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So, after using this blog for the last while, I've upped and moved to a new one at lesterhein.com running on WordPress.




Please visit me and have a look aroud :)

Today I went to renew a vehicle registration. This is a fairly simple jobbie: I come in with the little piece of paper you sent me in the post, I give you my little bits of paper with numbers and in return, you give me a brand new piece of paper. The whole thing should take no more than a few seconds from start to finish.

Since you insist on closing at 3 in the afternoon, myself and the rest of the piece of paper recipients need to make special arrangements to come and see you. So, after I come to visit you, the less than nice lady at the door tells me to stand in the enquiry queue, which I do. Just so you know - you need some new aircon. It's a tad over 30 degrees outside and I almost threw up in my mouth a little from the smell at your place.

Anyway, after 10 minutes of standing in the enquiries queue, the helpful staff there tell me that I should have gone to a teller. Why did I come to enquiries? Surely I should know that I need to go to the teller? And then I start to slump towards a line that zigs and zags for close to an eternity - I see a sign.

The sign in question is a poster, placed in a weird corner where you can't really see i unless your a little lost (like I was). The sign says - "Renew your Vehicle Licence Online." Gasp! What's this - I can avoid the smelly buildings and the acid friendly staff? Well why didn't you say something?

So, Traffy old buddy old pal, here's a tip for you - next time you send me a notification to renew something, let me know if I can do it online. That way I won't have to come over to your place. The lines in your front room won't be as long and the air won't smell as bad. The staff won't be as friendly a they are now. And you might even be able to justify closing at half past 3. That's the thing about technology though - it's meaningless if you don't spread the word. If the people you're trying to assist don't know about the help you're trying to offer, it's all a little pointless.

Anyway, I'm sure that there will be some reason for me to come over to your place again before too long, so see you then.

P.S.I secretly dream that one day there will be a traffic department who fantasizes about working for the public, instead of trying to bend us to their illogical will. But I know that's crazy talk.

So after the entire internet going crazy about the debacle surrounding the way that Ras Dumisani sang the South African national anthem at the Sa vs France rugby match last week, I thought it might be useful for anyone else thinking of singing the national anthem to actually know the words.



Here's a handy illustrated way to learn the South African national anthem

So, after my previous post about the South African anthem being sung at the SA versus France game, Ras Dumisani has generated his own meme. The internet, radio and even TV is buzzing with talk about the botched SA anthem.

There's a phrase saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but the Ras Dumisani incident may just test this chestnut to the max, with a whole lot of less than nice things being said about the singer.

Here's an audio clip of Ras on radio giving a "better" version of the national anthem than the one he delivered at the stadium on the night of the rugby match.

Ras Dumisani singing the South African Anthem by lesterhein

People are de-moer-in. Highly bedondered. Pissed off and Bevok. And it's all thanks to the way that the national anthem was performed at the SA vs France rugby match on Friday night. I didn't catch the game, but I had heard of the ermm...rendition from a few buddies and decided to check it out.

Here it is:



(if you're reading this on Facebook, go here to watch the video)

My first response was "those bloody frenchmen." But it turns out, I was wrong. In an article published by the UK's Telegraph newspaper, the identity of the singer was revealed. Ras Dumisani is a dude from Durban. Our side.

Here's an extract from the Telegraph article:

"I must convey that we are annoyed by the fact that the French disrespected our anthem," blasted South Africa coach Peter de Villiers.

"They didn't get someone who really knows the thing and show any respect for it. We expect people to show respect to the anthem of any other country."

But Dumisani was aghast that de Villiers and other Bok players were unhappy with his rendition.

"Everyone at the stadium told me I sang well, even after the match. The Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika has been my tune since a baby," he said. "How can I not know the words?

Personally, I'm a little upset myself. I like our anthem. It has four languages and a catchy tune. It confused little children and Americans. And for someone to come along and botch it on an international stage is not acceptable. I think that maybe the organisers should have checked with Ras if he knew all the words before they booked him for the gig....

What do you think?

UPDATE - Ras Dumisani was given a chance to tell his side on the story on radio. Click here to listen to the clip from the Redi Direko show on 567 Cape Talk

http://lesterhein.blogspot.com/2009/11/danger-ras.html

So I've been back and forth on the whole iPhone or Blackberry thing. And truth be told, I still don't know which side of the line I'm on. On the one hand, an iPhone would help the Mac situation (Symbian to Mac relations are not going so well). On the other hand, the BlackBerry is just kinda, well, cool (in a pimped out Exel spreadsheet kinda way).



Any way, Blackberry is laying down the gauntlet for Apple, and I must admit, I like it.




Here's Blackberry's retort. Not as cool as the Apple ad, but pretty cool none the less (how the hell do you spell that? Is it hyphenated or one word?).

Data bothers me. It always has. There's so much of it lying all over the place - in spreadsheets, emails, smses and on random bits of paper. I know a lot of very smart people who are very good at organizing, storing and using data. But I reckon the coolest ones are the ones running the video store around the corner from my mom's place.


You see, I have a thing about video store cards. And the thing is that I keep losing them. I refuse to keep unnecessary cards in my wallet and as diligent as I am, I can never remember where I last put the video store card. Which is why my mom's video store (for lack of a better name) is so cool.

They've implemented a biometric finger print scanner to replace video store cards. So whenever you rent a video, you go and give them the finger and up pops your account letting you know what the last porno was that you rented and just how many fines you have outstanding. It's all very Star Trek, which makes it even more fitting to be found at a video store but is a very smart and efficient way to profile their customers and associate you with your data.

It also makes sense. Biometrics scanners these days start from just a few hundred rand, which means that the store will save on designing and printing cards for new members and replacing the inevitable lost cards for existing customers. It also saves time since the staff don't need to waste time looking up accounts or searching for id numbers.

Some folks do however some safety concerns about the 'new' technology worrying that there personal information is at risk or that they are that much closer to being a victim of identity theft. Personally, I think having your mail stolen is a much higher risk.

The scanners that businesses such the humble video shop make use of might look very CSI, but they're a lot more low tech. Firstly, they're not connected to the internet (in most instances) and secondly they record on average 5-7 regions on your finger print. If memory serves, the police require a 16 point match (though I could be wrong here).

More and more businesses are using biometrics fro access control and in the US, schools have started to issue kids lunch using their fingerprints to prevent lost lunch money or lunch cards. The trend is clearly showing that this is a technology that is gaining traction.

The question I have is simple - are you freaked out by fingerprint scanners or do you accept that its' something we'll all have to deal with in the future?

My guess is that at that exact second, this guy was the fastest man in the world and would have given Usain Bolt a erm..run for his money.

This month, I'll be working on my musical balance. For the last year I have been immersed in the live music scene and have seen and worked with some truly talented artists. But the down side is that the other electronic glitchy thumping squelchy world of electronic dance has been neglected. There's no balance and the scale its decidedly lopsided.

But that is about to change ;)

The first step was to get the right toys for the job.

• 1 x MacBook
• 1 x pair of Sennheiser HD202 headphones
• 1 x Beghringer BCD3000

Now that I have these all nicely assembled, it's time to rebuild my musical arsenal with a selection of tunes so good they'd make the pope swear out loud.. The last mix I put together was called The Swinger's Club and was made up of killer house tracks inspired by Swing and Jazz from the 1940s and 50's.

This time around, I'll be pulling together my 1990's influences from Hip Hop and RnB and fusing this with house music (of course).

The results should be...interesting.

Here's the last mix that I put together. You can go ahead and download it if you like, or jut listen to it and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Lester

So things have been busy on my side of the earth. So much so that I've not had time to indulge in my favourite activity - the written word - for the past while. Today things reached the point where I simply need to write something, Anything. Hopefully this first stride will galvanize me in to action and verb will flow.

The fluid verbs will sadly have to wait a bit tho. There's still tons to do before the bills are even barely paid.

Oh well. Ce La Vie.

My best friend is getting married soon. This is itself if a big thing and all the usual guys things are running through my brain - "Man Down!" "Another One Bites the Dust" & of course "I should get him a name tag for his chain."

The other unexpected complication in this whole shebang is that he had the bad sense to nominate me as his best man. This means that I get to plan the stag. And of course, the rehearsal stag, just to make sure that we get it right.

I've also been having a few other ideas for the big guy's big day. So I'm thinking that at the church we can do something like this:

(if you're reading on Facebook, go here - http://lesterhein.blogspot.com/2009/07/hadleys-getting-married.html)






And at the reception maybe a little something along these lines:
(if you're reading on Facebook, go here - http://lesterhein.blogspot.com/2009/07/hadleys-getting-married.html)






Whatever we wind up getting up to (or down to) I can guarandamtee that this is going to be one for the photo albums.

What do you think I should get them to do?

When I removed my headphones about an hour and the sounds of the real world came flooding in, I was welcomed by the sound of a lawnmower. Now lawnmowers as a whole don't have a particularly pleasing tone, but what made this one worse was that I new my car was standing close to the grass. A quick glance through the window confirmed what I suspected - the gardener was in the process of converting my car to an Eco-Friendly model was blasting it with grass from the lawnmower.

Here's what I saw:

What you can see here is a small taste of what happened after I took the picture and went back inside. My car now looks like a badly disguised G.I. Joe doing recon in the jungle.

And now it's started raining. Dammit

Lester

In light of the recent furor over Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda spending a reported R2.3 Million on luxury rides for himself, I've received an interesting email which outlines Cape Town Premier Helen Zille's response to the rampant spending.


If you're not up to speed on the Communications Minister's splurge, here's an excerpt from an article on MyBroadband:

New Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda has treated himself to a pair of German luxury cars, one to use in Pretoria and the other in Cape Town.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question, posed by the Democratic Alliance, he said the new vehicles - both 2009 BMW 750i models - cost R1 135 500 each.

And here's an excerpt from News 24 about why the purchase is ok:

"The political office-bearer contract that resides with the department of transport prescribes that a minister is entitled to acquire a vehicle for official use that is worth not more than 70% of his or her annual salary package," spokesperson Tiyani Rikhotso said in a statement.

Here's what Zille's response the situation is (as featured in the Daily Dispatch)

Every right minded taxpayer would have been envious of their Western Cape counterparts if they had read Rapport’s article over the weekend about the steps that Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has taken to cut down unnecessary spending by politicians in that province.

“A Strict Financial Diet” is how Rapport described Zille’s move, which includes bringing to an end the use of expensive official vehicles (the Premier will now be carted around in a Toyota), a reduction in glossy advertisements to promote ministerial departments, and having biscuits and tea instead of costly meals at five-star hotels when Western Cape MECs make their budget announcements.

Official budget announcements are now being held in the MECs’ conference rooms. Zille’s provincial Cabinet members also being driven around in the government garage’s fleet of second-hand vehicles – which had been used by the previous ANC provincial government.
Rapport reported that the Mercedes C230 that Western Cape Health MEC Theuns Botha uses already has 230 000km on its clock.

It was said that Zille’s financial diet has already resulted in a savings of R3million in one week for the province.

Zille said according to calculations each provincial department would be saving at least R250 000 by cutting down on lavish entertainment – a total saving of R2.5m.

And by opting for a less glamorous opening of the Western Province parliament Zille has already put at least R500 000 back in the coffers of the province’s taxpayers. She has cut her own budget for meals from R270 000 to R26 000. (This is not a typo!)

Anyone concerned about the economy, the ever increasing unemployment figures and rising poverty should compare Zille’s budget cuts with what’s been happening in other provinces. They will find, for instance, Gauteng provincial minister have used their new found powers to buy official vehicles at about R960 000 each.

Even ANC supporters and the ruling party’s alliance partners in the trade union movements – and Communist Party too – should take umbrage about this kind of spending.
This has nothing to do with party ideology. The other provincial leaders should know that the electorate will compare them to Zille.

Zille’s budget cuts should be an example to political leaders, who purport to have compassion for the less privileged. During their respective election campaigns all political parties pledged to alleviate poverty. If all provinces followed Zille’s example and cut down extravagant spending and began walking the talk, the greater the chance of realising these promises.

DAILY DISPATCH EDITORIAL 23 JUNE 2009

What's your take on the issue?

I've always that it would be cool to have my own TV show. You know, sit around and talk with cool people about cool stuff. Sort of like Ellen without being gay. Or blonde. Or a woman. Anyway, last week the myself and the rest of the team at StereoType Records launched a new YouTube channel called StereoType Live.

I managed to get this picture of striking workers in Greenpoint, Cape Town. Minutes later I heard shots being fired and an extremely loud bang

This one is definitely worth the bandwidth. Check the subtitles they're hilarious!




I couldn't find the really funny version, which has subtitles, but you can find it here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/billy-bob-goes-ballistic-with-subtext-titles/

This article was emailed tot me earlier today. I'm not sure of the source, but it does well to drive it's point home.

Living The High Life

Dear Editor, I am a white guy living in Cape Town. I have been thinking about who I should be voting for in the next elections, and I have decided that I will vote for the ANC. I think I need to explain to everyone out these in cyber land how I came to this decision.

As a white boy, living under the apartheid regime was not all that great, I mean I had this huge guilt complex about what the NATS were doing to my fellow South Africans.

I voted YES in the 1989 referendum and I thought things would be a lot better in SA after 1994. But in reality, they are not so great. We all know all the problems in SA. I don't need to spell this all out again.

I read this forum regularly, and I see that the ANC supporters (the Kolobes, CTKs, Calvins, etc) have such blind hatred for anyone not supporting the ANC (and especially us white "counter revolutionary colonists") that frankly I don't get it.

After 15 years of "freedom" and ANC rule, how do we end up having such blind racial hatred? What has really changed in 15 years?

So I have decided to vote for the ANC. And this is why: The ANC has done a lot more to keep black people poor and living in tin shacks than the NATS could ever have done in the same 15-year period and without any sanctions.

They have squandered vast sums of money - more than the NATS ever did. The have made the divide between rich and poor wider. They have lowered the standard of education to such an extent, that hardly any South Africans tertiary qualifications are internationally recognised. The standard of high school education is dropping year by year.

We have a lot of foreign qualified people working in SA earning vast sums of money due to AA and BEE. The BEE wealth is not being distributed; it goes to the elite few. Companies are not training AA folks, they rather hire foreign contractors.

I am better off under ANC rule than I ever was under apartheid. I earn more, live in an exclusive area, have private medical aid, private health and a private security company keeps me safe. My kids go to a private school.

Under ANC rule I keep all of this and I no longer have to suffer the shame and guilt of being a racist apartheid supporter. If I vote for another party, things will change.

More people will be qualified, and my kids will have competition trying to find jobs. More people will have jobs, and more exclusive areas will spring up, and I won't feel so exclusive anymore.

I won't be able earn a vast contractor salary as more local people will be trained and able to do the work. I won't be able do the work that is given to a BEE company (and sub contracted to me) as they will be able to do the work themselves.

I will lose money on the shares I have in the security companies, as we will no longer need private security firms if the SA Police actually stop the crime wave.

So, as a white guy, the best party to vote for is surely the ANC. I get to keep living the high life while I watch the poor supporters of the ANC live in tin shacks and struggle.

One of the toilets in our building is busted and runs on for hours after it is flushed. I've managed to fix it without using a single tool.