropped anywhere in the world (but ended up in Latvia), if Blinky had been just 5km closer to the actual spot or MK just 5km further away, it was all over.

Here’s the twenty minutes of madness that followed.

The score is 4035-46. No typos here. No missed digits. One guy is basically two games up and four thousand points clear. The other is on forty-six points. It’s nothing. It’s impossible to turn this around with just two rounds of the third game to go.

But obviously, he does. It’s an amazing comeback. But it’s still only 2-1.

And in the eighth round of the fourth game, Blinky has MK down to 66 points again. The event is being staged at the City Hall in Stockholm and there’s a crowd of a few hundred watching it live. And as they hit the tenth round, it was like that field goal attempt (which hadn’t happened yet, but still). Held breath. Wide eyes. And then just sheer incredulity as MK drags in back to 2-2 with a guess just 12km off in the middle of rural Mexico. Literally a horse in a river.

How?!?

This is now running almost an hour overtime, but nobody is going anywhere.

Final round. The decider. NMPZ. Just a single image of a place anywhere in the world.
No moving. No panning. No zooming. WYSIWYG. Where G is guess.

Round one. It’s rural. Literally nothing to go on. And yet they both immediately plump for Mexico: about 50km apart from one another.

But it’s Ghana. Everyone is confused. They players look at each other and both laugh. Even the best in the world get it horrifically wrong sometimes. And when that happens, they usually both get it horrifically wrong the same way.

The tension is broken for a moment.

Heads are shaken. They reset. We go again.

Round two. There’s a guy burning some leaves in a wooded area. That’s all you’ve got. Both players go for Thailand. It is Thailand. Of course it’s Thailand. You don’t get two Ghana anomalies in one game.

Round three. It’s a slightly overgrown path in the field. It’s Peru. Blinky is closer.

Round four. It’s a brown dirt road. Nothing more. They both go for Argentina within 4 seconds. They’re each about 50kms out.

I’ve completely given up on Bournemouth v Chelsea now.

Round five: It’s a road and a mountain in Turkey. Obviously, they both go Turkey. It takes them 7 seconds.
Mind blowing.

Round six: It’s a grey road and some trees. It’s in Russia, but Russia is big. They’ve both a long way off.

Round seven and Blinky is holding a decent lead thanks to that Peru guess, but we’ve seen this all before in the last 20 minutes.
Another road. Some green grass. Both hit central Bulgaria inside 10 seconds. It is central Bulgaria.

Round eight, It’s north east USA. MK’s home turf. They’re both there in about 10 seconds again. Nothing to choose between their guesses. And we’ve got a maximum of two rounds left.

Nkunku scores and I hardly notice.

Round nine: As the crowd sees it, there are gasps. Because it’s a town, and there are French flags everywhere. Does Blinky recognise the place? He zones straight in on Colmar in Eastern France… MK goes further north, closer to Belgium. Aaaand…

It’s Germany (despite the flags) but it’s only just over the border. It’s enough. Blinky wins.

I am emotionally exhausted. God knows how they feel.

270,000 viewers online. That’s four times the figures for last year’s World Cup.

Maybe there will be a million in 2025*. Maybe I’ll be there in the finals**.

I almost feel sorry for Spurs and Arsenal today.
Because they are surely never going to get to that sort of drama.

Are they?


* very possible.
** not possible.

The Geoguessr World Cup is on…

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…and while Geoguessr might not be your cup of tea, it really is like watching that niche sport at the Olympics, in that you really should give it a go, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

It’s all livestreamed on the Geoguessr Youtube Channel. Completely free of charge, with full expert commentary on the A-stream.

Some beautiful locations on show alongside some absolutely insane knowledge. Different matchups and game modes, including the dreaded NMPZ: No Moving, Panning or Zooming. This is basically just a static image from a random Google Maps location anywhere in the entire world and you can watch in amazement as they pinpoint it to within a few hundred metres.

Once you get invested… wow, it can get quite intense.

GO AND WATCH SOME OF IT!

But the best bit for me is that you can have a go yourself – not competing directly with the best of the best – but using your skill to see how close you would get to the eventual answer. And then playing the same sport and wishing that you knew which sort of telegraph pole that they use in the midlands of Sumatra*.

* I’m appalled to note that I do actually know this one.

Curry Club

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In what was only a mildly and temporarily amusing coincidence, our Curry Club dinner last night was at the Curry Club restaurant in town.

Now, before we even get there, it’s up against the wall when it comes to comparisons, with Bihari (see 6000 miles… passim) all over the top curry awards for this corner of SA. But even with that in mind, we gave it a go anyway, and actually, it was pretty good.

Set in a quaint old house on New Church Street, just along from the Fire & Ice Hotel (which was much more ice than fire last night), it looks like it would be better set in Observatory. There are higgledy-piggledy chairs and tables, cloths and scarves hung from the ceilings, and the ubiquitous bookcase of randomness (weird dolls, an astroturf rabbit, model aliens, 1960s vases, a child’s mokorotlo etc etc) on the wall.

A genial Southern English host, clearly passionate about his curries, and who was lucky enough to discover an amazing chef from Delhi, and is now chucking out Punjabi deliciousness six days a week. They’re very much set up for deliveries, with two guys manning the iPads at Reception the whole night, and a stream of drivers coming and going.

And the food was good. Starters were a selection of Bhajees, and their signature chicken livers. Mains were everything from Lamb Rogan Josh, through the Chicken Tikka, and on to the “Chicken and Prawn Curry, you say?”, described thus:

Try this one for size, Curry Club’s mad blend of reef and henhouse all wrapped up in a creamy weave of coriander, red chillies and fresh tomato.

Which was mine, and which was really good. Only down side for me was the spiciness – or rather the lack of it. Default from the kitchen is 5/10, and that seemed reasonable to try in a place where we’d never been before. But sadly, there was no spice at all, and I’ll probably try a 7 or an 8 next time around.

Fully licensed, so beers were happily accompanying all the food.

And then the music. Really good! 90s indie all the way through the evening. Bran Van 3000, Soup Dragons, New Radicals, The Smiths, and some really long extended stuff from The Charlatans. Then, as the host lit up the blowtorch (with a Bush Baby cannister, nogal) some Crèmes Brûlées at the table – Firestarter by The Prodigy. We all laughed at the coincidence, and then realised that it was a rather theatrical set-up. Clever.

They don’t do coffee. At all. And that’s odd.

But yep. It was a good night out, and I would recommend the place. A lot more laid back than Bihari, albeit that the food could never, and would never match up, right?

Right. But it came pretty close. And that’s fairly amazing.

Xtra Savings Plus

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First off: this isn’t an ad. I tell you when I do ads.
Second off: this is a rather dull post, but I figured that it might benefit some local (SA) people, and I’m all about helping out where I can.

I signed up for the Checkers Xtra Savings Plus programme a couple of months ago. It costs R99 per month, and my first month was free. You’re not paying for nothing, obviously. There are a few benefits:

Look at the first one – essentially – R35 off every time you’re too lazy to shop. It’s a 10.6km round trip to our local store, so you’re looking at about R24 of diesel to get there and back. I’m not adding that onto the waived delivery fee, but it’s nice not to have to go out in the rain (and yes, I do tip my drivers, whether I’m paying or not).
That’s nice, but then that middle one is worth R200 alone, so if you already shop at Checkers (we do), then it’s already a no-brainer.
And then those double personalised offers: they add up. Sure, they get your shopping data (oh no!), but then you get money off the stuff you actually want, rather than a kettle, some baby food or a frisbee.

There was a little issue with my Checkers card today when I went to use my 10% extra in-store. Nothing major, sorted quickly, but what it did do was mean that everyone (cashier, lady behind me in the queue, store manager) all watched as R568.65 got taken off my bill.
R2600 to R2030 just like that. All because of my R99 per month spend.

I left once I’d paid, but I think the LBMITQ signed up on the spot. Why wouldn’t you?

And overall this month, I’ve saved R836. Take off the R99 fee and do some rudimentary maths, and I make that R737. What’s not to like?

Times are pretty tough here in SA at the moment, and I recognise that we’re lucky to be able to speculate to accumulate. But if you think that this could save you and your household some cash, well, I’m here as a neutral, unbiased, impartial, non-partisan (although somewhat tautological) individual to tell you that it does actually work.

Go for it.

R20 off your parking

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I mentioned somewhere – ah, here it is – about Admyt…

…the still quite new, super-duper parking service in South Africa.
And since then, literally several people have used my code:

TRE162273

to earn R10 off their first parking experience with Admyt.

Now, in an incredible offer, if you sign up for Admyt anytime in June – you can get the app on Apple here, or Google here – and use that code, you’ll get twenty whole bucks credited to your balance.

R20 might not seem so much, but next time you’re standing in the queue to pay for your parking in the cold and the rain at the V&A Waterfront, Constantia Uitsig or any of these other Admyt locations – you’ll surely be kicking yourself as you watch me drive up to the barrier – warm and dry – and automatically whizz straight through, as you fumble for change – ironically exactly twenty rands worth – in your pockets.

It’s free to sign up, and there’s no obligation and no payment to be made until you use the service – and, if your first parking session costs less than R20 – no payment to be made there either. Amazing.

You literally have nothing to lose.