This past Monday morning, streets were gridlocked leading into the city centre, it took me an hour and a half to reach my workplace which usually takes 12 to 15 minutes, we owe the pleasure of this frustration to the Opening of the Gauteng legislature.

Rissik and Market streets were completely closed off for most of the working day and so was Harrison Street outside the legislature along with President Street partially closed off. I think this interruption was just as a unruly as any other taxi strike causing huge delays to people that work in the city centre and those using arterial roads and highways like the M1 heading North, the M2 coming from the east and the M1 route coming in from the South ,for however much money was wasted on the opening, I'm certain that the disruption had just as much or probably even more of a negative impact on our economy. 

At the corner of President and Loveday Streets, Johannesburg there was a hub of media activity, so during my lunch break, armed with my camera I took a walk to the legislature and watched the proceeding happening inside from a SABC television news van on the outside.

The usual stuff was outlined by Gautengs Premier, Nomvula Mokonyane in her state of the province address, which in my my opinion was just an echo of Jacob Zumas State of the Nation address a few days ago, "The time for planning is over, 2010 is a year of action"  She also said that unemployment had reached just over 25% in Gauteng by the End of the year, I don't believe this statistic, because it implies that just over 70% of the population in Gauteng are employed and contributing to the well being of the province,  I am not an economist but my summation of this statement being incorrect is based on the following, the areas in which service delivery protests and strikes took place such as, Khutsong, Orange Farm, Khatlehong, Attridgeville, Standerton and several other areas all have high unemployment rates, these areas constitute along with others similar to it constitute more than 30% of Gauteng, which stand to contradict her statement.

Other areas covered by her address included improved health care where she addressed micro issues that are affecting the current state of our health services and making education a priority, the implementation of this should be very much easier this year because of Pravin Gordhans huge cash injection of 165 billion rands into education. Job creation was another priority where she committed the Gauteng provincial department to spend 34 Billion rands on public infrastructure development to create more jobs. ( I really dont know what this means and what plans are going to be put into place to make employment more accessible to everybody). After reading last years address here (http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2009/09061008551001.htm), this years address does have a lot more substance and expands on the framework of 2009, it was more reassuring than Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation and was delivered with more conviction.

It is unfortunate however that the spending of these budgets are not transparent to the public and the only time we ever find out about public spending and misappropriation of funds is when the DA or other opposition parties investigate or when investigative journalism exposes greedy and corrupt officials, It is also unfortunate that the media have to police government officials and hold them accountable for poor decision making and expose rotten officials, I think if South Africa had a more balanced poll when it comes to elections, transparent governance will be made possible by a balance of power.

 

Some research I did for a friend who was advised that Oatmeal is healthier than Weet Bix, read on and judge for yourself

The following information has been compiled by me from the nutritional information on the packaging to aide you in making a more informed decision about why I recommend weet bix as a first choice of breakfast.

Please bear in mind the following information about weet bix as per my advise against your unnamed source that unequivocally stated that weet bix is high in sugar and cholesterol

Weet Bix

1 serving =2 biscuits (40g)

there is a total of 1422 kj per 100g serving and 569 kj per (1) serving

total carbs = 25.9g per (1)serving

of which sugars only make up 2.6g per serving

total dietry fibre 4.3g (recommended dietry allowance) of which 3.8 is insoluble

(insoluble refers to fibre that is not immediately digestible which is assists in flushing out toxins)

0.6g of total fat per (1) serving

0 cholesterol

Jungle Oats

1 serving =1 cup = 100ml (40g)

there is a total of 1443 kj per 100g serving and 577.2 kj per (1) serving

total carbs = 22.48g per (1)serving

of which sugars only make up 2.6g per serving

3.64g of total fat per (1) serving

total dietry fibre 4.32g as per rda (recommended dietry allowance)

insoluble amount = undisclosed

cholesterol = undisclosed

Additional vitamins in Oatmeal that weet bix does not have

Vitamin b6

Folic acid vit b9

Biotin

Magnesium If I had my nutritional bible, I would provide you with more detailed info here but it is already written on the side of the box

Zinc

Calcium – (with added milk in weet bix you can achieve this vitamin)

Phosporus

in comparison to brown bread – please refer to final paragraph for relevance of this piece of information about brown bread.

there is a total of 1005 kj per 100g serving and 402 kj per (1) serving

total carbs = 18.6g per (1)serving

of which sugars only make up 1.84g per serving

0.6g of total fat per (1) serving

0 cholesterol depending on what your filling is

Jungle oats has its benefits maybe even more than weet bix, It is a fact that weet bix dietry fibre is more useful in aiding the digestive system than Jungle Oats, Jungle Oats has more carbs than weet bix and takes a longer time to digest but has 6 more vitamins than weet bix. In terms of energy release as per rda both weet bix and oatmeal contain the same amount of vitamin b1 per serving of 40g which is 0.3mg.It is my opinion that for the purpose of experimentation to see which breakfast your body best responds to, that for the first week, 2 days out of your work week be dedicated to having oatmeal and the other three to weetbix and the following week vice versa. If you are lactose intolerant remove the milk and add water or even fruit juice, the total carbs from 100g of milk pushes up the total amount of carbs in the weet bix to 30.6g which will increase the unit of kj proportionally.

I strongly feel weet bix has a lot more nutritional value to you especially because of your acid reflux problem, bombarding yourself with high amounts of carbs that is not easily digestable only makes your goal more difficult to achieve (because of the added vitamins, the assimilation and digestion of oats is longer* opinion based on common sense, fact to be confirmed), reduce the risk and alternate between the two if you have to, and, why opt for oatmeal? if you are already taking a multivitamin that is providing you with the same vitamins.

As per your statement last night about the sugar and cholesterol, eating two slices of brown bread including low gi is dangerous for you based on your unnamed sources uninformed advise about the nutritional value of weet bix. I would suggest whoever told you that weetbix has excessive amounts of sugars and is high in cholesterol recheck the nutritional information on the packaging as the same amount of sugar exists in oatmeal. Perhaps at the risk of adding muesli for the benefit of more fibre the sugar content is increased.

I am against generic diets that all propagate eating oatmeal only for breakfast where multivitamins and supplementation are not taken into consideration. 

 WHATS THIS!!

A friend of mine who usually buys these oatmeal chocolates, discovered the other day, a 48g sticker over the original 40g sticker, was this a printing error? or was it really 40g? We didn't investigate further, but it is something that people need to be mindful off in the future.

Every day for the last week, I’ve been seeing a little grey and white kitten, he usually sleeps under my neighbours car during the day and in the evenings sleeps in the parkade outside inside a spare tyre that’s been laying around for a while, mice have also recently made a home in our backyard and this is the reason the little kitten along with several other wild cats have been attracted. On Sunday afternoon he was quietly laying in a crevice outside our kitchen listening to the old man and I chat away. The little guy or girl unlike other kittens that I’ve seen running around showed more affection and responded to people in a very playful manner.

On Monday morning just before I left for work I noticed two black and white kittens sitting in the garden eating what I thought was a mouse or rat only on closer inspection to find it was the little grey and white kitten. There was also an adult black and white cat in the parkade, the two kittens showed apprehension when I neared them. This is the first time I have ever witnessed anything like this and it seriously disturbed me, I don’t understand the social relationship between cats, territorial behaviour or cat psychology to even begin to understand what I saw, most of what I can deduce is referenced from what I understand about survival instinct, but I still cannot understand if a fight did ensue and an adult cat was around, why there is no paternal instinct to protect the injured little kitten.

This is the note upon which my week started.

The power in my neighbourhood went off on Saturday at about 12:00 midday with no warning whatsoever, it remained off for the entire day and night. We were not informed of this outage, so I made it a point of referring to Eskoms roster of load shedding, unfortunately two of the more useful  sites that I have searched for this schedule including Eskom render errors and the third just doesn’t make any sense to me or I don’t think that it is updated.

1.       http://loadshedding.co.za/load-shedding-schedules/

2.       http://www.eskom.co.za/live/search.php?Query=load+shedding+schedule&x=0&y=0

3.       http://www.ekurhuleni.com/component/option,com_docman/Itemid,578/

On a positive note though I was rummaging through my brothers collection of books and found an interesting book about the life experiences of a famous African American brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, which I read halfway through and found extremely insightful and awe inspiring. Oldman and myself sat outside on kitchen veranda where he was marking his register and completing class schedules for Monday, we discussed JZ’s sexcapades and its impact on the tripartite alliance to great length. Played around with camera in the evening and took a couple of macro shots of lit candles in the dark, 

 

Our power was restored on Sunday Afternoon after a call to the municipality, it seems a fuse blew in the power box on the street utility pole resulting in power restored to all of our neighbours except us. Bummer.

 (The Eskom guys fixing the utility box on the street pole.) The Technician that assisted was really rude, nevertheless, he responded to our call in under two hours and took less than 5 minutes to resolve the issue, the lady that assisted us at the municipal call centre was extremely helpful and friendly. I was impressed at the overall service, maybe i should trying calling about the potholes.

This morning, i was on the John Robbie show with David o Sullivan standing in for him hosting the brain of 702, the show challenges contestants to answer as many questions as they can within 60 seconds against an opponent live on air, with the possibility of of winning R1000-00 should you beat your opponent

I was called up against Tinus from Florida Glen who scored 8 in this attempt. in my introduction with David o Sullivan, my line broke once but was clear for the rest of the time, so i cant use that as an excuse for my dismal performance. Tinus scored 8 out of 9. These were my questions, lets see if you can answer them.

1. True or False, Lusaka is in Angola

2. Which South African president was born in 1936>

3. Which South African born Author won the booker prize twice?

4. At which province was Raymond Machaba premier?

5. Spell Foreign.

6. from which plant is morphine made/

7. Bruce Springsteen had a hit with dancing in the .......?

8. True or false, The Wright brothers claim that the first flight lasted three minutes.

9. Does the Constellation Hydra represent a water snake or a sea turtle?

10. Which sport is Brisbanes Almanac?

11. What is the Chemical symbol for gold?

Answers

1. False*

2. F.W. De Klerk

3. J.M. Coetzee ( I cant Believe i said J.R.R. Tolkein)

4. Mpumalanga

5. F-O-R-E-I-G-N*

6.Popee Plant.

7. Dark.

8.False

9.Water Snake.

10.Cricket

11EU

I only got two correct, they are the ones with * next to them. After completing the quiz, I ask myself "WTF" and had the same look on my face the monkey above had. I concede I could have thought about the question more carefully instead of hastly passing questions without attempting to even answer.

Nevertheless with all that said, answering these questions off air is much easier, I estimated that i genuinly only the answer to four questions and would have strongly relied on correctly guessing the multiple choice questions to give me a high score.

It was however a humbling experience albeit nerve wreckingwith all the preparation i put into preparing for it the night before, i still remain postivie that i am capable of doing much better and glaldy look forward to more experiences like these

Recently after the heavy downpours in January, everybody has been complaining about the potholes, describing Amos Masondo and the people responsible for the Johannesburg metropolitan area as incompetent, i can testify to this.

I frequently travel on Main Reef road that runs parallel to the M2 highwayand joins marshall street that connects me to my place of work in town. Main Reef road is a pothole ridden road with open manholes, dangerous drivers who speed and overtake without consideration of other road users, people crossing in odd places and a recognised are for smash and grabbers, all of these factors make it a precarious obstacle course of accidents waiting to happen.

The Road is used mostly by Trucks and heavy vans that utilise this route to gain access to the various Trucking companies that have populated this area.I use this route because it is quicker during peak morning traffic. Here is Picture that i took using my cellphone of a pothole that eventually grew into a sinkhole in the middle of the Road, forcing vehicles to divert to the pavement to bypass this interception on the road.

This Sinkhole in the road has been here since 12th January 2010, that is the first day that i noticed it. Today is the 12th of February 2010 and it is still there. I am certain whoever is in charge is "aware of the problem and waiting to fix it"

Another episode in "Ekhuruleni/ Johannesburg metropolitan incompetence"

03 February 2010

On my way home from work today I was almost mugged by a smash and grabber. It happened at approximately 5:50pm at the intersection of Eloff and Faraday Street  just before the onramp heading east towards Germiston. I was listening to Redi Direkos podcast from the previous day where she interviewed Professor Tim Noakes about the pressures of supplements in school sport, I had been trying to listen to it for two days but was always being interupted, the day that I tried to download it, telkom had a break in their international bandwidth line that disrupted the internet all over south africa which subsequently led me to using my  omnia phone to download it, which incidentally cost me R20.  Five minutes after downloading it, the internet at work was back online, I felt very cheated and hoped that Mpho could buy me a chicken schwarma to make up for my loss,  Unfortunately it never happened, I did however score a free Business Day newspaper after work on my way back to the parking lot  worth R10-20,  which somewhat comforted me. 

At the intersection of Eloff and Faraday right next to the Faraday Taxi Rank and Muti Market I noticed a suspicious looking black man smoking a cigarette dressed in a brown top and blue jeans wearing a brown cap who approached the red tazz in front of me from the drivers side and walked really close to the vehicle as if he intended to jump into it, there were four people in the vehicle in front of me. 

My window was half opened as im not such a big fan of the airconditioning, the suspicious man accosted my vehicle but instead of walking directly to the half opened window he made his presence more suspicious by walking around the vehicle extremly close as if he had grevious intent. Looking at him now in my rear view mirror I realised his intention as he didnt continue walking down the road and his body language suggested he was about to do something violent. I started rolling up the electric window but he interuppted the window from going completly up with both his hands, the window at this point stalled and he said to me still holding his half smoked cigarette in his left hand, "i can see the cellphone on the seat, give it to me, i dont want to kill you over a cellphone!" i said no, he reached into his pocket at which point the window continued to go up all the way to the top, he mimiced the movement of pulling out a gun and gestured a gun with his index and thumb, at that time I had already calculated the probability of being shot and premempted his next move by swinging my steering wheel 90 degrees into him and over the lane on my right hand side. 

He panicked and tried running away in front of my vehicle, my front wheel drove over one of his feet and then I hit him with a double crunch special with my back wheel. He screamed in hororr and as I drove away in a state of shock I looked into my rear view mirror and saw him slouched on his knees in the middle of the road. As I approached the onramp to the m2 heading east, I slowed down to try to get a better look at the would be smash and grabber but it seemed that he had quickly removed himself from the scene  and out of harms way.

In retrospect, at the moment he reached into his pocket, I asked myself, is the end? it was a frightful experience one I hope to never experience again, unfortunately I have no control over it ever happening again, all i can do is take precautionary measure and hope for the best. "U" told me to call the police and inform them or to call crime line which i intend doing to make other people aware that, that intersection is a smash and grab hotspot.       

For the last two nights i've been hearing a sound under my bed, the kind of sound crickets make. So last night i decided to google "parktown prawn sounds" and came across a website (http://www.insecta.co.za/ZArticles/ptprawn/ptp5.htm) that describes the prawn in great detail and at the end of the website is a poem by   Bei Ju-Yi, of theTang dynasty who wrote the following :

"The Singing cricket chirps throughout the long night,
tolling in the cloudy autumn with its rain.
Intent on disturbing the gloomy sleepless soul,
the cricket moves towards the bed chirp by chirp"

After reading this i couldnt sleep and find myself extremely restless and tired this afternoon. I googled Parktown Prawn because in the last 6 months there have been 4 sightings at our place and they usually make themselves visible in the early parts of the morning between 1am and 4am.
02/02/10