Friday, May 30, 2008

Cape Town GeekDinner Report: Happy Habanero

The eighth Cape Town GeekDinner, Happy Habanero, was held on Wednesday night. We braved foul weather and traffic, which is asking a lot of Capetonians, but it was worth it.

GeekDinner: Happy Habanero


Perdeberg (the one with the zebra) sponsored the wine.

Very kind of them because geeks, I find, can drink.


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero


Glüwein.

I had some.

You can probably tell.


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero


Soup, curry (post) buffet, baked chocolate pudding with custard.

Mel's Village Kitchen was our host. The main course was superb. I had seconds. It almost made up for the Vegetarian Butternut Disaster of '07.

(We try not to speak about it.)

((Except I should say that it has nothing to do with Mel's Village Kitchen. Although, as Bradley pointed out, there may have been beef stock in the soup, which is a terrible thing to do to a vegetarian.))


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

A Jonathan.


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

The wave theory of traffic. You had to be there...

...although even if you were, hey... I dunno. I get the N1 bubble, and I get game theory (as explained by the aforementioned a Jonathan), but I don't get how they are related. I was drinking my glüwein though, so, you know....


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

A(nother) Jonathan.

Notice how they operate in a collective? All black and white. With a microphone.

This one's demonstrating wushu Dinosaur Claw. It had nothing to do with anything. I didn't get it.

This a Jonathan spoke about some sort of Cape Town romance he's been experiencing. I could relate, because I think he's been stealing my material from various sites. It all sounded suspiciously similar to many things I've said to many people since precisely Decemberish (last year), and stuff I've posted on the web (or, occasionally, still need to get around to posting on the web).

(I know - you're going "...what?" It's a conundrum. I suspect a Jonathan may have a time-travel device. But he'd probably never tell me. I'd do things with it.)


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

This is an Ian, talking about GM food. I'd had a few by then.

Although that doesn't explain why the camera's out of focus.

(He did a great job, even with dissenting opinions in the audience. It could have been war but it turned out quite civilised. Geeks are like that. Bitch slapping is too much effort when you could be writing algorithms of slapdown.

...Oh. Were you hoping I'd share one? Uh, sorry. Proprietary.

(That's an open-source "Bring it on!". I feel the need to explain in case you don't speak geek. The odd thing is, I'm pro open source. So, really, it's a paradox.))


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

This is a Jonathan demonstrating a fondling action on a Tim (no web site available...suspicious...). It's important because of what happened later.

He knows what I'm saying. A Jonathan, I mean. In fact, two Jonathans.

I was in shock so I couldn't focus.


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

This is a Jonathan making eyes at my camera.

Although that doesn't explain why the camera's in focus.

In the background a Tim is being mauled by slideshow karaoke. His topic was on echidnas. The twist, for those of you unfamiliar, is that he didn't know that until the slides appeared. He did well. I laughed.

And not at his mutant arm. That would be inappropriate.


GeekDinner: Happy Habanero

I learnt some stuff about echidnas that I didn't know. So it wasn't a total waste of an evening.

Also, it forced a Tim to say a forbidden word into a microphone.

Twice.

Come to think of it (so to speak), he chose to say a forbidden word into a microphone.

Twice.

Anyway, after this I stopped taking photos. It was proving to be a pointless exercise, what with all the blurriness. I'm no Cape Town Daily Photo.

You'll have to imagine the merriment, heated debate, more wine, networking (on a cerebral level), and more wine.

I said that already.

Oh! I learnt how to say something geek at the after party. (Did you know there was an after party? No? Then you probably missed it. The after party happens after almost everyone has left. That's when you know it's the after party. But if no one leaves then you can't have the after party until they do, except they won't, so it's a bit of a dilemma. Sometimes firemen have to be called in...wait. No, that's a different kind of party. Nevermind.)

Anyway, it goes like this: "Fail!" and it is very versatile in its uses.

Except it doesn't apply here.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

I Want My Digital Camera Back

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever take anything to Samtech to be repaired.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

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