tHiNkEr’S rOoM

Yesterday I got into an altercation with one of the chosen few men that have to wear maroon shirts and brown trousers to work, a matatu tout. After an entire day of working hard to have my hard earned money taken by people who do not even pretend to work, my defences were at an all time low.

Date & Time: Circa 2006, May 23, 20:30 Hours

2030: M drags self into matatu and collapses in a heap
2031: Matatu fills and sets off
2033: M switches off all vital systems but breathing
2040: M tapped on shoulder by tout
2041: M tapped again on shoulder by tout
2042: M absently hands over 20 shilling coin
2043: The still of the night is shattered

Tout (T): Boss, where’s the rest of the money
M: What rest of the money?
T: Fare is 40 bob
M: (Speechless)
T: 40 bob
M: (Exploding) 40 bob? WTF? Did your mother clothe you in asbestos?
T: (Woodenly) Huh? 40 bob. Fare is 40 bob.

Murmuring from other passengers

M: (Struggling to bend mind around the idea) You’re telling me that the fare has doubled since morning
T: Er… yes.
M: It’s not raining, is it?
T: No
M: And no one has moved constituencies while we were at work
T: No
M: And the road is the same length
T: Yes

Long pause

M: (Revelation) Aaah! I see, I see
T: Yes?
M: I’ll have a coke
T: A coke?
M: Yes. Because for me to pay 40 bob you must be serving drinks.

AOB

Goodbye Puffy

If health Minister Charity Ngilu has her way, smoking in public will be illegal in the next few months, which includes restaurants, clubs, etc. The fines are anything but punitive — if you’re caught smoking in public you’d better be carrying 50,000 bob or some similar figure on you, and be ready to spend 6 months eating Government cuisine and enjoying Government hospitality. If you’re reallyunlucky you’ll get both and dropping soap in the shower will be but one of your many worries.

Spam I Am

Just realized that le blog has crossed the 2,000 mark in term of spam comments that mercifully I’ve never had to delete manually. And this is in just a couple of months!! Thank ye SpamKarma.

GROAN OF THE DAY

Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme are discussing roles in a radical new movie where they play classical musicians. They are given the opportunity to decide which actor will play which musician

Stallone: I … uh … I’ll be Beethoven
Van Damme: I’ll be Mozart
Schwarzenegger: I’ll be Bach!

QUOTE OF THE DAY

If a fool and his money are soon parted,
Members Of Parliament are considerably in arrears

PIC OF THE DAY

This is a school somewhere in Mombasa …

“Aar! Ye be taking the young un’s to this here school mateys! Aar!”

Eminem - My Dad’s Gone Crazy

When Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, I’m sure my name appeared somewhere in the list of suspects, my tender youth notwithstanding. I always seem to find myself deeply in the mix of things that have absolutely nothing to do with me.

The brouhaha between one Poi and one MentalAcrobatics is no exception. One day I’m whistling in a corner minding my own business and the next, thanks to a heads-up from MKNN (Miss K News Network) I find myself deeply in the mix.

Putting personalities aside, this is a matter with far reaching ramifications as well as lessons to be learned. If consenting adults want to be adventurous online then a giddy-up to them! Onward! But if one party is unwilling — well, that’s another kettle of fish altogether. Totally unacceptable. We would not accept it in an office or on the street and i see no reason to accept it online. In fact Njoki Ndungu had better amend her bill to include this sort of thing. Its harassment, plain and simple.

I have received a couple of emails on this matter from very distressed individuals and quite frankly I have no idea what to do with them. There is a problem somewhere.

As blogs grow more and more interactive, we seem to fail to notice that blogging is speedily approaching the realm of internet chat rooms.

Most of us at one time or another have been to chat rooms, and some of us still visit them. When did you last give your phone number, postal address or worse still physical address in a chat room? Why should blogging be any different?

Quick, how many people that you have never met, never seen, and never heard have you give up personal contact information to?

“But I know these people!” You say.

Well, sorry to disappoint you but you don’t know squat!

All you know is exactly what the other person wants you to know. No more no less. You cannot purport to know anyone on the strength of a few blog posts and a couple of email address!

“But these are Kenyans!” You say.

So what? I hate to burst your bubble but Kenyans have as high a percentage of yahoos and loonies as any other country.

One thing we tend to overlook is that the anonymity that blogging affords gives people carte blanche to behave in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t. To create totally different identities of themselves. To say things that they otherwise would not. To seek some sort of sense of liberation.

This is something that we should not lose sight of.

Don’t get me wrong — there are lots of wonderful people blogging. Trust me. I know. There are many. I have made some very good friends from this blogging thing, and I have met some of the most aMazinG people. For this I cannot even begin to be grateful.

But like most treasures they take time to discover. Time.

So do take the same precautions you would in a chat room. Ask yourself how many people you’ve never met, don’t know their full names and can’t even confirm if they are male of female know your home phone number or worse still where you live.

There’s a fine line between being friendly and being naive.

AOB

For the past couple of months, Kenyan Pundit and yours truly have been working on Mzalendo.com, an initiative whose main aim is to keep track of what those appalling members of parliament of ours have been doing as they purportedly work for us. This is a project that came to birth over a breakfast or two at Java House. There’s something in that coffee …. Anyway, it’s very rough around the edges and is very much in beta, but do check it out and give us some feedback. To be specific any errors or features you’d like. And please do link to the site and spread the word.

AO AOB

We lost. We put up a fight but we lost. Hats off to Barcelona. Congratulations. Till we meet again. Team Venger & Co - ROCK ON!

AO AO AOB

About this time last year I wrote one of my all time favourite posts, The Name’s Al. Al Koholic.

PIC OF THE DAY

While we were in Mombasa we came across this new cigarette company that clearly targets the bottom end of the market ….

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Commentator at the Barca-Arsenal game:

“The referee has made a couple of decisions that have incensed Henri, including booking him.”

Mozart - Cannon In D Minor

[EDIT]
The lads will undoubtedly be familiar with this experience

1) Meet nice girl (Pearl)
2) Get a good thing going with Pearl
3) Meet parent of Pearl
4) Feel like chicken before hungry crocodile before Father Of Pearl

Apparently there is an unwritten rule that goes as follows:

The man good enough for my daughter is yet to be born and should be discouraged on sight.

Next to “Be fruitful, fill the earth and conquer it” men generally follow this rule with ruthless efficiency.

Bill’s Story

At the tender age of 5 Bill could safely be described as slightly more advanced than his peers in the kindergarten. His teachers found his intelligence engaging. His male friends found his shouting and roughness endearing. His female friends found his good manners a welcome change from the pushing from his male friends.

So it was with a feeling of confidence that he accompanied Pearl to her father’s car. Father of Pearl , a man in the military slid out of the car and advanced upon them. The look on his face was not encouraging but 3 years of teachers fawning over him had blunted his senses of fight or flight.

Bill extended his hand for a greeting and waited expectantly. Father of Pearl extended his hand, spun Bill around by the shoulder, swung a powerful foot back and buried his big black army boot in the seat of Bill’s shorts, shooting him 5 meters back in the direction he had just come from.

Bill is still recovering today, several decades later.

Jim’s Story

Jim’s opinion of himself was a very high one, thought it was not shared by many. Pearl was certainly one of those who agreed with him, and against her better judgment, under the influence of his engaging smile, allowed a Form 2 boy onto the premises to ‘hang out’.

Father of Pearl looked grimly on from his sofa as his only daughter and a boy whose underwear he could see, whose enormous jeans were practically at his knees and who had a vest on top of a T-shirt and several layers of jewelry swaggered into the room and sat down on his best sofa, negligently swinging a leg over the other and nodding casually to him.

“‘Sup” Jim said to a full Colonel in the Kenya Army.

Those who knew Father of Pearl well knew the sudden appearance of a vein on his right temple was not a good thing but Jim was blissfully unaware and thought nothing of his sudden departure.

Within a minute Father Of Pearl was back with a very large, very shiny sword. Placing said sword on his knees he proceeded to polish the gleaming steel, all the while staring directly at Jim.

Jim was suddenly very self conscious.

After ten minutes Father Of Pearl started sharpening the sword.

After 5 minutes Father Of Pearl grabbed the sword by the handle and stood up.

After 5 nanoseconds Jim produced a sonic boom as the departed swiftly from the premises.

Bob’s Story

Bob was better placed to counter his Father In Law, as he was a Lieutenant Commander in the Army and was just as adept in arm to arm combat as he was in weapons combat.

But he had no way of dealing with the casual demand for 1 (one) Mercedes S Class, 100 (one hundred) assorted head of goats, sheep and cows and a small house in return for his daughter’s had in marriage.

Personally I think such antics are insane. Completely insane. It is in my best interests to know exactly what my daughter is doing, and who she is doing it with (no, not that way, nitwit!!!) I encourage her to bring all her boyfriends, friends who are boys, study buddies, tutors, etc to my house and engage the same in friendly banter. It is good for everyone if I know who are these befriending my daughter. During which i will find out who they are and most importantly where they live.

This will be very useful information when I am informed that my teenage daughter had disappeared on a trip without my consultation, or my teenage daughter has fallen victim to a smooth talker and is expecting a surprise in 9 months, or when i move faster than my daughter and pick up the phone in time to hear a 16 year old schmuck say “I’m in boxers — what are you wearing?”

AOB

Jacob Zuma

The guy has supporters?! I’m speechless. SPEECHLESS!! What is WRONG with people?!

Way Back Then

I’m reminded of way way back when you were either in the Muppet Show camp or the Fraggle Rock camp. Me? I shamelessly played to both galleries. Seems there’s a Fraggle Rock movie in the pipeline! Hmm

Tom Cruise

I’ve always thought the man’s a bit of lot of a schmuck, and finally people are coming round.

Knight Rider

Anyone who says they didn’t like the very very cool Knight Rider is clearly talking through the wrong end of their anatomy. Seems a movie is in the pipleine

PIC OF THE DAY

Look at these nitwits (Image From the East African Standard) fooling around with a grenade! And the other nitwits in the background looking on!

Santana & The Product G&B - Maria Maria

The wind that night was particularly biting. Like a surgical blade it seemed to cut through his turtle-neck. It felt as if the cold had settled just underneath his skin. On retrospect, he thought, perhaps it might have been wiser to put on that second t-shirt.

He rounded the corner and then he could see her, and she could see him, and she flashed him that smile that always cost him about a half a second of his immediate short term memory. It was memory he would happily sacrifice for the rest of his life, and find it a bargain, and then some.

There was something about that smile. He didn’t know what it was, and didn’t particularly want to find out. As far as he was concerned mysteries were best left as such. But each time he saw it, it was like looking at a beautiful sunset. At the end of the day it is still the sun setting, but there is always a subtle difference that makes today’s as beautiful as yesterdays.

He had detached himself from the reality of that moment for all of 14 days but the reality came upon him suddenly, the way the shadow of a cloud swarms over a hill. And just as suddenly those arms, covered by a red cashmere sweater were around his neck.

Suddenly there was a lump in his throat that could not be swallowed.

He was not sure when he would see that smile again, or feel those arms again, or smell that lovely medley of scent that is the blend of Cerruti 1881, cocoa butter and aloe vera lip balm. He was not sure when he could hear that voice without the unwelcome distortion of Ma Bell. He was not sure when he could secretly enjoy the look of impatient concentration as she decided which shoes to wear. He was not sure when he would hold those hands again.

And there was a crackle over the airport public address system, and the announcement for boarding.

It took physical effort for him to release her. For a few seconds the bustle of the other passengers completely disappeared and it was just the two of them lost in each other’s eyes — and then she had to go and he watched her join the queue for the airport security.

Outside the building, he walked past the glass walls and waited for her to pass through the checks.

And then they were facing each other. With a wall of glass between them.

He desperately wanted to feel her fingers in his again and reached out both hands but the glass walls! They did not care what was trying to get through. They kept everything out. His fingers and palms met the cold unfeeling glass and stopped. Her hands tried as well to get through but the glass walls again stopped them.

And so they stood … hands splayed on the glass, trying to reach out to each other. That lump in his throat seemed to grow by the second. He could not believe just how much he was going to miss her. And finally the cold glass seemed to sympathize with them, and he could see in her eyes that he didn’t need to tell her. She knew.

And then she was gone.

And he stood there for a long, weary minute before walking away.

So if you are at JKIA, Unit One and see four hand prints and two lip marks on both sides of the glass that have almost but not quite overlapped, say a little prayer and remember the power of goodbye…

AOB

Apparently you guys think that this little corner of the Internet is good enough to be considered Kenyan Blog of the Year.

I’m not one for long winded speeches, and so from the very bottom of my heart wish to thank all those lovely people who have been encouraging me from the very beginning and keeping my on my toes.

Like I’ve said before, this blog is not me. It’s you guys.

So thank you. Each and every one of you.

A very special thanks to my main man Rip who set up the domain and does the hosting. Dude, you rock.

Extreme - More Than Words