Meeting of the minds
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,329 views
I’ve recently met, in the flesh, two young woman bloggers that I first encountered online last year via their blogs.
On July 28 2007 11:54 AM, Candy Tothill wrote a blog entry about FaceBook:
What started as simple curiosity has turned into a full-blown fascination. Appealing to my general interest in the human condition, my narcissistic tendencies and my fundamental need to network, it has consumed hours – no – days of my life of late. Facebook is that of which I write. Face-F-ing-Book!
Two days later I found Candy’s post via a search for ‘facebook’ on amatomu and made a casual decision that, little known to me at the time, was to have profound consequences for me.
I wrote a comment on her blog entry:
Richard Catto said on July 30th, 2007 at 7:35 AM:
I created a facebook login months ago to post some comments on a facebook forum. I had no intention of developing a profile or amassing friends or etc.
And then somehow, people found me. How / why I don’t know / care to know.
They sent me invitations to friend them. I accepted, lest they be offended.
Now THEY are demanding I put a picture of myself up there!
When will this madness end?
At that time, back then in the Dark Ages of Ms. Tothill’s wonderful blog, I had to wait 5 days for her to reply. Today, that is unheard of! Inside Candy is now so popular and so well trafficked that it is hard competition to be the first to comment on her blog articles, and one can expect to hear back from her within hours at the most.
Sheena Gates and I, collected Candy from Cape Town International Airport yesterday afternoon and we proceeded to discover that Candy is just as interesting and exciting in person as she is online. Sheena is the other woman blogger mentioned above.
On September 7 2007, 13h35, Sheena wrote a blog entry on Wibble:
I’ve just heard on the news that the mother of Madeleine McCann has been hauled in for questioning on the suspicion of her involvement with her daughters disappearance.
Bitch. If she’s guilty, I hope they hang her.
Two days later (again), whilst browsing wibble, I found Sheena’s post there and was inspired to write the following comment to her (which also had profound consequences for me):
On September 9th, 2007 name: Richard Catto says:
The woman has been declared a suspect and you all are already baying for her blood!
Honestly, I think that is a sick opinion to express publicly. Hold it privately if you must, but spewing hate online offends.
Furthermore, I’ll have you all know that even if (and that’s a BIG if) she is guilty, The European Union does not have capital punishment because it is BARBARIC.
Pat yourselves on the backs, you all, for being barbarians.
After posting that comment, I went over to Sheena’s blog, which at that time was still hosted on blogspot, and read some of her posts. It was there that I discovered the reason why Sheena was so emotional about Madeleine McCann – she had lost an infant daughter herself. So I felt a bit bad about what I had written and contacted the administrator of Wibble and asked her to convey an apology to Sheena, which she duly did.
The next day, Sheena replied to my comment saying that she had received my message from the wibble admin via FaceBook. So I went over to FaceBook and searched for Sheena’s profile, and sent her a message there.
This is the message I sent her on 12:43 AM Sep 11 2007:
Is this Sheena the Barbarian?
Cheers,
Richard "Conan" Catto
I got a sassy reply from Sheena, and so began an online friendship that has lasted several months and led to her coming to stay with me on January 10 2007 when I collected her from Cape Town International airport two weeks to the day before Candy joined us for a brief visit yesterday.
So what I’m saying here is that it is through the medium of blogging that we three strangers were able to get to know each other and form online friendships that translated comfortably into real life, face to face, friendships.
We knew each other before we first laid eyes on one another.
It was quite a heady and exciting feeling laying eyes on Sheena for the first time as she waltzed into the visitors lounge of Cape Town International Airport. She had a ready smile, a bouncy gait and even bouncier boobs. 
We were slightly late collecting Candy and Sheena went in to meet her while I waited by the car, lest it be clamped in the Stop and Go zone. So my first glimpse of Candy was of a slight, incredibly thin long-haired beautiful brunette woman in the distance, holding the long extended handle of an elegant and compact travelling case.
And then began the ride home in my cantankerous car, now dubbed Bartholomew by Candy. We fell into conversation and I acted as tour guide, pointing out various spots along the N2 and regaling them with (true) tales of my exploits in those regions.
Our amiable visit was threatened to be cut short by the looming meeting between Candy and someone she would rather avoid, but felt obliged to see. At the last minute, en-route to her hotel, the person cancelled (via SMS) and so Candy invited us in to dine with her in the hotel’s restaurant.
Time sped by as we enjoyed each other’s company which was briefly interrupted by a giant cochroach whose speedy dartings under quaking legs terrified my companions. It crunched satisfyingly under my Nike shoe, after a brief chase around the restaurant. The Dutch party adjoining us, applauded.
Around 11PM we finished off with coffee and was amused when Candy ordered ice cubes from our waiter to put in her cappuccino to cool it down. Now that’s an interesting quirk and something I would probably never have discovered via online chat alone.
She’s flying back to JHB today, but promised that she would come see us again soon.
I can’t wait.
Tags: Candy Tothill, meeting online friends, Sheena Gates
Filed under Candy Tothill, Online friendships, Sheena Gates | 3 Comments »
Network Solutions will eat your domain
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Richard Catto 1,764 views
Network Solutions is the oldest registrar of domain names which end in .com, .net and .org as well as many other domain spaces.
If you make the mistake of checking to see whether a domain is available for registration on NetworkSolutions, then for 5 days, you will be unable to register that domain through anyone but them.
And they are expensive: $35 to register a .com, whereas they can be registered for around $10 at most other discounted domain registrars.
This practice is known as front running.
Network Solutions has been pulling this highly questionable move since early January 2008.
So please be warned – do not use Network Solutions to check domain name availability. Better yet, don’t use them AT ALL, lest they implement further trickery in future to lock you into registering Internet domains with them.
Tags: Network Solutions
Filed under Domain registration, Network Solutions | 10 Comments »
Censored on ThoughtLeader (again)
Posted on January 23rd, 2008 by Richard Catto 2,026 views
ThoughtLeader has censored one of my comments again.
Michael Trapido wrote a blog post on TL entitled "Has Oprah chosen race over gender or are Hillary’s supporters being sexist?"
An uproar has erupted in the US over Oprah’s decision to back Barack Obama for president in lieu of Hillary Clinton. Oprah’s huge female fan base appears deeply divided over her decision. Harsh criticism has been directed at her, accusing her of racial bias.
I wrote the following comment in response to Trapido’s TL blog post:
The problem is not black vs woman. The problem is WHITE MALE.
It is because WHITE MALES have monopolised world politics, world opinion, world EVERYTHING for so long, that when the chance comes to have anything but WHITE MALES in power, then all the traditionally disenfranchised bicker amongst themselves to see who is FIRST going to get their slice of the pie so long denied them.
I think WHITE MALES should be legally barred from running for president for 1000 years.
Get rid of all the WHITE MALE judges too. Just generally subjugate WHITE MALES wherever they hold power.
WHITE MALES are the problem. They have held too many of the cards for too long and now I say that WHITE MALES must hold nothing for 1000 years.
Perhaps you disagree with this opinion, but it does serve as a foundation for further discussion I believe.
Since TL refuses to allow me to comment on their blog, I’ll post about it here and open it for further discussion.
I have to bear in mind, of course, that TL has very recently been harshly criticised for having mostly WHITE MALE bloggers writing articles on their site. Perhaps they felt intimidated by my comment?
Perhaps they lack balls?
What do you think?
Tags: Mail & Guardian, Michael Trapido, Thought Leader
Filed under Thought Leader | 32 Comments »
Heath Ledger found dead in his Manhatten apartment at the age of 28
Posted on January 23rd, 2008 by Richard Catto 1,592 views
At the tender age of 28, this man, Heath Ledger, is dead, apparently of suicide. He died last night (Tuesday, January 22 2008) at 22h26.
He starred in a number of memorable films, including A Knight’s Tale, The Patriot (he played Mel Gibson’s son) and Brokeback Mountain (for which he received an Oscar nomination).
Many stars have paid him posthumous accolades for his stellar perfomances.
The world has lost a great actor.
Tags: Heath Ledger
Filed under Obituaries | 1 Comment »
A primer for South African pessimists: how to cope with the current energy crisis
Posted on January 20th, 2008 by Richard Catto 6,299 views
Reading a number of blogs, I’ve discerned a common theme – rampant pessimism and predictions of certain doom for all of us, as a direct result of the current energy crisis.
I find it amazing how some South Africans are so eager and quick to paint South Africa in the darkest possible shades of black, given any setback. It’s as if the problems which afflict us are unique and discernible nowhere else in the world. For every problem that arises in SA, the knee-jerk answer is that these things do not and could not possibly occur elsewhere, ever. The implied theme is that a BLACK government, any BLACK government, is incompetent and incapable of responsibly governing any country.
Fact is, California experienced an electricity crisis which lasted from June 2000 through November 2003. This crisis was precipitated by market manipulation by the State of California. They imposed price controls which led to a situation where utility companies had to pay more for electricity than they could sell it for, and so production (of electricity) fell, companies went bankrupt and consumers experienced rolling black-outs.
I’d like to emphasize that this happened in a FIRST WORLD country. Furthermore, the State of California has the largest economy of all the states in the US. So it really is disingenuous to continually conclude that mismanagement, flawed delivery and total screw ups are the sole purview of Third World countries. Corruption happens everywhere, every day.
I’m very confident that any and all mishaps that occur in South Africa will be met with the same predictable response – black governments are useless!
If a bridge were to collapse, for instance, I’m certain that a million or more unhappy South Africans would make odious comparisons between our country and first world countries. I’m waiting for that to occur, and while I wait, I’m keeping this bit of ammo in reserve:
Design flaw cited in U.S. bridge collapse
Not that I’m expecting the imminent collapse of any bridges, but you never know. What I’m saying here is that people all over the world make mistakes, act irresponsibly, make incorrect predictions about the pace of growth of an economy and otherwise manage to fuck things up in all the same ways that we do.
In a way, it is actually a compliment that we are experiencing this electricity crisis because it came about due to our economy’s unexpected high growth rate – much higher than expectations. That is a good thing, per se. The only thing that makes it bad, is that we have temporarily run out of power to keep it all aglow and working.
So, although, the power crisis is apparently set to grow worse in the immediate short term, it doesn’t mean that things will remain that way.
The question you gotta ask yourself, is "Do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?"
Here’s the Problem:
And here’s an example of a solution (there are more):
- Toshiba Builds Ultra-Small Nuclear Reactor
- Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power
- Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor
What do I think is going to happen?
I think that South African businesses will find creative solutions to solve their energy problems. I believe that Eskom and the South African government will take effective measures to limit the damage to our economy.
The IOL article (linked above) lists several measures that Eskom is taking to resolve this problem, among them a subsidy program to assist homeowners to install solar heat. Eskom is actually prepared to pay part of your costs to install solar panels, if you wish to do so now. That’s something you will enjoy benefits from long after the energy crisis is over.
So, please my fellow South Africans, it’s not all doom and gloom.
The real question you should be asking yourself (if this applies to you) is why are you so prepared to believe the worst every time something goes wrong?
Why do you really lack confidence in South Africa?
Is it a black thing?
Tags: energy crisis in South Africa, Eskom, is it a black thing?
Filed under energy crisis, Eskom | 270 Comments »
