Crembo and Coobe - Winter arrives

I guess its my third winter here in Israel and it still surprises me when it rains. I could swear that the good Jewish education of mine taught me about the water crisis in Israel and how it is the desert and it never rains. Guess what, it's raining and it's raining hard with thunder and lightening here in Tel Aviv as I type this and the winter is colder than in Cape Town. Over here, it does not really drizzle, it just shoots down fat drops of water hard stopping and starting. There are not many drain experts here, when it rains things just flood. It will probably be hot tomorrow.

What makes it winter here:

1stly: socks and shoes, last week was the first time a few months that I put on socks and shoes. It is a strange feeling, and it takes one so long to get dressed now in the mornings.

Aside from that all the ice coffee and fresh fruit shops start selling soups and my two personal favourites spaza shops start selling Crembo and little neighbourhood spaza stores sell Coobe soup.

2ndly: Crembo, you know winter has arrived when shops start stocking Crembo because it would simply melt in the summer and would not last a second. Its like a Sweetie Pie which is a wafer at the bottom, sugary cream (see picture) on the inside and chooclate coating on the outside. THere is a whoel philosophy over how one eats the crembo - bite it, eat the chocolate first, wafer first then lick the cream? It facinates me how it is a product that can only run in the winter.

3rdly: Coobe - The corner spaza shops sometimes have different dishes on the weekends, orginally I thought who can eat a meal from a corner store? but soon I discovered that the winter special is a home cooked soup with coobe (pastry with meat inside) served with rice. Coming home on the weekend after a late night out in the cold winter, nothing goes down better than a good portion of coobe from the local corner cafe (or pitzutzia as they call it here).

So winter has arrived, and that's my view on top of this rainy world tonight in Tel Aviv.

The Reporter Is Real, but the World He Covers Isn’t

See also economist article: Living in a Second Life

October 16, 2006

NEW YORK TIMES By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

In preparing to open a Reuters bureau on a bustling island, Adam Pasick has been introducing himself to residents and interviewing entrepreneurs. After finishing such interviews, Mr. Pasick often levitates for a moment, then flies over buildings.

Mr. Pasick, a Reuters technology reporter who was formerly earthbound with the news agency, is heading up Reuters’ first virtual news bureau inside the online role-playing game Second Life. While many independent journalists and bloggers have published inside such virtual worlds, Reuters is the first established news agency to dispatch a full-time reporter to do so.

Created by Linden Labs of San Francisco, Second Life is a realistic world where avatars — animated representations — for its more than 850,000 players interact. Avatars buy islands on which to build homes or businesses, and sell one another everything from homes designed by Adobe Photoshop to virtual sneakers. The currency is Linden dollars; $1 buys 280 of them. In September, user-to-user transactions totaled $7.1 million.

“The fact that it’s in a virtual world doesn’t change things as much as you’d think,” said Mr. Pasick, 30, a Michigan native based in London. “It’s not any different than when Reuters opens up a bureau in a part of the world that has a fast-growing economy that we weren’t in before. The laws of supply and demand hold true, it has a currency exchange, people open businesses and get paid for goods and services.”

Mr. Pasick’s avatar, Adam Reuters, was modeled after the reporter, and sports a press pass so others know he buys his pixels by the barrel. He will set up shop in a virtual building made to look like a hybrid of Reuters’ London and Times Square buildings.

While players who drop in (flying is one of only a few superhuman aspects of Second Life) can access Reuters news from the real world, the articles Mr. Pasick files will be strictly about — and addressed to — Second World players. One of his first examines Second Life’s biggest lender, who charges 40 percent annual interest. His dispatches will be posted at secondlife.reuters.com.

“I’ve been playing in Second Life since it was a relatively small community,” said Thomas H. Glocer, Reuters’ chief executive. Mr. Glocer allowed that some might question the wisdom of parachuting the legendary 155-year-old news agency into such a geekfest.

“This is a very serious, old brand that stands for things and has principles, but that doesn’t take itself so seriously that it wouldn’t play in a gaming space,” Mr. Glocer said. “This appeals to a younger demographic. Even for people who don’t go in and play in Second Life, it shows Reuters has a certain with-it-ness.”

Edward Castronova, author of “Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games,” said it made sense for Reuters to hang a shingle in Second Life. “It’s an easy way for a blue-chip, traditional organization to get virtual world credibility,” he said.

Reuters would get more exposure in the most popular online fantasy game, World of Warcraft, which has more than seven million subscribers, but that game’s players are decidedly less civilized. “It would be more fun, but Reuters would be more likely to end up in a dragon’s belly,” Mr. Castronova said. ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

Pricilia - Queen of the Middle Eastern Desert

Dynamite comes in small packages, the shining gun metal silver of her sleek design. The way she moves in and out of those traffic lanes among the wildest drivers in the world. The roar she makes as she manoeuvers those hills towards Jerusalem. Her patience when we drive around the neighbourhood looking for that open oasis space called a parking in Tel Aviv is uncanny. And her sheer beauty and she just sits in her parking space checking out the scene in the city.

Ladies and Gentleman as well as all my blog readers presenting to you Pricilia - Queen of the Desert -my little Fiat Punto - 1100.

Frantic Spontaneousness

Its not often you get 15 emails in one day from the same people, it all started from one of those group emails of remind you when nostalgia so the email reminding you about the eighties, for our generation when we were kids. You know when MC hammer dressed stylishly

and LA gear clothing was cool:

Then suddenly a frantic spontaneous thread list of our own memories was created by friends sending each other emails, here is what came out of it. Can you remember these? some of them have universal appeal others are classic South African products from our childhood:

The Voice of the Lion Lager advert; Zet; Liqui Fruit Banana Juice; Colin " Keep em Peeled " Fluxman from Police Files; Adrian Steed; Mina Moo and Kiem; Murder She Wrote; The Gods Must Be Crazy; Zandberg Jansen The deaf rugby analyst; Miss SA-it used to be big then; Heidi; Volkskas; Saambou; B+H Cricket; Camel adverts; Air Wolf;A Team; Monster Lace Ties; Lucky Packets; pink sweet bracelets;Mikes Kitchen; MC HAMMER; DALLAS; NIGHT RIDER; ATARI; GOOD MORNING SOUTH AFRICA; FRUITY LOOPS; IT (MOVIE WITH KILLER CLOWN); STEVE GUTTENBERG; POLARIOD; OHLSONNS; COMMODORE 64; FRISBE; DUNCAN FERNLEY; DOS; Hulk Hogan; Granadilla lollies (with the black pips inside); 2c chappies; BMX; George Michaels ‘Faith’;Saucony shoes; Mia the Bee; KTV on Saturday morning; No Jacket Required; Miranda; Staying in the sun the WHOLE day and not getting burned; Boogie boards; Zinc suncream (Allan Donald); The ice bell; The milk man; Wielie Walie; WP vs Northern Transvaal classic matches; Andre Agassi's fashion; Fat Albert; Macguyver; reebok pumps; steo hair cuts; block brick hair cuts; Spies and Plessis-brill afrikaans comedy on friday nights amazing; vintage schuster-when he was brilliant; rof-stoei sa wrestling; sticky stretch hands; caps with radios on them; sandy bay; Nigger balls and liquorice; Benny Boekwulm; Station Wagons; Tapes; Beta; Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers; Thunder Cats; Masters of the Universe; rat sweets; mallow fish; rick astley; swart kat; trompie en die boksom bend; The Real Milli Vanilli…; Marbles….; Waist jackets at barmi’s….; Ice Ice Baby…..; Snow/Informer; Island Boy; Leisure Suit Larry; Marco Polo; Muizenberg; Peeshooters; Panini (the make of soccer cards); Chocolate chip yoghurt; Chicco the Clown ice cream (in the metal dish); Simchat Torah flags; Rhythm is a dancer;Morf; Alf; Salusa 45; Old Spice adverts-the music; Monster Munch; Longhorn; Bubble mate bubble bath; Aca Joe;Ghost Pops; Bright Red Tomato Sauce (the one that stains your fingers red); Sports Day; Brian McMillan’s chin; Girls Just Wanna Have Fun;Kreol chips- smelled like vis; Pumpkin Patch; Rainbow- chocolate milk; Sterie Stumpie chocolate milk; That other drink that had a built in straw on the side; LOVING; CONCORD; JACK LEMKUS;Scope; running man dance move;Ruffles Chips - Beef flavour, Woolworths Prawn chips, Ribena, Zola Bud, The creepy magic man at parties, Samantha Fox, Milk bottles with the metal cap

To those that contributed good effort you put a smile on my face from my view from on top of the world today!

One for the sports fans!

There is nothing more that bugs me now in sport is cliched commentary and post-game interviews by players who read from a script. Let me focus my example on the great 15-man game of sport called, rugby (union).

Now to most people rugby looks like a game depicted in this classic picture on the right. In fact:

Rugby is the hooligan sport, played by gentleman, while soccer is the gentleman's sport played by hooligans.

Let me focus on the post-match interview, with the players. We all know that rugby players are not the sharpest tools in the shed, and we are told how aside from all their physical training they also get media and psychological training for all the pressures they face. So this is basically what they are taught about media training. When you get interviewed say it was a tough game, thank the opposition and commend their players, be humble about your own play and give the credit to your team mates then thank the crowd and the sponsors, if you have some religious belief don't forget to look to the heavens and biet (prayer) to God. BORING!

I propose to spice it up a bit more, start blogging some real behind the scenes info what the team was doing before (and after) the game (Tennis is doing this well lately i have noticed see this blog), call the game how it is, criticise mistakes in the game, go against referee decisions. Come on spice it up a bit, now I am not saying over the top WWF Wrestling style but I am saying give it more intellectual, real, analysis and interest for the viewer and supporter, because in my view from on top of this world, post-match sports interviews are a total waste of time and full of cliched crap.

Aside from players interviews, commentators are also bad sometimes. Every South African knows the classic Trevor Quirk (or Jerk to many) opening line "It's a glorious day here at Newlands today. That is a splendid shot through the covers for four."

However commentators can be original and often humorous. Now without choosing all the classic commentary quote with sexual connatations were are some of the more "clean" ones with a biased side towards classic New Zealand wise cracks:

• "He scored that try after only 22 seconds - totally against the run of play." (New Zealand Commentator - Murray Mexted)
• "We actually got the winning try three minutes from the end but then they scored." (Phil Waugh - New South Wales Warratah)
• "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body." (Jerry Collins - NZ All Black)
• "That kick was absolutely unique, except for the one before it which was identical." (Tony Brown - NZ All Black)
• "I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father." (Tana Umaga)
• "Well, either side could win it, or it could be a draw."(Murray Mexted)
• Murray Deaker: "Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography?"Tana Umaga: "On what ?"
• "Well, either side could win it, or it could be a draw."(Murray Mexted)
• "Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang in the air for even longer."(Murray Mexted)
  
• "Both teams are here to play rugby today" -(Murray Mexted)

To end of on a more personal note, with limited coverage of rugby on Israeli sports channels, especially Currie Cup (local provincial rugby), I some how landed up "watching" a Currie Cup 2005 final last year. The Blue Bulls vs the Freestate Cheetahs played at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria. Now the Bulls were the favourites and had won the last 3 titles. I mean that I was "watching" the game on a line by line (minute by minute) typed out commentary from a website. A revolutionary new form of supporting a sport, but hey I had no other option, so the Bulls were winning comfortable with about 20 minutes to go and the website it was Mark Keohane's rugby blog site www.keo.co.za my loyal friend and fanatical Cheetah's supporter (he was born in this region) Wayne, who was at the game for a confirmation. I received an ecstatic was automatically updating itself every few minutes, when suddenly I noticed a few words in CAPTIAL LETTERS and a few exclamation marks!!!!!!, what was happening a cheetahs turn around? I became glued to the one line text on my screen for 20 minutes pressing the refresh button frantically, to get an update, blistering my finger just to get the latest kicks and passes, and yes it happened a magical sporting moment the underdogs clawed back and took the lead and it was over they had won 29 - 25, I could not believe it I had "watched" it with the passion and excitement (and imagination) I had to verify that this actually happened I did not believe it and smsed my loyal and die hard Cheetah supporter Wayne who replied with seer esctasy saying "The greatest moment in my sporting life - and that is no hyperbole" I then knew what I had witnessed and experienced had been true and one of those magical sporting moments...