lensblog

Well, the last two long weekends have been a pleasant change, albeit chaotic in terms of repercussions when most people get back to the office and face the mountain of work they did not do during the public holidays. For me, it’s been a frustrating time. Making calls, sending mails, trying to get appointments to see houses or flats to share… driving all over Johannesburg…

I was also housesitting for friends of mine while they went away to celebrate a birthday. Which gave me plenty of time to reads my RSS feeds and catch up on some podcasts. One of those was a Dave’s Lounge Podcast I hadn’t gotten around to listening to yet… Dave’s podcast has become something of a regular feature in my music library these days.

In episode 107, he introduced me to a new music project called Sleepthief, featuring some of the vocalists and themes from another music project I enjoy, namely Delerium. The track he played was off “The Dawnseeker” album, called ‘Sublunar’:

Well, the lights are on and I don’t feel safe
By this tainted window
So if you’re looking in, you might see the pain
But I don’t want you to know, so…
Just go on pretending that you don’t know
All I am is empty, an empty world in my heart, In my heart, in my heart, in my heart
Sweet angel sweet angel sweet angel
All my pretty things make you stop and think
I must be a sweet angel
But when the glitter smears and the wires appear
You’ll see I’m horribly mangled, but
Hush hush hush la da da da
Hush hush hush hush hush
Hush hush hush hush hush hush la da da da da, da da

I don’t quite know how to put into words the ethereal quality of Kristy Thirsk’s voice. Reviews online describe the track as “melancholy but heavenly” and “Kristy Thirsk’s crystalline vocals are truly angelic and stunning within the celestial textures of Sublunar.”

Now Dave generally promotes a lot of smaller label artists so I wasn’t too hopeful about finding this on anything other than CDBaby or iTunes but I see Amazon has it as does Take2 so I think I may get this for myself sometime. Once my move, etc is done and I’m settled again.

The other highlight of the weekend was seeing “Iron Man” with some work colleagues. I’m not going to spoil it for those that have not seen it, nor am I going to repeat what several hundred other blogs are bound to say, except that this was a good movie. Specifically, a good comic-related action hero movie. And I think we all know how rare those are these days. It has all the elements of success in it. And as one blog put it, if you could leave your preconceived ideas at the door and sit back and watch it as a technology-fest, the geek in you would love it.

Reading some of the RSS feeds this morning on the topic, the folks at Marvel must be smiling, as Iron Man has taken the box office by storm.

Another page I stumbled upon recently lists all the upcoming movies for the next 3 years with links to their IMDB records. Some awesome titles on the cards, it seems, and some questionable ones too:

Filtered from titles slated for 2009

• A-Team, The (2009)
• Area 51 (2009)
• Astro Boy (2009)
• Barbarella (2009)
• Captain America (2009)
• Castlevania (2009)
• CHiPs (2009)
• Conan the Barbarian (2009)
• Crank 2: High Voltage (2009) – [Didn't he die?]
  
• Dark Avengers (2009)
• Elfstones of Shannara, The (2009)
• Fraggle Rock: The Movie (2009)
• G.I. Joe (2009)
• Ghost Rider 2 (2009)
• Godzilla 3-D (2009)
• Green Hornet, The (2009)
• Halo (2009)
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
• Jetsons, The (2009)
• Jurassic Park IV (2009) – [Why?]
  
• Justice League: Mortal (2009)
• Kong: King of Skull Island (2009)
• Magnum P.I. (2009)
• Masters of the Universe (2009)
• Metal Gear Solid (2009)
• Neuromancer (2009)
• Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian (2009)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2009)
• Rambo V (2009) – [What, is Rambo going to go postal on us in the retirement home?]
  
• Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Banshee (2009)
• Shinobi (2009)
• Sims: The Movie, The (2009)
• Sin City 3 (2009)
• Smurfs, The (2009)
• Spider-Man 4 (2009)
• Spy Hunter (2009)
• Star Trek (2009)
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
• Superman: Man of Steel (2009)
• Swiss Family Robinson (2009)
• Teen Titans (2009)
• Tekken (2009)
• Terminator 4 (2009) – [What time paradox excuse will they use this time?]
  
• Thor (2009)
• Three Stooges, The (2009)
• Tintin (2009)
• Transformers 2 (2009)
• Transporter 3 (2009)
• Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
• Warcraft (2009)
• Wolf Man, The (2009)
• X-Men Origins: Magneto (2009)
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Filtered from titles slated for 2010

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2010)
• Alice in Wonderland (2010)
• Ant-Man (2010)
• Bond 23 (2010)
• Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The (2010)
• Clash of the Titans (2010)
• Cyclops (2010)
• Devil May Cry (2010)
• Dune (2010)
• EverQuest (2010)
• Fahrenheit 451 (2010)
• Fantastic Voyage (2010)
• Fantasy Island (2010)
• Green Lantern (2010)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2010)
• Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
• Heavy Metal (2010)
• Hercules (2010)
• Hobbit, The (2010)
• I Am Legend 2 (2010)
• I, Robot 2 (2010)
• Incredible Shrinking Man, The (2010)
• Invisible Woman, The (2010)
• Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades (2010)
• Jonny Quest (2010)
• Jungle Book (2010)
• Knight Rider (2010)
• Lone Ranger, The (2010)
• Mighty Mouse (2010)
• Mortal Kombat (2010)
• National Treasure 3 (2010)
• Navy Seals (2010)
• Nick Fury (2010)
• Puss in Boots (2010)
• Q (2010)
• Rainbow Six (2010)
• Resident Evil 4 (2010)
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2010)
• Robotech (2010)
• Sherlock Holmes (2010)
• Short Circuit (2010)
• Shrek Goes Fourth (2010)
• Sin City 2 (2010)
• Spawn 2 (2010)
• Splinter Cell (2010)
• Sub-Mariner (2010)
• Sword of Shannara, The (2010)
• Tarzan (2010)
• Thundercats (2010)
• Toy Story 3 (2010)
• TRON (2010)
• Voltron (2010)

Filtered from titles slated for 2011

• Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, The (2011)
• Ghost in the Shell (2011)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011)
• Hobbit 2, The (2011)
• Jumper 2 (2011)
• Untitled Third Tintin Film (2011)

I can only hope that they don’t screw them up too badly. Specifically the ones in bold… (please do not let Uwe Boll near any of these movies!). As for the ones in italics… well, one has to wonder…

Wow… tempus fugit… time flies…

Considering that my last post was in February sometime, and we’re almost done with April, I feel I’ve neglected this site for some time. Time, specifically spare time, has become somewhat of a rare commodity for me lately…

Ok, some updates (for those that care and even for those that don’t):

I’m moving… where to, I’m not too sure yet, but I’m hoping it will be a little closer to work to cut down on traffic, etc. I should be seeing a place tomorrow night that sounds perfect…

Work has been going well, just busy. At present I’m on-site at BCX (Business Connexion) in Midrand, standing in for a work colleague who has decided to get married… poor sod… another one bites the dust. I’m studying as well, brushing up on my Checkpoint Security Administration knowledge so I can write my CCSA (Checkpoint Certified Security Administrator) and CCSE (Checkpoint Certified Security Engineer) exams when I get back to the Randburg office.

What else? Oh, I’ve been raiding a little again in World of Warcraft with my US Stormrage guild, Awakened Guardians. My rogue is somewhat under-geared and underpowered in comparison to some of the uber-backstabbers out there, but some recent gear upgrades has made her a far more formidable than she was.

Sadly, with this move, I’ll be offline again for some time unless Telkom miraculously pulls it’s collective finger out of deep, dark, unmentionable body cavities and does something quicky for a change…

Not that I’m a pessimist… not at all… I’m just a strong believer in Finagle’s Law, which states:

“Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.”

OR

O’Toole’s Corollary of Finagle’s Law, “The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.”

In other words… Murphy was an optimist.

I haven’t had much time lately to discuss or even explore the various metaverse cultures out there or my more recent research into trans-humanism, but catching up this morning on one of the more interesting blogs out there on these topics, I found that Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks want to make a 3D CGI movie of one of my favourite anime films of all time… Ghost in the Shell. As a self-confessed fan-boy of the Ghost in the Shell franchise and Masamune Shirow’s work, I sincerely hope and pray that they don’t screw it up…

Reading further (my GoogleReader has too many feeds for me to catch up on all of them in one day!), I see that there is talk of a live-action version of Akira. While I was never that fond of the Akira story, it was and is still a well-known landmark within the anime/manga culture and I hope they do it justice.

Other than that, not much else to report. Eskom is keeping us on our toes with load-shedding (thank Heavens for laptops with batteries and podcasts/movies to watch while waiting for the lights to come back on), traffic is a pain in the butt (especially on Allandale and Malibongwe)… and I think I need a refill on this coffee… or maybe some hot chocolate.

Or so it seems, most days…

The last few days/weeks have been busy for most people. For me, they’ve been filled with work, social events, issues at home and a general need for downtime in which it’s either just me, my PC and some uplifting music or my bed and a good book.

Let’s see, where to begin…

May as well begin with work as it is where I seem to spend most of my time these days!

I love my job. People think I’m odd, but I look forward to going to work, to see what new challenges await me. And they often do!

You see, I’m a relative newcomer to the security industry… having been primarily involved with systems administration, web development and design, ANSI development and some minor DBA work before this… And when I joined, I was initially there to look after one of our anti-virus products more than anything else. Except, me being me, I had to go and stick my nose into other things and jump feet first into the firewall tickets and try my hand at log analysis…

Now, I spend most of my time abusing my workstation’s processor and memory, building pivot tables, running SQL queries and pulling reports from client log files, trying to make head or tale of what I see before me… is this a botnet I see before me? A portscan perhaps?

Management have also gotten me involved in some of the research and development projects, which makes for some interesting times as I sit and research topics that I may have glossed over before or never even thought of.

I work with a good bunch of people as well. On the AV side of things, I have Reshan to lean on when my own knowledge of F-Secure fails me. On the Checkpoint side of things there are many talented and knowledgeable people, like Matt, our technical manager and primary Checkpoint trainer, Gary, Clive, Marcel and Teper. All of these guys have helped me when I’ve gotten stuck with an issue and have been patient enough to explain it to me without treating me like an idiot.

We all work hard. And we play hard as well; Matt provides music during the day and we often take breaks for coffee or cooldrinks, go stand in the bar area and play a round or two of pool, throw some darts or discuss World of Warcraft, something many of us play, though Marcel and Reshan are supposedly rehabilitated… We’re trying to rope them back in though. Those breaks afford us a well-deserved mental break from the stresses of concentrating on some rather intricate configurations and mystifying security incidents.

Between work and play though, we end up working long hours, seeing to the demands of clients… I think most nights the tech team leave work well after 6:30pm, if not later.

For folks like Matt, Gary and myself, it’s then time to drive home and log into World of Warcraft, to our guild, “Thunderwalkers” on Dath’Remar, US Oceanic. That keeps up busy until the next morning when our work cycle begins anew.

Beside “Thunderwalkers” though, I still belong to “Awakened Guardians” on US Stormrage, where I have most of my characters and play a role in guild management by running their website and forum which I host under this domain.

We’ve gotten together a few times offline, as the photo to the right shows. Interesting to put faces to names and voices…

Aside from my usual routine of work and play though, I also have the dubious honour of living with 4 women who keep me on my toes. Sharlene and Cari have stayed with me before, as two of the original tenants that moved into the commune shortly after I did. The two newcomers, Renee and Tarryn, have brought their own chaos to the party.

Some folks joke with me that I must be a very lucky man to live with 4 women… My response usually surprises them… It’s certainly not the ideal many would think, as there have been some spectacular blowups and unspoken issues… but for the most part it’s peaceful and it’s company… Something I’d gotten used to since I moved out of my bachelor flat and moved in with other people in a sharing arrangement. It’s taken some getting used to, but for those that cannot afford to get their own house just yet or cannot stand the idea of being alone 24/7, it’s not that bad.

It’s actually quite nice to come home, sit with someone and have a cup of tea or coffee, hear about their day, relate your own experiences, etc. This is great most of the time, but I’ll admit there are some days when I am feeling less than sociable and all I want to do is make myself some supper and go lock myself in my room, put on my headphones and forget about the world outside.

Something I need to do again is get back into my photography. I’m still working through a backlog of photos for Sheelagh’s wedding, my company’s last year-end function and several other spools I’ve had lying around and finally had developed.

And I’ve found some new subjects to photograph as well… just need to make the time to go and take some proper shots that aren’t shot with my little HTC P4350 smartphone…

The shots below were taken one evening when Rob was up from Cape Town and we’d gone to see Alien vs Predator 2… we stood outside the movie theatre area in Brightwater Commons and were treated to this colourful little display, though the accompanying music was badly distorted through very tinny and bass-intolerant speakers.

Makes me realise that I really need to get back into things again… I haven’t managed to beat shots like these and some of them are well over 3-4 years old now.

Time to get back into the habit, I think…

Let’s see, what has happened in the last two weeks worth writing about.

Ah, yes, the storm and subsequent demise of my ADSL modem and laptop. And MPH.

I’ll start with MPH… I’ve never been to a car show before and certainly never anything like MPH, so thank you Rozz, for a very different and entertaining Christmas present.

Didn’t get to see all that much of the car expo itself, but the ‘theatre’ part of the show was brilliantly executed by the hosts and their accompanying stunt drivers. The banter between Hammond and Clarkson was a welcome familiarity for those that have watched any Top Gear at all, and I think poor Sasha Martinengo didn’t stand much of a chance of stealing any limelight from those two.

There were some stunning driving/stunt sequences, some amusement in the form of the soccer match with cars, the hosts driving their own inventions and the half-a-car race, a rather different take on bull fighting with a very flexible female matador and a bakkie as the bull, mixed in with some of the best looking cars available today. A petrolhead’s dream come true, I think.

The whole thing was marred a bit though, by the travesty they called seating. I think no matter what shape or size you are, those seats are just uncomfortable, especially if you’re a little taller than most and your knees end up crushed against the seat in front of you.

Anyway… it was still a good time though. Good times with good company… it’s all that counts really.

We left MPH, only to be greeted by a magnificent storm and downpour.

The next day wasn’t much better. Though for the most part, it wasn’t stormy. Or so I thought.

There I was, happily sitting on my bed, playing World of Warcraft on my laptop, headset on, chatting to friends, when ZAP! … Everything went dark. Ok, not surprising, considering the mains tripped on the distribution board… flicked the switch and we had power again. Except that somethings didn’t come back up. Things like my brand new Netgear ADSL modem and my laptop. And there was the smell of ozone and electrolytes in the air to confirm my suspicions.

Ah well… It’s meant that I caught up on some of my reading this week, though I have ended up working late to get some research, etc done that I normally would have done from home.

In the meantime though, I’ve put my old Telkom ADSL modem back online and built up a small PC from spare parts. Nothing great, but it’s enough to run XP and Office, browse the ‘Net and listen to MP3′s. I got a new Netgear as a replacement but not in a rush to install it just yet as without the laptop, I don’t really need the wireless just yet. And frankly, my housemates can wait a bit before I put them back online again… maybe this will encourage them to pay me for their usage.

Hopefully I get the laptop back this week coming. Apparently they’ve replaced the motherboard, and I’m hoping I didn’t lose any data of the hard drive.

Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?

We live, supposedly, in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Yet hidden under all the trappings of a tourist haven, we seem to be trying to hide some very big homeland issues that need urgent attention.

The one on everyone’s minds at the moment, is our dear friend, Eskom.

We are at the mercy of a bunch of bureaucratic jerks who think that by getting snotty with the public about their consumption, it is going to make us understand why we’re stuck in traffic for 2 or more hours everyday, why we come home to a dark house, cannot prepare a warm meal, have a hot bath, etc.

You lot clearly do not understand the mob mentality of people that have reached a critical mass… Sanity flies out the window when you’ve been uncomfortable with something long enough to drive you to express your feelings either vocally or physically. All you need is enough people in the same state of mind and you have a mob. And mobs are never pretty…

And now they want to ration the electricity for home users. Right… So you’re going to make sure that people are not only miserable during work hours, but at home as well? Nice one, boys! I don’t care who you are… You could be black, white, coloured or indian… a lot of people are turning to old racist crutches and blaming the black staff… I’m beyond that! I’ll happily paint everyone with the same tar-brush at this point. You’re all a bunch of idiots! Well paid idiots!

To use a rather apt saying that I grew up with in my family… “Julle dink nie verder as wat julle neus is kort nie!”

This does not even begin to touch on the impact on business!

Oh, sure, some businesses are smiling, right about now… let’s see… companies that deal in gas appliances… diesel… generators… rechargeable lights. And because demand is so high, of course the prices have to follow suit. I hear from some places that generators have a 6-8 week waiting period for stock availability.

For the rest however, we’re stuck with UPS’s and their incessant beeping, diesel generators thrumming away in basements, guzzling thousands of Rands of fuel to keep businesses alive… and those are the lucky ones that planned for this sort of thing; the banks and other big corporates that cannot afford to be out of action because every minute lost means less money for them.

What about the SME’s that may have a few small PC’s (with or without UPS’s)… or corner shops and deli’s… butchers and bakers… what about waste from stock that goes off in fridges? Restaurants that cannot serve customers?

How about this as an alternative? You know those lovely big signboards we see all over the place? The neon signage on company buildings? The corporate towers that stay lit up like Christmas trees all night long?

How about asking them to switch off their lights after hours… you know, the last person out the door turn off the lights for their floor, etc? Turn off signboards after, say, 8- or 9pm. The same goes for corporate signage. And those pretty lamps and floodlights that you see in some company ‘gardens’ that light up the empty parking lots and sides of buildings.

I’ve spent the last month working in the Johannesburg CBD and thanks to Rozz’s late hours (definite busy bee award nominee!) and the fact that she’s been kind enough to cart me back and forth the last while, I’ve seen first hand the sheer amount of electricity wasted after ‘normal’ working hours. In fact, I remember seeing the same thing from my own time, working late in the Cape Town CBD (I was in the ABSA building there, sitting 23 floors up, you tend to have a pretty good view of the city).

And everyday, we hear new excuses… rain to affect power. This to affect power. That to affect power. And behind that, the smug voice of Eskom, not apologising, not discussing alternatives, not telling us that they’re looking for solutions… No, it’s “We are going to ration you and you will have to pay fines like a bad person for using more than your ration!”

Then we have our roads… which seem to becoming more and more like dirt roads lately.

Potholes, potholes everywhere and Oh my God, my car is going to sink!

Drive around and count the number of potholes you have to dodge between home and work, or your next stop in journey. Stop for a week. Then do it again. Hmmm, not only have they increased in number and in size, but nothing has been done to the existing ones, except maybe having some sand thrown into it to fill it temporarily, which the rain then promptly turns to mud and spreads out across the roads.

And my all time favourite pet hate, Telkom… where else can you sit on the phone, on hold for 45 minutes or more, listening to the worst hold music ever and not speak to a living person… and now they have a new option!

“Please, if you cannot wait to report your fault over the phone, feel free to report it online at our website…”

Gee, that’s nice, but maybe the reason I’m calling you is because my ADSL is not working and I can’t get online?!?

The more I see and hear these things, the more you hear in the news and in discussions between peers and colleagues, the more I wonder about the viability of staying here. I think, now, that my time left here in South Africa is limited. Time to begin working towards finding alternatives. Before it’s too late.