Sayonara, I've Moved

Hi y'all,
I finally decided to move my blog. WordPress has stolen my heart completely. I was gonna go with BlogSome initially because they run a WordPress solution based on WordPress Multi User (WordPressMU for short), but then I found out that WordPress themselves host free blogs here. My thinking, WordPress should know how to host WordPress blogs better than anyone else. Even though, BlogSome offers such niceties as allowing you to customize your theme, which in my opinion (yes I have one, just like I've got an arsehole) is really cool, I think I'd rather pitch my tent with WordPress.

I finally moved my posts from here (all but this and the one before it), after much ado, was a stressful process but thankfully, I didn't have that many to move. So if you're in the neighbourhood or for some reason that I can't figure out right now, you like to read my rantings and ravings then come on over here and feel me.

Signing out.

Should I Move this Blog???

Peeps,
Help me out here. I'm seriously considering moving this blog to BlogSome. For the sole reason that they're running WordPress. I love WordPress with a passion. If I had my own website, WordPress would be my Blog tool of choice. Firstly because of the lovely themes, secondly the fact that you can pt your posts in categories, which makes everything orderly and thirdly becasue of the way u can make the whole thing look like a proper website.

I'm seriously considering this and I'd really love your candid opinions. Feel free to rant and rave becasue like a friend of mine said "Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one".

So Long.

Smart Chicks

Here's a little joke I found somewhere on the net and just thought I should share. I know all y'all ladies'll be pleased with this one and since I'm not really into sexist jokes and I love women, I won't post any retaliatory jokes for the men to gloat over....then again, I just might. Keep your fingers crossed.

Three women and three men are travelling by train to the Super Bowl. At the station, the three men each buy a ticket and watch as the three women buy just one ticket. "How are the three of you going to travel on only one ticket?" asks one of the men. "Watch and learn," answers one of the women. They all board the train. The three men take their respective seats but all three women cram into a toilet together and close the door.

Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the toilet door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack, and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The men see this happen and agree it was quite a clever idea; so, after the game, they decide to do the same thing on the return trip and save some money. When they get to the station they buy a single ticket for the return trip but see, to their astonishment, that the three women don't buy any ticket at all!!

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" says one perplexed man. "Watch and learn," answer the women. When they board the train, the three men cram themselves into a toilet, and the three women cram into another toilet just down the way. Shortly after the train is on its way, one of the women leaves her toilet and walks over to the toilet in which the men are hiding. The woman knocks on their door and says, "Ticket, please."

Wonder why men think they're so much smarter than women.

Alamieyeseigha - Master of Deception

This is practically the stuff that movie scripts are made of. A man of the size (being as big as he is) and stature of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha smuggled himself or was smuggled (pick whichever sounds better) out of the UK disguised as a woman and wove an intriguing web of hide and seek plus whodunnit of how he managed to evade the British Security and get into Nigeria.

There are quite a number of different versions to the story that it is hard to ascertain which is true. One says he was helped by Isreali Security operatives, another says he was helped by a certain Ijaw man who according to another story may have been arrested in the UK, yet another says the plan was hatched by at least 4 of his trusted aides who employed a British Security Outfit.

Here is a picture of what he was said to have looked like dressed up as a woman. Can you beat that. For detailed stories you could chek out this news item on the This Day website and this one on the Sun Website.

Whichever way it happened, the only things that are sure is that he is back in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State Capital, he's back in charge of the affairs of the state and the people of Bayelsa are jubilant and happy, how come? - Beats me. I would've thought they'd be the last people interested in seeing him after realising that he'd been pilfering their money in no small measure, but then again, what do I know, I know nothing of the intrigues and the politics behind the entire "Movie", as I'd like to refer to the whole Alamieyeseigha Saga from inception, so I have no idea what thoughts and plots are going through the minds of bayelsans as I write this post.

All I can say is that, Bayelsa and Nigeria at large ar in God's hands 'cos I can't, no, I'd rather not imagine what'll happen in the aftermath of this. I just hope we don't see a spate of assassinations or assassination attempts in a few weeks.

God help us.

The Freedom Toaster

For all my open source people, here's a li'l piece of interesting information. Straight from the creators of Ubuntu - Linux for Human beings, a south african Linus distro based on the Debian Kernel built by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African Entrepreneur who founded Thawte Consulting which he sold to Verisign in December 1999 and amongst other things was the first Tourist in Space, comes The Freedom Toaster.

The Freedom Toaster is a conveniently located, self-contained ‘Bring 'n Burn' facility, where users bring their own blank discs and make copies of the open source software they require or in lay terms, an open source vending machine where all the currency you need are your blank CDs, for my Nigerian peeps, this is the Open Source equivalent to CitiServe Refresh. The concept is to put Open Source software within easy reach of the people owing to bandwith issues that make it a majot issue trying to downlaod 650MB or larger ISOs of the net.

Seeing as it's the brain child of a South African it's only natural that at present all the Toaster boxes are located in SA. The Software included in the Toaster are largely various Linux Distros and other software like

• Firemonger CD (Full version)
• OpenCD 2.0
• OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 (platform independent)
• Gutenberg 2003 CD and DVD

Seeing as here in Nigeria we always have the same bandwith issues coupled with the incessant power outages, no thanks to PHCN, it'd be a cool idea to have one or more here in Nigeria. I took the liberty of posting a Toaster Request on the Fredom Toaster site here. You can check it out an maybe add your wn posts, maybe the more the posts from here the higher our chances of actually getting one or more. Registering first might be a good idea.

T'would be cool if we actually did get some so let's keep our fingers crossed.

That's all folks.

More on Alamieyeseigha

Found a more detailed news item on the Reuters UK site. Apparently he came home amidst jubilation from his people. Na Wa Oh! Wonders shall never end. Here is the news item from Reuters. Here's another story from the BBC. Stay tuned

Alamieyeseigha Escapes - I stand corrected

Oops... I stand corrected. I just found a story corroborating part of this post. At least I know that for real he's back and he's in the state house. This Day Newspaper has put up a breaking news story on their website corroborating this.

Check back for updates.

Alamieyeseigha Escapes

Sweet Jesus,
As at the time of this post, this story is still unconfirmed. It's purely speculations and li'l pockets of gist that I picked up while I was at lunch today at the Brass LNG cafeteria where I had gone to sort out a minor bug that had developed with the Bespoke Software I had built for their Contracts & Procurements department.

I was sweating like crazy because for some reason, they'd had a power outage all morning and their main generator had some issues that the engineers were trying to resolve, hence there was no cold water from the dispenser, the espresso machine was off, all airconditioners were down and all printers and xerox machines were offline. T'was just the IT Generator that was working so there was power to run the PC's and of course the Central Server.

Anyway, back to my story, as I sat savouring my three course meal of Chicken Pepper Soup and Garlic Bread for starters, Some kinda rice (I have no idea what it's called) with sweet corn, mushrooms, beef and chicken as the main dish wiv a bottle of Sprite to boot and Vanilla Ice-Cream for desert, I heard that the embattled Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha had escaped and was back in the country, rumour has it that he disguised and stowed away aboard a cargo ship. Rumour also has it that he has returned to Bayelsa State where he has taken over the helms of affairs and that he even addressed a news conference an hour or so ago. The major school of thought at the dining room was that it was an error for him to have been granted bail as that is what facilitated his getaway.

These are all sketchy details, as soon as I wrapped up lunch, I headed straight for the PC I had been working on to fix the problem with the software, which incidentally had been as a result of one of the members of staff deleting a record they shouldn't have. I searched all the major news sites and search engines for news corroborating this story but came up with zilch.

If this story is true, international news organizations like CNN may not have heard about it because of the scandal it would bring to the British Security and Judicial Systems respectively and back here in Nigeria you can be sure that it'll take a while for it to come on TV and even longer for it to appear on the Web as updates to the sites of the few news papers that have websites are often late.

I hate to wonder the kind of image that would be projected of the general nigerian public, especially if he's allowed to finish off his tenure in office. The effects would be far reaching and it may do more to mar the already blighted image of Nigeria and Nigerians whether resident in Nigeria or in diaspora.

God help us!!!!

You've got to find what you love

Totally, totally true. I stumbled upon this post on Tim's Weblog. How? You might ask. Well I finally installed Google Desktop after having downloaded it 2 weeks ago on a whim. I set it up as a sidebar so I could access all the varying functions. Next thing I know, one of the panels called "Web Clips" fills up with Titles of posts from every blog I've visited. This particular topic springs up at me so I decide to check it out.

Anyhow, the crux of the matter is this article on the Stanford University news service aptly christened Stanford Report website. It's the text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios at the 2005 Commencement (an Ivy League College term for Graduation) Ceremony on June 12.

This is straight talk from a Highly respected man that knows his onions. People like him and Bill Gates give us college dropouts a good name, even though I'm still getting educated, it's not your conventional college education...yet. Here's a summary of what he was driving at:

You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Essentially find that thing that you can work at all day even if you aren't getting paid, 'cos if u can work at it that way, you'll be very good at it and ultimately get really paid (hope I didn't lose you with that tirade).

Most importantly here are points that every young mind must realise, grasp and understand, because they will form the basis for the man (or woman) you become tomorrow.

1. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
2. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
3. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
4. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

He also said "You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever". I totally agree because this determines what actions (or inactions) you're likely to pursue.

Finally he refers to a publication called The Whole Earth Catalog he used to read when he was younger, which when it had run its course the publishers wrote on the back "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." I believe that addresses a continuous willingness to learn, to gather new information and not to think of yourself as wise or as a sage but constantly learning from whoever and wherever, 'cos the moment you stop learning, you start dying.

So, my final words to y'all,

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

Blogger for Word - Cool Tool

I just downloaded and installed a copy of Blogger for Word (mostly for the heck of it, because I can) and decided to test it out. It’s actually a pretty nifty tool. It saves you a lot of hassles when you need to get a post out on your blog ASAP. I’m actually quite pleased with the way it handles.

I’ll probably be using it more often as sometimes I get a brainwave and feel like I should share it on my blog and blogging in the browser window is risky ‘cos right now, I’m working out of a client’s office and they like to see you work to justify the bucks they’re shelling out. An open browser window is not an indication of you doing their job, even if you’re searching a forum for solutions to their problems. Ahh! I’ll definitely stick to this one.

God Save Nigeria

God, Save Nigeria. It's been a very sad weekend. First a plane from the fleet of one of the nations leading airlines crashes after just a few minutes in flight and as if that wasn't enough, the First lady of the Federation dies in faraway Spain after undergoing a tummy tuck.

The annnoying thing for me in all of this is the fact that it took nearly a whole day to find the wreck of the plane, bringing to the fore the extent of the incompetence and ineptitude of the agencies tasked with the effort, The Nigeria Police, as they are wont to be called (never did make sense to me why the "n" was omitted after Nigeria), NEMA (Nigerian Emergency Management Agency) and all the other agencies that were involved.

There was way too much misinformation, worst of it being the fact that some sources claimed that anout 50 people had survived or been rescued when at that time the exact location of the crash was unknown.

The Honourable Minister for Information and National Orientation, whom up until the time I greatly respected, then proceeded to make the most irrational decision ever by calling for a complete shutdown of operations of DAAR Communications, the Independent Media House that was first on the scene of the disaster, saying that they took footage of dismembered body parts when the nes had not been broken to the families and for declaring that there could not be any survivors before getting clearance from the government, which the NBC quickly enforced.

I thought they were supposed to be reporting news as it unfolded. What were they supposed to say seeing as the bulk of the plane was lodged deep in the earth and what was visiblew of it was strewn across the country side. Were they to have lied, would that have helped the plight of the families of the victims? I don't know.

It's all so very sad and it reminds us of how unprepared we are for emergencies or disasters, thank God we don't suffer natural disasters like Tsunamis and eathquakes because there would be no hope. I guess it's also part of why were generally so complacent and I even dare say "stupid". For it was such hardships that forced nations such as Japan to become the technological giants they are today.

On the issue of the Late First Lady, what can I say, I guess she wanted to look her best for her 60th birthday next month. I presume that she just did not come out of anaesthesia, probably becuause of her age and other factors too numerous to mention, one being that she was asthmatic, and I'm not even gonna go there. Probably if the anaesthesia had been administed locally, she might have survived, but then that's just my thinking, and besides, what do I know.

The bottomline is just that God should help us out of the quagmire in which we currently reside as a nation. We need The hand of God, good governance, excemplary leadership, a strong national vision, hunger for knowledge, justice and truth. The list goes on and on. But I know that all will be well. In the words of Lagbaja "Naija must sweet again". We shall overcome.

Frustration, Joblessness, you call it

Right now I am very frustrated. I've been in a Cybercafé for over an hour and I have achieved abolutely nothing. It's just so nnoying, worse still, this café has a VSAT and they're still f**king up. I just wanna scream. SOmebody help me

My Very First Blog

Wow, here's my very first ever blog. I'm excited. These things won't be regular 'cos I don't have a personal internet connection and I can get really busy, but we'll see. I don't have much to say right now 'cos I have to rush back to work.

Ciao.