cdohnio.blogspot.com

• DAWA, The Film at the Goethe Institute

  Posted: June 29, 2010, 2:16 pm by cdohnio

  So yesterday I went for the screening of DAWA at the Goethe Institute right here in Nairobi. It was a free screening and I had time. Its a 9 min independent film shot in Kampala and directed by Mark Kaigwa, a Kenyan. I went there expecting to see, well, I'm not sure, an maybe just okay film but I was pleasantly surprised.
  
  The film is a comedy about, I forget their names because I'm generally horrible with names, so I'll say a man and his grandson, who are small time con men (they do the blind man and helper hustle). The grandson is discontent with the amount of money the blind hustle is giving them and wants to go shags to make some real money.
  
  They go to shags and come up with a brilliant witch-doctor con that would've bagged them 60000 from a real doctor but... Go watch the movie because for me from here is where it really picked up. The twists in the story from here were unexpected, funny and well written and directed. For a 9 min movie it was bloody brilliant! No lie!
  
  For me, and before we go on you should know I'm not a film critic or student so I can't tell you much of the camera work, sound and quality of picture (which I thought were all good by the way), the high points were the story twists and the acting, which to my untrained unpracticed eye were very entertaining.
  
  However, for me, the first askari's (cop) acting didn't really come up to the same level of the rest of the actors level. Also the doctor wasn't as good as an actor as the rest of the crew but he was better than afore mentioned askari. They both could have done better.
  
  This was the very first short film I've ever watched and also the first independent one. And it was. It shows that Kenyan film has great potential to do great things! If we keep producing movies like this, of this quality and professionalism we are in for some greater things in the future.
  
  On that note the 7th Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA 2011) are in Nairobi next year and they are currently collecting entries. You can do that and find information about it here. I'm sure Mark Kaigwa will submit his film and I wish him luck! From my point of view it's certainly award worthy. Were you there? Have anything to say? Sound off in the comments. Peace.
  
  (Photo credit, Dawa the film facebook page, slight editing by myself)

• It's the end of Yu and me

  Posted: June 29, 2010, 1:15 pm by cdohnio

  This is a brief continuation from yesterday's post on yu. After all that BS with the internet and customer care they went and made sure they did everything and I do mean everything to completely lose me as a customer!!! Yesterday I was angry now I'm fucking livid!!
  
  On my way to the Goethe Institute, where the film DAWA was showing (More on this in a bit), my credit finished! I was like wow! That was 150bob in one day! I was already looking forward to getting home and changing the accursed line! I went a got myself some credit and loaded it in.
  
  Lo and behold the credit wouldn't load!! And it was bringing a message like: Sorry, there's something wrong with the system? Please try again later. And can we all go with one voice "WHAT THE FUCK!!!?!?!?!" Never mind I was supposed to meet someone(@joliea) through twitter over there but how they just go and cut my from the world like that. I couldn't tweet or facebook or text/call! I felt so disconnected from the world!
  
  Anyway its cool. I'm now the official yu anti-brand ambassador. I'm making it my personal responsibility to stop people from moving to the yu network! Yes I'm that pissed. That is all. Peace
  
  (I can't end this post without crediting @Buggz79 for the title of this post. Hilarious! If you don't get it you're incredibly slow *evil laughter*)

• WTF? Is Yu effing serious?!!!!

  Posted: June 28, 2010, 5:12 pm by cdohnio

  I'm so very angry!!! Let me explain why. Today I'm to twitter and @Mwirigi tweet that Yu(cellular network here in Kenya) data had now increased to sh10/mb. I was naawwwww!!!! Really? Why would they do that!? So I called customer care to find out if things had changed and was informed by a very nice lady that nothing had changed and things were still at sh3/mb. So I heaved a sigh of relief and went about my business.
  But some time around midday my phone begins to have connection probelm and I check my credit and it's at 0.01 I check my data usage and its at 5mb, exactly. So I'm like WTF!!!!! I call customer care and some dude, he'd better thank God I didn't get his name, rudely informs me that data has been at sh10 since April then hangs up! I know!!! I hadn't even finished talking to him!
  
  So here is what I draw from this. Yu has raised their internet connection rates. At sh10/mb they're the most expensive in the country! At this rate I should just go back to Safaricom!!! And they also have the slowest connection in the country! I mean that thing crawls!!!! Slowly! So the only thing they had going for them was cost and they've gone and lost that! Nkt! Second why wasn't I informed of this revision upwards, it is after all the main thing I use them for! And they should know that! This means they've been stealing from me since April!! WTF!!! That's 3 months!! 3 months!!! And I'm a really heavy data user! I should sue!!! Also their customer care sucks!! The second person was positively rude! For a company that is trying to gain market share in an extremely competitive market they can't afford to be rude to one of the most loyal customers and *free* brand ambassadors(me that is).
  
  Anyway this is the end of me and Yu. I'm going back to Zain! At least they're about to launch 3G services soon and even now speeds are decent enough for mobile browsing. In fact I'm so pissed with Yu in calling them to give them a proper piece of my mind!!! I swear!!! NKT! FUCK! Idiots!!! Anyways let me try calm down. Peace!

• Faithfulness - a myth?

  Posted: June 23, 2010, 1:02 pm by cdohnio

  I've been meaning to do this post for a while now but really haven't had the time or energy to do it. Immediately after Barcamp Nairobi I promptly feel sick! Yeah that’s right, I reached home and my flu symptoms went through the roof! I got a fever and headache so I took the next two days off!(Turns out it was a week, this post has been sitting in drafts for some time) So I'm here today back at work (and bored already).
  
  This post is (was?) supposed to be a continuation from my last post and was supposed to have been done last week. I went out with my friends that weekend after Safaricom7s. We went obviously to Westy where we promptly got frozen at every joint we went to! All were asking for ID which we had but after they checked them they'd say 26 and over for dudes! Note: The honeys we were with weren't frozen once! WTF?! What the point of having an ID if you can't even get in to clubs? I always thought that we were given ID specially to let us into clubs and buy alcohol! Stupid idiots! Anyway we managed to sneak into Changes which was CROWDED!!! Everywhere was! It was a great time out!
  
  But that’s not what this post is about today post is about something that happened earlier. While we waited at my boy's house we regaled each other with stories of our past sexual exploits. And of course this story came up because the main actor in it was there (it was his house). Anyway as we went on talking the dude, I called him Tee last time, right? Well he told us that his girlfriend had found out he wasn't being faithful.
  
  
  
  
  He met this girl and she was hot!! But apparently her most defining feature is her massive ass! Also she works out so she's rather lean. Anyway it turns out this girl is best friends with his girlfriend's cousin. Who of course went and told her cousin and she called my boy, Tee, crying and stuff. He told me he has no idea where he got the game to convince her that he was sorry and that he'd never do anything to hurt her again. He said something like he hadn't, until that point, been taking the relationship seriously but promised to do so from then on.
  
  Of course as his best friends we knew better and we all put down bets saying how long he'd last on monogamy lane. I first said 2 months, another said 2 weeks and I revised mine to one week. Guess who was right? Well one week later he was seen with a another girl coming from his house. Of course it can't be confirmed whether anything happened but...
  
  Well that brings me to today's question. What's with people, while I only know guys I mean both sexes, having this inability to remain faithful? Is faithfulness really a myth? I mean it really can't be that hard, can it? I never been in a tempting situation because, well, I've never been in a relationship so I always wonder what would happen if it did happen. Would I hold up? Judging from my friends its impossible.
  Anyway, my thoughts on this? I personally think it's disgusting that people can't remain faithful to their chosen partners. Why choose then? Stay single and do your shit! Why put your partner through that torture? But, hey, what do I know? More educated/experienced people(and anyone else) are welcome sound off in the comments about what you think because this is confusing. Peace!

• TMI?

  Posted: June 21, 2010, 1:56 pm by cdohnio

  
  I know it's been a while since I did a post and I'm sorry. I've been unwell for the better part of the last week so I haven't been going to work, or doing much other than sleep, eat and watch TV. I had been working on a post but I didn't finish it and now I don't know if it'll ever be completed and leave my drafts. Anyway while I've been gone I've been thinking about this blog and the direction I want it take.
  
  So I've been thinking about what I want to share with you guys. When I started this blog I wanted to be able to write what ever I felt like when I felt it but ever time I begin to write a deeply personal post I begin to think of who might see it and what they might think. Also I want to get hits (vain, I know but hey*shrug*) but I want to vent! So I'm kinda torn.
  Also there's the fact that I'm not exactly anonymous. I've met some of you and also some of my friends(who shouldn't know that its me writing) have linked me to here. So now I ask you guys if I write personal stuff here will it affect what you think about me? Of course it will but do you wanna read about it? Or would it be TMI? (too much info) That's today question. Do you really care? Let me know what you think in the comments! Peace!
  (Image sourced from Google search; off this website: http://authorsalacart.com)

• I was mentioned in the paper! :) (And issues emerge)

  Posted: June 8, 2010, 5:30 pm by cdohnio

  This is continuation from yesterday's post, I told you I've been busy and there's much to write about.
  
  
  On Friday I was at work reading the paper, Nation, when I came across the an article on asexuality. Usually I don't read the zuqka, mostly I peruse, prefer the Pulse by far, but asexuality was something I had actually talked about on my blog not so recently so I decided to read what they had to say about it.
  
  Barely two sentences into the article(which already read familiar) I find myself mentioned! Yeah I won't lie...I was over the fucking moon!!!! This was/is the first time I was ever mentioned in the paper and for some of my intellectual work no less(Not because I killed my step mum, commited suicide, or just appearing in some stupid ad :-)) was really gratifying.
  
  Anyway @Joliea, with my permission, asked if she could repost my post and I said yes. So she did, and she had linked her blog with her profile on the zuqka website and they picked it from there. While discussing it on twitter it hit me -and quite a few other people- that I was not properly accreditted in that article -neither was at @Joliea but for her its a little bit more complicated considering she signed up for zuqka- because though my name was mentioned no one could really know that it was this blog in particular.
  
  
  I have a creative commons license, which I wrote about here, that protects my work from copying without accreditation and permission. @Joliea properly accredited my in a fashion I was satisfied with(she mentioned me and linked back to the blog in her post) but the newpaper can't do that (being tangible and what not). So that left me wondering if they should have put it in writing. Hmmm...complex issues I think.
  
  Anyway this is what my license says about what I can do (Taken off the CC wedsite here):
  

  • The Creative Commons Legal Code has been drafted with the intention that it will be enforceable in court.
  • A Creative Commons license terminates automatically if someone uses your work contrary to the license terms. This means that, if a person uses your work under a Creative Commons license and they, for example, fail to attribute your work in the manner you specified, then they no longer have the right to continue to use your work
  • You have a number of options as to how you can enforce this; you can consider contacting the person and asking them to rectify the situation and/or you can consider consulting a lawyer to act on your behalf

  
  
  Don't get it wrong I'm glad the article appeared in paper, I don't blog for money so its not about that, and that post was written to educate and it reaching a wider audience is probably. Its about being properly accreditted for something I actually spent time researching. Anyway @joliea wrote to them and we're waiting to hear back. I hope they do it soon. I wonder what they'll say because I can actually sue... I like that part :) Peace!
  
  
  (you can read the zuqka online article here, you'll notice they still didn't link it and that they just copy pasted it. Lazy, right?)

• Afternoon with @SavvyKenya and the Imagine Cup.

  Posted: June 7, 2010, 5:23 pm by cdohnio

  
  I'm not even sure what to start writing about. So much has happened in the last 5 days and there's much to write about but I think I'll do a separate post for each separate thing. So where to start? Like I said there's much to be talked about, but we'll do it in chronological order starting with Thursday.
  
  So on Thursday I was in the office doing my work as the intern. So I was kinda free and monitoring twitter quite closely and what do I notice there? @savvykenya tweeting about something called the Microsoft Imagine Cup where she was competing. So I asked her what it was about and if they allowed spectators. She said yeah so I decided to take the afternoon off (being an intern does have its benefits though I was asked after :) and go join her there.
  
  So this was the first time I was meeting @savvykenya, but I read her blog and follow her on twitter, so I was rather nervous but I had recently decided to meet as many new people as possible so this was yet another opportunity. So I went!
  
  
  
  The Imagine Cup E.A Regionals this year were being held at the Hilton. It had about 15 or so participants from all over the region, Uganda, Tanzania and obviously Kenya. I couldn't believe so few people attended (forget even participated). I mean there was a fully paid trip to Poland to be won! And laptops! Not to mention the fact that it show cases what could be arguably the best in college and school computing. I saw some brilliant projects and some not so brilliant ones. Anyway I won't go deep into what the competition is about(go read about it here and this is what @savvykenya had to say about it) but it was fun to see some examples of what the Kenya tech scene looks like.
  
  Now on to the main attraction of this post @savvykenya. She's really short!! That's what you notice after you leave her lovely face. She kept me company the whole afternoon and part of the evening. We talked quite a bit. Well, actually we talked though most of the presentations (the sound was really really pathetic! I hope they fix it next year, I'ma be there). She has a really sexy voice btw. You'd never get that from her blog. I also learnt a lot about the blog scene here in Kenya.
  
  Also she's kind. I can't really describe how I could tell that without looking broke but I could tell!:) Wait I can you might never met me, will you? She bought me a bottle of water. Yeah it cost only 35 bob but I was really broke that day! I'm young and work pro-bono, remember? She also took me to meet @sokoanalyst, with whom I had a rather long discussion about local tech and business. I learnt a lot from that discussion.
  
  I'm realising that I'm not mentioning the most important thing about her, she's friendly. Not many people would have comfortably spent the whole day with a total stranger. I like that. I like her. And I hope that we can be great friends going into the future. Yeah this post sounds ummh... I can't find the word right now(fanatical?) but if you're going to hate go suck a...!! Just realised I didn't say this @savvykenya didn't win but then again it had technical issues on that day so you really can't be sure. She tries too stay anonymous so no pictures! I didn't add this yesterday but despite her saying this about hugs she does hug really really well, warm and fuzzy. It helps she has a sizeable pair of boobs >:). Peace!!
  
  
  (Picture taken from @savvykenya's blog. It shows the room where the competition was taking place)

• Life of an Intern

  Posted: June 3, 2010, 3:39 pm by cdohnio

  So I've been an intern for like three weeks now at a small software company called Microlan. So I think I've been there long enough to tell you what life there is like. But first some random info.
  
  There's only one other intern here (Yes I'm blogging from the office:) But I haven't seen him since last Friday(He turned up later) so I'll assume he's quit. There're about 10 employees max. We always start the day with a short devotion; singing, bible verses with some inspirational text and then prayer. The atmosphere is very relaxed (too relaxed in my opinion but hey I'm just an intern, right?). Oh yeah, and I do this pro-bono meaning I'm not paid.
  
  My days here consist of surfing the net, tweeting, facebook and blogging. Mostly. Thats because I'm not really supervised and also that the work I'm given is simple to do. I go for lunch when I feel like and when I take the afternoon off (I just disappear and reappear the next day) I'm not missed.
  
  It also means that I'm not really respected by the full time employees. I've not been shown any direct disrespect but their attitude towards me certainly suggested (it stopped after the first week) that there was something there. Their boss certainly treats us all the same, with respect, and that impresses me immensely.
  
  A day in my intern life might also mean being compless (without a comp) because one of the programmers took your extension because heis work of chatting on some unknown social network (I think its called badoo, ever heard of it?) and checking videos on youtube interrupted of course by him doing some little work is more important than yours. Never  mind that when the boss walks in he always asks me what I'm doing (Not much either).
  
  You get sent by everyone to do everything from buying the boss milk at the kiosk, credit for his PA to more important thinks like paying and picking tenders and checking for land rates at City Hall. By the end of one of these days, they aren't often, thank God, your so bloody exhausted you just wanna collapse on the bed!!
  
  You get to see how people seem so oblivious to  things disappearing in the office. Several hard drives, RAM and DVD-ROMS disappeared from the programmers room and no one seemed to have seen anything. I found that hilarious because I had never seen anyone in that room except the programmers.
  
  Most annoying is that you get given all the tasks the programmers can't or won't do properly. That includes testing their software (we programmers never notice our own mistakes), writing the user manual and brochures for that software (YAWN!!) and testing it again (they never get it right; I almost always point out the same mistakes).
  
  Ofcourse all this doesn't mean I haven't learnt anything. I've learnt a lot about the probelms that a small software firm can face in this our Kenyan environment and I'll be sure to make sure that I correct this when my own company is launched. Shoot off in comments about your intern experiences. It would be good to know I'm not alone. Peace!

• Happy Kenya Blogger's Day (And Madaraka Day)

  Posted: June 1, 2010, 11:12 pm by cdohnio

  Today is Kenya Blogger's Day. I only just remembered, okay that's a lie I've been wondering about it since yesterday, but I've only just confirmed it now. It's also Madaraka Day with my country Kenya celebrating the 47th year of self rule from colonial Britain.
  
  This is the first time I'm able to celebrate this day because I've only been a blogging for about 5 months. My first post was tech related and about the I-pad. Very boring if you don't care much about tech. But since then the blog has evolved into something I write about anything I feel like. The name also changed from Random thoughts... to what it is today, Private thoughts... because I felt that random thoughts was a little too common and not really what I felt the blog truly represents.
  
  Being a Kenyan blogger for me has been a most interesting journey from nil followers I know have 8 public followers on my blog. Also from no comments at all I've now experienced a high of 13 on one particularly awesome and some what controversial post on Homosexuality in Kenya. Not to mention all the comments I get on twitter for my work.
  
  When I first started I had no idea how big the Kenyan blogosphere was. I had only heard of @savvyKenya who's blog appeared in the Kenyan mag Zuqka but since I've become such an active member of the community I've seen blogs about all sorts of things right here in Kenya and its truly opened my eyes to the divers culture I live in.
  
  This blog has also been an awesome learning experience. I've learnt about homosexuality in Africa and about asexuality. Its also allowed me to interact with people from around the world like @Sgyreju from France who helped me understand about asexuality and @Joliea from right here in Kenya  who helped with the homosexuality thing. It also amazes me to know that my blog is read by people in the US, Russia, Pakistan, Israel and even Ukraine.
  
  I'm thankful for you, my readers, who constantly come back to read what ever I write for you. This is my platform for sharing with the world (together with twitter) my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams and my fears. May God continue bless you and Kenya! So from me and every one of my alters: Happy Kenya Blogger's Day! Peace!

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes