Whoo Saaah

Last week while on leave, I was driving around the streets of Johannesburg's northern suburbs, from mall to mall, with no real purpose - anything to relax. The intention of my leave was to wind down, take some time off to watch some movies, play some Wii and not much else.

Now, most people who've travelled to Jo'burg know how uptight and highly strung Gautengers can be (This is the part where the readers who know what I'm referring to would go "LOL"). Anyways, while stopped at an intersection there was an accident right in front of me. I wasn't involved, though I couldn't move forward. I had to change lanes and kinda circumnavigate. The traffic lights continued to change a few times and I missed what would be my normal opportunity to cross the intersection. This was very difficult. I had no space to reverse and had to edge my way into the next lane. Eventually I managed to get in and slip behind a guy already crossing through - but, at the same time, the guy from the other side also tried to make his way through and my enthusiasm blocked him from going all the way.

This is the guy this blog post is dedicated to. The gentleman in the Hyundai H1 who swore me, told me to stop being a f**king c**t, gave me the finger and then sped away.

Whoo Saaah my good man. Take some leave and chill out. Maybe go to a nice beach in Cape Town. Enjoy some Long Island Iced Teas on Long Street. Nothing happened to your car. I didn't see you giving way to the car in front of me. If I had seen that, I assure you, I would have allowed you to pass. I would have tried my utmost best not to make you be late by an extra thirty seconds - Whoo Saah

Liking Gadgets

I've always been a 'liker of gadgets' - and in fact, I consider myself somewhat of a 'thingie gay'. Recently at work, the temptation to buy gadgets and electronic devices has increased tenfold (amongst everyone in the office) in a 'keeping up with the Jones' ' type buying frenzy.

A few months ago it started something like this:

Guy one bought himself an ASUS EEEPC. He liked it  so much, that he bought another one with exactly the same specs. He then bought another ASUS but this time a larger one with more memory and larger screen.

Guy two likes the idea of a netbook and decides that he too will participate in the 'gadgetry acquisition' competition for that month. He gets himself an IBM S10, small, fast and slim and sexy.

Guy three then wins a Dell Mini 10 NetBook - which is not fair coz everyone else had to buy theirs. His one, is small, fast, slim, sexy and shiny.

Guy two then buy an iPad while in the USA and also wins an Amazon Kindle (not fair either). iPad, by virtue of it being an Apple product, trumps all previously purchased netbooks by all other guys in the office.

At this stage guy two is the winner and I'm not even a player at this stage of the 'competition'.  

I (Guy four) then change the game somewhat by getting myself a set of Bose Noise Canceling headphones? No one takes my entry into the game seriously, so I'm obviously the looser. To add insult to injury and to worsen my pain, I ordered a Kindle from Amazon and... to my surprise... they have no stock.

To date my gadgets comprise the following:

• 32" Sony Bravia (already obsolote - HD Ready...not even full HD)
• Philips Home Theatre System (HTS 8100)
• iPod (A necessary thingie gay gadget, in fact, I have two)
• Bose Noise Canceling Headphones (so far the best gadget I have)
• Krups ESpresseria XP 7240(Coffee/Espresso machine Combo)
• Nintendo Wii

I know my collection of  gadgets is not that great from someone who admits to being a lover of gadetry. My limit at the moment is due to money and not the fact that I have no creativity in choosing some thingie gay stuff.

I will soon update my 'still to get list'

Staying Cheap

Several months ago I was writing about what I thought were some interesting techniques to save some cash. It was supposed to be a series on saving money - but that didn't happen as well as I expected it to.

I have the unpublished posts in drafts - if anyone would like to review them before I publish, let me know.

For today however - I want to talk about second hand stores such as "Cash Converters" and "Cash Crusaders".

I walked into Cash Converters last week and was surprised to see the amount of interesting items they had which were in such good condition (which I would buy). They had all the geeky stuff I like - Celestron Telescopes, Onkyo amplifiers, sports watches, laptops, etc..

Where I could see a definite money saver was at the vast selection of DVD's which they stock. I have quite a significant amount of money "invested" in DVD's, but I think that I could have saved quite a bit of money buying most of my DVD's at Cash Converters. I think the most expensive second hand DVD which was on sale was 50 bucks for "Hitch" (www.kalahari.net stock it for about R100). It's not a huge saving and you most probably wont find the DVD which you want, but in the long run, it will save you some cash if you are collecting DVD's and do enjoy watching an original and not a bootleg copy.

:)