About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

18 April 2008

Sandton City Parking Bug

Sandton City has a nice parking fee structure - during office hours, fees are charged at hourly rates (and are quite steep). However during off peak hours (including weekends, and after 7pm on weekdays), it is a flat fee, regardless of how long you park.

The bug crops up when you enter the parking lot before 7pm and leave after 7pm. Instead of charging the higher of the after hour fees (R 8 currently) and the hourly rate (it is R 6 for the 1st hour), it just charges from the time of entry to 7pm.

So, if you enter the parking lot after 6pm, you actually get a cheaper flat rate than if you entered at 7pm! Ok, it is only R2 ... which is not even an ice-cream at Sandton City ... but still. And off course, it also means that if you enter before 6pm and leave after 7pm, you will probably pay a lot more than the flat rate!

16 April 2008

Movie: Vantage Point

It has been some time since I watched a movie on the big screen - in fact since I left Cape Town (when I was watching a movie almost once a week), this is only my fourth visit to the movie theatre. Anyway, it was a good opportunity to activate my Vitality card - although the overall selection of movies at Sandton City was quite poor ...

As for the movie itself - it tries too hard to be "artistic", and fails miserably. The idea of telling a story from different perspective really worked in Crash - in Vantage Point it doesn't - because the roll backs become very irritating. In fact a number of people watching started swearing after the third or fourth vantage point. The subject itself is quite amusing in some ways - an more "friendly" version of Americans - the president does not want to bomb the terrorists, the bumbling tourist saves the young girl and it is not only muslims who want to kill Americans.

All said, Vantage Point is a really good action film - the car chase is brilliant, and the storyline does have quite a few nice ideas. It is above all, entertaining.

14 April 2008

Splash and Dash to Durban

On Saturday morning, I drove down to Durban ... on Sunday morning I drove back to Jo'burg - a very quick trip indeed, about the same as my Easter weekend trip - Saturday afternoon to Gaborone, and Sunday afternoon back to Jo'burg.

Both trip were due to my Mom I guess - the trip to Gaborone was taking the family there, and the trip to Durban was taking (some) of them back ... but it also served me to get my stuff - especially my mountain bike. So now the bike is in the shop for a much needed service, and hopefully I will be able to go on a ride this weekend.