It was a tougher game that I expected – in fact it was a bit of a nail biter. But we won and Bryan Habana has been named player of the year by the Rugby Board. 🙂
It was cool hanging out with other South Africans at St Andrews pub in Green Lake watching the game (The Kiwi and Kangaroo was full) but I was bummed when someone told me Lucky Dube has been killed in a car jacking. One day someone’s going to fix crime in South Africa. Lets just hope that day comes soon.
…or is it just me? Seems to have gone down for a few minutes at a time around 11pm to midnight for the last few evenings. It’s not tied to browser or workstation, but may be tied to our public IP address. All other websites work including news.google.com and blogsearch.google.com – just www.google.com seems to be having probs.
Got this a few minutes ago from my Dad in South Africa:
I picked up a bag of Panama Esmeralda coffee at Peets yesterday. It’s expensive, but this morning I made a cup in my french press using my usual method and it’s the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted. Usually I don’t buy into the whole ‘berry notes with a hint of whatever’ analysis. But the citrus in this coffee is incredible.
…especially when you’ve been quoted on the front page of a major newspaper. 🙂 (The Seattle PI)
Congrats to Brian Dorsey and his team who built and launched Tagmindr in 6 hours. Brian and I have chatted via email several times this week and we still haven’t met. Hopefully this week at Seattle Tech Startups meetup.
Mark.
ps: Here’s the original blog entry that launched Feedjit. Here’s John Cook’s article online.
Interesting video I ran across this evening looking for interviews with John Nash:
I was scrambling through a deep canyon on Sunday on Snoqualmie’s South Fork and ended up at this beautiful quiet pool that looked very deep and had a very nice brookie that grabbed my thin mint streamer after a few casts.
I was reminded of an Afrikaans expression:
“Stille waters, diepe grond, onder draai die duiwel rond.”
It’s the Afrikaans equivalent of “Still waters run deep” but it doesn’t really translate that well. Literally it translates as: “Still waters, deep ground, beneath the devil goes round and round” – but it loses its punchiness in translation.
Afrikaans is a language with a rough history and I think because of this it’s rich with idiomatic expressions, some of which would make a sailor blush. [so I won’t share those with you].
Another one: “Hy kan nie ‘n bokkom braai nie.”
Translates as: “He can’t barbecue a dried and salted mullet” – doesn’t translate either because you have to have lived on the west coast of South Africa and seen what a bokkom looks like and experienced the sheer genius of west coast braais (bbq’s) to understand what an insult this really is.
I paid my $30 bucks for pay per view and watched SA teach Argentina a lesson in Rugby respect yesterday beating them 37-13. Bryan Habana you are a God!! If anyone knows a good place to watch SA kick England’s arses next weekend let me know. [Preferably somewhere with more South African fans than English]
I was driving from OC in California back to Seattle yesterday and was listening to NPR on Siruis which I’m completely addicted to. There was a brilliant interview with author and Professor Devra Davis who recently published The Secret History of the War on Cancer which I’m probably going to buy. The show was called “Chemicals, Cancer and You” – follow the link to listen to it.
She chatted about the history of Aspartame, the sweetener in most diet sodas. Kerry (my wife) has been drinking diet soda for years (and talking about quitting for years) and after hearing the interview she’s just dumped all her remaining soda and is moving to iced tea with unrefined sugar (evaporated cane juice).
The Aspartame discussion is towards the end of the interview – perhaps 15 minutes before the end.
G. D. Searle and Co developed Aspartame in 1965. In the 1970’s the safety of Aspartame came into question after Tumors were found in rats that had been given aspartame. A grand jury was convened to investigate the drug. They never finished their work. In fact several senior people who worked for the FDA and who were involved with the investigation were recruited by Searle and the investigation into the health risks associated with Aspartame simply went away.
The guy behind it all? Searle’s Chief Operating Officer, Donald H Rumsfeld.
