Happy Post-Easter Tuesday everyone I hope you’re not feeling too emo after a lovely long weekend indoors/away/anywherebutwork. As you know, I’m been on the mission to self-host WordPress over the last month. Boy! No matter how much they dumb it down, you can guarantee us dummies will still find it incredibly hard to understand!
It comes down the base information. Often authors and geeks assume we have the base knowledge to perform a function where nope! Log in – sure! I know what that means…where? Download, sure! I know what that means…what program? Sign in! Sure! I know what that means…where? And so the days of confusion pass us by.
So on that note, I’d like to thank Johann from Namhost. He’s been incredibly patient with me, not to mention incredibly busy. WordPress took 5 days to relinquish my URL addy, propagation took under 24 hours and all through the long weekend poor Johann had e-mail after e-mail from Boring Cape Town Chick!
I now have a basic version running through my browser. Of course, Google Analytics was the first thing I attempted to tackle but slowly by surely I’ll be improving the site over time. If you’re looking for support like I have, please e-mail Johann. He’s from Namhost and has been brilliant.
And on that note, I’ve been so busy over the last 2 weeks! I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve been up to, as it includes nature, a bnb and my two favourites, music and food! Not to mention some give aways on the way as well. I hope you’ve had a happy long weekend and thank you for your continued reading support. Best wishes, BCTCBlog
The youth of Cape Town are a creative bunch. Being creative is everyone’s right and is not held exclusively by those who are actually in creative jobs. Smartphones allow ALL of us to give creativity a go and since I love the way Capetonians (and South Africans in general) are always attempting creative projects or ideas, I thought I’d spread the word on this Blackberry campaign.
Yes it all comes down to marketing the brand, we all know that. But if promoting the brand involved encouraging people to connect and be creative, then I’m all for that.
There seems to be 3 super star creatives on board, Alicia Keys – pop and rnb singer songwriter, Robert Rodriquez – director of Sin City, Desperado and From Dusk Til Dawn and writer Neil Gaiman, creator of Coraline and various other comic stories. I personally liked his contribution the most just because I’m so sick of Girl on Fire and hadn’t heard of Robert Rodriquez! Bad reasons I know LOL
Gaiman has selected 12 topics, namely A Calendar of Tales. Each month has a set talk that consumers can attempt. Each month participants must “draw a character, photograph a mood or paint a scene from a story that inspires you.” – Blackberry.com/keepingmoving website. You then take a picture of the picture and Tweet it to Neil. Each month has a different story that inspires you.
I’m interested in brand engagement where consumers actually WANT to communicate with the brand. I hate spam and where brands force themselves onto consumers. This project is nothing like that. Funnily enough, however, I did find the project as an advert on YouTube! Irony. Navigate around the Blackberry Keep Moving site, perhaps you’d like to engage with Keys or Rodriquez instead. Either way, I thought it would be cool to share this campaign with my fellow Capetonians
Reports are filtering through from Observatory that a young man has attempted a “hit and run” on Lower Main Road around 10pm tonight. Apparently the incident occurred outside the Stones Obs building where the driver hit a pedestrian with their car and attempted to drive off. Numerous young men then chased the car and pulled the driver out the vehicle. Police and ambulances are reportedly on the scene at the present. More details to be confirmed as soon as possible.
BCTC wishes the victim of this revolting crime all the best in their recovery.
Last year’s MCQP was a great night out. I loved the fact that everyone dressed up and had high festival spirits. The “rave” was totally remanicent of the 90′s, where everyone’s goal is to party all night in peace and mutual respect. This is exactly what happens at MCQP and 2012 was no exception. This year’s theme was Fairy Tale. After going through a dozen costumes, I finally settled on a Disney character because I could throw it together in 20 minutes! No, I don’t take the prize for the most effort but I always pull it off just enough
BCTC at MCQP
MCQP (Mother City Queer Project) was held at Cape Town Stadium this year and apparently hosted 11 000 people. I can believe this as there was hundreds of people no matter which part of the festival I visited. Having said this, the infrastructure was more than enough. There were large bars on all dance floors, a VIP bar (with free booze apparently but I never saw any) – the free masseuse (nothing funny), VIP toilets, separate dance floor and bar were enough for me!
VIP Floor at MCQP
In total there were 5 dance floors all the way up the stadium which meant each floor had an awesome view. There were bars and food stalls outside the main stadium doors to feed those in the mood. The line up at MCQP was great this year with each dance floor offering a different genre. The party pumped all night long and it was a kill joy when they turned the lights on and chased everyone out!
House Floor on MCQP
My most favourite tweet about MCQP (unfortunately I don’t recall who wrote it) this year was commenting on everyone doing the walk of shame the next day. If you had a one night stand your costume let the WHOLE world know as you made your way home LOL! I’ll DEFINITELY attend MCQP in 2013 again and I’d encourage other straight people to do the same. Cape Town is the gay capital of Africa so get with the program y’all! I just hope it doesn’t increase the douche bag factor. Although the men might be gay, when they bash you as they walk past it feels the same as any guy LOL!
News of Burger King hitting SA shores has been slipping and sliding all over the Internet as of 2012 but now it’s been officially confirmed. And not only has it been confirmed but the first Burger King will be opened in Cape Town!
I personally don’t see it opening before March next year but I’ll remain positive. And WHERE it’ll EXACTLY be opened? My guess is the V&A…tourists love “home cooking”. LOL
WTF if up with Americans and their right to bare arms?! I swear if this law was altered then half these insane public shootings would stop.
Some crazy guy just walked into the theatre of the Dark Knight Rising premier in Colorado, America and opened fire. A whole bunch of kids have been killed as well as their accompanying adults – 14 dead and more than 50 wounded.
A suspect, 24 year old white male, is in custody, he was apprehended in the car park and apparently did not resist arrest. He was carrying 3 guns, some sort of gas device and wearing a riot helmet.
An 18 yr male was treated and released. A 29 yr male and 20 yr female are currently in theatre, all three of them being treated for gun shot wounds at a nearby hospital.
CNN reports that a SWAT team has entered the suspect’s home to survey the premises.
Wikipedia will be turning black in just over 2 hours today! A warning has been posted on Wikipedia but the good news is that it’s not only Cape Town. The WHOLE of Wikipedia will be shutting down for 24 hours in protest to the newly proposed information bills in the United States.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) will seriously infringe on open media sites like Wikipedia.org where information is built by millions of contributors and shared by millions of users alike.
“Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia.”
- Kat Walsh, Wikipedia Foundation Board Member.
According to Ananova.com, the intention of the acts are to
“…to crack down on sales of pirated US products overseas. Critics say it could hurt the technology industry and infringes on free speech rights.” – Ananova.com
as well as to
“…seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime…” – Wikipedia.org
Wikipedia is not the only site taking action against these bills, WordPress.com has already begun to show protest by blacking out featured blogs. Imagine a word where opinion and information can not be easily shared? This is half of what makes the internet as great as it is.
My suggestion is not to complain about the lack of ‘service’ today but to rather support any trends on Twitter, pages on Facebook, etc. in order to help stop this bill or to help amend the bill. Plagiarism is wrong but stopping information being shared around the world is even worse.
Ok forget all that 2012 mumbo jumbo but it is kinda cool that UFO’s were spotted over the Mother City tonight, If you are especially paranoid then that might be enough to trigger you into buying thousands of cans of food and making a house underground much like that Chicken Licken ad but I’m happy to die in the apocolypse, I’m sure being exploded by atomic warfare really doesn’t hurt so I’m going to keep the party above ground for as long as possible.
The TV show Ancient Aliens equally intrigues me as annoys me as I spend my Sundays trying to figure out, ” What do these cryptic messages MEAN?! WHY were they living underground?! Is it a wormhole.” etc. So I’m not going to over think this. Do I believe in aliens, yes.
SO back to Cape Town and the UFOs. I managed to pick up a few comments about UFOs being spotted over Tygerberg Hill this past evening around 22:45pm. Here are the tweets themselves, make of them what you like
*fade in Twilight Zone music*
The next blocks have to be read in ‘reverse’ due to the nature of Twitter’s posting feed.
Cape Town will be one of the few lucky locations to witness a partial solar eclipse tomorrow morning. The sun will rise at 5:32 tomorrow morning with clear, sunny skies.
The partial eclipse will commence at 06:28 until 07:18 (total time 80 minutes) but only cover 10% of the sun’s surface in Cape Town. Antartica will witness a 90% sun cover. Will anyone even notice that the sun will be slightly dimmer? We’ll have to watch Twitter tomorrow!
After seeing lamp post flags of yellow and yellow and yellow with 2014 being the only legible wording, I eventually learnt that Cape Town was bidding to be the Design Capital of the World, 2014.
But what does this mean? Well, moments ago it was announced that we have in fact won the bid and so now it will be our design responsibility to show the world true, authentic South African design as well as to provide a platform for international work to be show cased in The Mother City.
Global, local and small scale design events are to be welcomed, essentially filling the world with practical art and creative culture. From street art like graffiti to interior design, furniture and graphic art which often spills into fashion, design is all things creative and now Cape Town will have the responsibility to showcase this for 1 year.
I can’t wait to show the world what amazing South African design talent we have in our country. Viva 2014!!!
Nerds and geeks are given such a hard time back in school but really they’re the people who will save our planet from killer meteors, provide a world of psy-fi fantasy and make impossible dreams come true. Case in point, the classic “Back to the Future Hover Board!”
I don’t think there’s a single person who watched Back to the Future who didn’t want a car that ran on junk and a hover board to speed one around the city. Now, thanks to the nerds in Israel, this may be a reality! This YouTube clip from their work a, “The Superconductivity Group from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University” are working on technology to make these hover boards possible.
Check out the video below for a demonstration of their small scale science which could turn our world into a big scale wheel free-skateboard zone!
So after finishing my dance class, I popped to the Woolies to get something healthy for dinner. I love sparkling water but decided to get something a bit more flavourful and decided to check out the Woolies smoothies, which were looking very tasty after an hour’s exercise.
A while ago I was watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and Janice Street-Porter had explored smoothies to see just how ‘healthy’ they really were. Her results showed that most smoothies were more sugary than fizzy cooldrinks and were worse for you because all the pulp had been removed (slows digestion, therefore, sugar release). So for shits and giggles I decided to do the same in the Woolies.
The result?! Smoothies contain WAY more energy / kjs than Coke a Cola, both in ratio AND in quantity. Coke = 180kj, smoothie = 286kjs / 100mls. This is crazy. It is literally better for me to drink a can of Coke than a smoothie. Yes, smoothies have vitamins that Coke does not, but who cares! I just sweated my ass off in a dance class for an hour! There’s no way I’m drinking all that hard work back on again…
Moral of the story? Stick with what you know…hello sparkling water…
Sick of hearing all about voting for Table Mountain? Don’t be mean spirited! It doesn’t seem like a big deal to vote for Table Mountain but when you consider her competitors, such as the Great Barrier Reef, The Dead Sea, The Amazon Jungle, The Grand Canon, etc. it would be awesome to get Table Mountain onto the Top 7!
Voting ends on the 11/11/11 at 11:00 (UK time) and there are a few ways to vote. I checked out the website but then you have to fill in a whole form with all your details:
So I went the Facebook route where you give them access (ONLY to what you have published PUBLICLY) to repost the link and get your name, etc. Far easier than filling out forms.
All you have to do is click on the VOTE NOW tab on the left hand side, pick your 7 options and that’s it! Quick and easy. I personally only voted for natural wonders that I had heard of, if you haven’t heard of it then it can’t be all that
You’re drinking, you’re dancing, you’re laughing, you’re looking fabulous! Until pictures from last night pop up on your Facebook. Whaaaaaat?!?!!!! Look at my eyes! I look like a “bergie”! Yes, you have huge black makeup bags under your eyes, more commonly known as “Panda eyes”. Shame, have you been crying? No, but I am this morning!
I don’t think there’s a single girl (or boy!) on the planet who hasn’t had the hassle of finding a black eyeliner that actually stays in place. Eyeliner has a habit of spending more time off your eyes than on them…until now…
After trying dozens of different pencils and liners I went into my favourite makeup house, MAC Cosmetics, and asked for help. And help they did. Introducing…MAC eyeshadow!
“Eyeshadow?” you may ask, yes! It seems so! Black “Carbon” powder (eyeshadow) has been revolutionary in my girlie life! The MAC lady recommended that I use a fine angle brush to apply to the inner lower lids and smudge if desired.
I’ve had more than a few “life time” MAC brushes but every time one goes missing it’s R200 – R300 bucks a pop. Hellooooooo Clicks! Clicks has a great range of inexpensive makeup brushes. An angle brush at MAC = R240. Angle brush at Clicks? R35! They might not last a lifetime but what does it matter at that price?
To finish off, give your face a refreshing boost with MAC’s fixer. Guaranteed to keep your makeup exactly where you place it and off cheeks, collars and pillows. Thanks MAC!
In my haste to praise Rocking the Daisies, I’ve forgotten to mention ANOTHER one of Cape Town’s biggest outdoor parties, Earthdance 2011. This is probably because it has previously been centered around psy-trance music, which isn’t one of my favourite styles of music, and thus is it not high on my priority list. In their defense, the festival has been expanding slowing but surely over the past few years.
Here in the Western Cape we are able to boast one of the most successful psy-trance scenes in the world. (I might not be in love with psy-trance but I am proudly Cape Townian!) Starting with outdoor parties such as Alien Safari, Vortex, Bear Trap, Free Range, from early spring, right up until Easter weekend, there is a big or small psy-trance party to be found somewhere in the province throughout summer. It seems that it’s a right of passage for most students to spend some time at trance parties because at one time, they were pretty much the only outdoor parties to be had. With the 1 day Coke fest, Ramfest and Rocking the Daisies being younger than 6 years, there weren’t many alternatives.
Since the inception of more festivals, Earthdance has moved with the times and incorporated other genres of music. 2010 saw a Homegrown stage hosted by Algorythm Recordings with the best drum n bass DJs playing through the night. Last year, an alternative electronic music stage also made an appearance with dozens of minimal, electro, dubstep, house, etc. DJs playing and this September 23 – 25th will be no different, only bigger and better!
The concept of Earthdance Global is that of love and charity. Dozens of parties are hosted all over the globe on a single night, in order to create awareness and charity, with each party offering 50% of its profits to charity. All festival goers around the globe simultaneously (this year at 1am in RSA) stop partying and join together to practice a Prayer for Peace. This is a moment to reflect on peace and humankind.
This year’s theme is “Celebrating the Forest” in alignment with the UN’s environmental agenda: 2011 International Year of Forests. Most psy-trance heads have grown to dislike Earthdance as it is one of the most commercial festivals, however, since it’s in the name of charity, their hippie philosophy also usually means that they’ll be attending and supporting the cause none-the-less.
I personally am more than happy to stay away from trance festivals during the summer, however, I do believe Earthdance should be more varied in order to gain more support for the purpose, joining together in peace, reflecting on the earth, our blessings and the future. If this means the hippies have to relinquish Nekkies for one weekend to ‘the other side (the normal side) , then so be it!
On that note, here’re the artists you can expect to see playing at Earthdance this September 24th 2011…
I hope you’re not feeling too emo after a lovely long weekend indoors/away/anywherebutwork. As you know, I’m been on the mission to self-host WordPress over the last month. Boy! No matter how much they dumb it down, you can guarantee us dummies will still find it incredibly hard to understand!
Global, local and small scale design events are to be welcomed, essentially filling the world with practical art and creative culture. From street art like graffiti to interior design, furniture and graphic art which often spills into fashion, design is all things creative and now Cape Town will have the responsibility to showcase this for 1 year.
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