As expected…

Posted on

Yesterday was a blast, but also absolutely exhausting.

The morning went well, with some amazing singing and some excellent marks.

The afternoon was a bit bewildering, with many of the horses running not having had a race in several months, thanks to the very wet Cape Town winter. And so although it was run as usual with favourites, and form guides and ranking and ratings, the actual racing seemed to be completely randomised.

Which was a bit frustrating. And rather expensive.

And then the evening: Loud, beery, mildly bawdy. Just what the doctor ordered.
Although not any doctor with even a modicum of medical training.
But it was a lot of fun.

Today, then?
Recovery, Olympics, a quick gym session.
Maybe a bit of bed.

Not today…

Posted on

Today has all the hallmarks of a “missed blog post” day.
But I haven’t had one of those for 13½ years, and I don’t intend having one now.

So that’s why I’m writing this yesterday, to make sure nothing bad like that happens today.

And it will be a great day: Family birthday, Eisteddfod, Racehorsing, and then – to top it all off – Pizza and Beer with friends to celebrate all of the above.

What’s not to like?

Maybe keep an eye on The ‘Gram in case I see anything worth sharing.

Take me here. Now.

Posted on

Spotted this yesterday. A report from a photographer at the Olympics: he’s Jeff Cable, and he took the pics below. But they’re not sporty pics.

No. Because he’s an official ‘tog at the Games, and he’s using a Canon camera, here gets access to the Canon Professional Services (CPS) area.
What’s that? Oh, just a place with a full on Canon technical team to look after your camera and glass.
Oh, and where you can borrow just about any Canon camera body (yes, including the R1 which hasn’t even been released yet) or any lens to assist you with your photography of whatever you are photographing.

It’s like a photography candy shop.

Oh wow.

But wait! There’s more!

These things aren’t cheap:

As you see when you watch TV, all of us photographers rely on really big lenses here, to get photos close to the action. Each of these lenses that you see here costs thousands of dollars. These start around $6,000 and go all the way up to $20,000 (for the Canon 1200mm lens). You can see three of these on the second shelf from the bottom, far left, below.

$20,000 is a cool R365,000 as I write this post.
But if you want to buy that lens locally, you’re looking at R400,000.

The gaps may look unsightly, but it’s where stuff has been loaned out already.

Each of these camera bodies goes for R100,000 at Orms in Cape Town.

Can you even imagine how much fun you could have at this place?

Take me here. Now.

Here’s Jeff’s full blog post.

The monks are the monks

Posted on

More from Geoguessr, in which I found myself dropped in Thailand somewhere near the Myanmar border, and close to a UNESCO World Heritage Site (there was a sign with the logo on).
Not too great on the guess, sadly – 131km away – but my curiosity was piqued and I ended I revisiting the place after the game to have a look at another sign which was nearby:

Turns out that I couldn’t find out much about it, because blue signs with white writing on are very popular in Thailand. (Aside from being able to recognise the Thai language, it’s actually a good way of working out that you’re in Thailand.)

Still, maybe using Google Translate would assist me in trying to learn a bit more about the place:

Well, this suddenly made things a lot clearer.

I don’t think that I’m assuming too much when I say that we all know that the monks are the monks, but equally, we often have doubts as to whether that goes deep enough in ascertaining what the monks actually are. Therefore, logically, any clarification of their actual full status is always going to be helpful.
And what I – and many others, I would guess – would have never imagined, is that the monks are the monks – and the the monks are the monks.

It’s that sort of attention to detail that Thailand is known for, and I’m very glad that I took that time to go back and have another look at this. Otherwise, I would only have got as far as thinking that the monks are the monks, whereas quite obviously (now, at least, lol!) the monks are the monks and the monks are the monks.

I think we’ve all learned something here today.

Xtra Savings Plus

Posted on

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.