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Today I went through to the Good Food and Wine Show at Gallagher Estate with Gary and Kati. I’ve often heard of events at the estate but never been to any of them since I’ve moved here to Johannesburg, so I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about.

The show wasn’t bad, but I must admit, if not for the company, I probably would not have stayed there long. Seeing as I’m not a wine drinker (it has a nasty habit of leaving me curled up in a ball of pain after even one glass) the only other item was interest was the food, which, sadly there was not much of.

I did manage to find some decent chili relish and some jalapeño cream cheese though. So not all was lost. Had some semi-decent sushi, some dry wors, plenty of samples of pesto and relish, some gluten-free breads and chocolates, brandy berries, cheeses, etc, etc…

Other than that… it was crowded. Noisy. Hot.

It was a far more pleasant afternoon, having a simple braai with Gary and Kati, talking about graphics, games (they are two World of Warcraft addicts), networking, horses, photography… And to end it all off, a perfect Johannesburg storm to add some pyrotechnics. What more can a person ask for?

Anyway, back to work tomorrow… these weekends are too damn short.

It seems that some sites are made simply as time-sinks. You wonder onto them by chance, sign up and before you know it, you’ve lost hours if not days of your life clicking through the site. This series will feature some of those time-sinks I’ve found over the years.

Gaia Online (Main Site)

Gaia Online Wikipedia Entry

How to best describe Gaia Online?

I think I can sum it up as an anime-themed forum turned web-based MMO.

Why an MMO?

• You have a fairly customizable avatar (even from starting) and can continually kit this paper doll out as you play. You can initially customize the following:
  • Hair style and color
  • Eye style and color
  • Mouth style and size
  • Skin tone
  • Gender
• You accept quests and receive rewards for completing them.
• It has a virtual economy and marketplace.
• It has events “in-game” and it’s own timeline.

Over and above that, it has, what has been called the web’s largest forum, with over a million posts made daily, over a billion posts in total and 2.5 million unique users per month (stats from Wikipedia).

It’s annoyingly cute at times but fun for those times when you just cannot be bothered to log into World of Warcraft or browse your usual websites (whatever those may be…)