Party

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Life changes when you become a parent. The word “party” used to mean something entirely different.
Something about beer and more beer, and a kebab trampled into the carpet.
Now it means kids and more kids, and cake trampled into the carpet.

But it’s still easily as much fun.

The magician/entertainer we hired for Alex’s 4th birthday party was “Crazy” Colin Underwood and comes highly, highly recommended if you’re looking for something a bit different for a child’s party or corporate event. He was brilliant and entertained the kids and adults alike for almost an hour.

I’ll get some pics up onto flickr sometime over the weekend, but as you might imagine – having had a house full of 20 four year old kids and all the cake trampling that goes with it – we’re pretty knackered right now

You Like?

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After reading Dave Perel’s memeburn post on the new Facebook Like button, I felt compelled to have one.

I find it quite crazy that yesterday I was asking Facebook for some small changes to their Fan Page and then they go and drop something which will make the entire internet a Fan Page.

Last night Facebook had their f8 Developers conference where they announced a whole bunch of new products which may change how we deal with the web.
The biggest announcement was a new button called the “Like” button. Working in a similar way to a Digg or Tweet button, the new Facebook button can be easily installed on your site with a simple line of HTML.

Once installed visitors simply press the Like button and that information is passed onto Facebook which then aggregates it into their news stream. When a friend of yours visits the same article they will see your face under the article saying that you liked it.

With a bit of jiggery-pokery and some not inconsiderable intervention from The Guru, you can now see the result of Travis Ballard’s FBLike plugin below. Click it and tell all your friends on Facebook that you enjoyed this post. Or any other.
Go on – give it a try now.

As Perel states:

Facebook just changed the game… they want Social to become the default for how we navigate the web. I think that with 400 million users they now have the power to make this kind of change possible.

He’s right – if anyone can, Facebook can. And maybe they just have.

Did the earth move for you in 2005?

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The chatter in Gauteng is (possibly) all about last night’s Gauteng earthquake/tremor which, it turns out, wasn’t in Gauteng at all. It measured 2.8 on the Richter scale and twitter was instantly ablaze with the thought that the Daily Star’s prophecy might actually have come true, although of course a quick look at this page would tell you that Southern Africa is actually hit fairly regularly by small earthquakes.

There’s no way of actually predicting where or when an earthquake might strike. If there was – like there is with volcanoes – then evacuations could take place and the number of casualties would be drastically reduced. Obviously there are areas which are at higher risk than others, but you’ll find that SA is pretty safe in this regard.

Which makes Chris van der Walt’s prediction that:

an enormous earthquake is going to hit the Rand (Greater Johannesburg area) very soon…

somewhat bizarre. Even more so when you hear the details of this enormous earthquake:

The earth opened up like a massive chasm with buildings toppling over. It stretched from the east and south of Johannesburg and came together in the city centre. From there it continued to the West Rand.

Yikes. And who told Chris that all this was going to happen?
Well, that would be the Holy Spirit. Yep – a voice from upstairs.

But look, it’s not all bad news. Chris points out that you might get away in time (but terms and conditions apply):

Again I say what the Lord said: “An enormous earthquake is going to hit the Rand (greater Johannesburg area) soon and it is unavoidable. It is going to be disastrous. I will protect My children who listen and take them away in time.” 

Which to me seem to be a bit of a threat to sign up to christianity or die a horrible death in Johannesburg in late 2005.
Chris continues:

In me there is no doubt about the genuineness of this word of God and it will also be proved the day when the earthquake occurs.

Which, of course it never did: casting some doubt on the “genuineness” of the big man upstairs.

All in all, I feel hugely let down by this god thing again. Just like when he topped those 5 kids last February. Instead of saving people in Haiti, where a real earthquake really happened and killed about a quarter of a million people, he’s wasting everyone’s time by talking to Chris in Gauteng and making a mountain out of a minedump.

Chris says:

God does not say these things as a merciless, cruel God. On the contrary, He gives this word to warn people unto repentance, irrelevant of their culture or religion. 

I don’t see it that way. I see a god who is going to kill many thousands of people by a non-existent earthquake tearing open a massive chasm through the city, complete with toppling buildings. And the only people who are going to be saved are, conveniently, those in his religion.

Which all sounds pretty merciless and cruel to me.

Double Whammy Wednesday

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With the UK General Election on some few days away now, I have decided to title this post in dedication to the magnificent Tory campaign of 1992 and their coining of the phrase Double Whammy:

The phrase came to be used widely, in the UK at least, during the Conservative Party’s 1992 election campaign. The Tories used a poster to undermine the Labour Party. It contained the text “Labour’s Double Whammy” and, on the boxing gloves, “1. More Taxes” and “2. Higher Prices”. The poster proved to be a highly effective part of the campaign for the Conservatives – who won the subsequent election.

The rest of the post however, has nothing to do with politics. [Cue sighs of relief from those people still reading this far]
I have decided to do one of my legendary “Recommended Site” posts, but I’ve hit the plural overdrive and you’re getting two for the price of one. Which was free anyway. You’re getting something for nothing and nothing for nothing. All in one go.

First off – a little bit of silliness with the Instants! Collection. This is a collection of 56 (and counting) brightly coloured buttons, each of which plays a different sound effect when pressed. At first, it all seems rather childish (because it is), but believe me, it can make a dull day in the lab seem so much more fun as you hit the TaDa! button each time the Lab Assistant walks in to the room or let out a Homer Simpson “Doh!” when someone drops XDR-TB all over the floor and we all leg it for the exit.
Oh, how we laughed, before coughing our lungs up and drowning in bloody phlegm.

And then, something a bit more topical: FlightRadar24.com, where you can Watch Air Traffic LIVE! 
After that volcanic ash cloud covered Europe for much of the last week, there hasn’t been much going on in the air traffic sector up there. But now things are (for the moment, at least) getting back to normal and you can sit for hours and hours watching the little yellow planes flying all over the place. Click on them and you’ll get all the details of the plane, flight number, destination, heading and altitude. It’s perfect for any terrorist cell who might be after that sort of information. Maybe a good thing then, that the system doesn’t cover South Africa.

Just don’t expect to get much done though, as you will be sitting mesmerised, following flight BA117 from Heathrow to JFK.

The other Icelandic export

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The spotlight this week has been firmly placed on Iceland. Iceland is of course, best known for giving the rest of the world two things: Volcanic ash & Björk. Its major import is money from investors across Europe, which it loses and doesn’t give back. With my psuedo-Viking heritage, it’s somewhere I have always wanted to visit. One day, I shall, and I will enjoy a meal or two of their other lesser known export: puffin.

Yes, these comical little seabirds are actually eaten over there. Living in South Africa, with its proud history of braai’ing anything and everything one can find, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this.
And who can blame the locals for utilising anything as a food source when you look at the barren volcanic landscapes that surround them?
Needs must and all that.

Come now – it might look cute – OK, it does look cute – but it’s basically just a chicken with a funny beak. And you don’t have any issues with eating chicken, do you? So there’s no real difference between you visiting KFC or RFP (Reykjavik Fried Puffin), is there?

Of course, they don’t do anything quite so vulgar as rolling it in breadcrumbs and giving it to some gormless high school dropout to boil in dirty oil. No, there are traditional recipies that have been followed by the Icelandic people for many years:

4 puffins
50g smoked bacon
50g butter
300ml milk
300ml water
salt to taste

Puffins should be skinned or carefully plucked and singed. Remove the innards and discard. You can use the breasts alone, or cook the whole birds. Wash well in cold water and rub with salt, inside and out. If you are using whole birds, truss them. Draw strips of bacon through the breasts. Brown the birds on all sides, and stuff the birds tightly into a cooking pot. Heat the milk and water and pour over the puffins. Bring to the boil and cook on low for 1-2 hours (test the birds for softness). Turn the birds occasionally.

It sounds delicious – and it looks like this:

As flickr user wili_hybrid says:

We brought back ten smoked puffins from our trip to Iceland. My brother’s girlfriend Jenni combined some traditional puffin recipes and came up with a delicious variant where the puffins are boiled for hours in a mixture of milk, beer and bacon, and served with a variety of different jams and jellies. The meat was much more game-like than what I expected (the taste almost resembling that of a reindeer) as the puffins I’ve tried before have tasted rather fishy.

Sadly, there are no puffins in South Africa. However, they are fairly closely related to penguins and we have plenty of them – as my daughter happily points out.

I’m quite sure that I could slip one into a bag at Boulders and then into a pot at home…