Blue Bulls vs Canterbury Crusaders

For the first 35 minutes, and the last 10 minutes; The Crusaders absolutely dominated The Bulls. They forced the Bulls to make mistakes, dominated possession and it was mostly one way traffic. In those 45 minutes, the visitors scored most of their 30 points, to the hosts' 6.

A final push from the Bulls before half time, resulted in a penalty score, narrowed the half time deficit. After the break they came back a team possessed, scoring 20 unanswered points. For the 30 minutes, they were unstoppable; but then things went wrong as they went back to losing possession, and making stupid mistakes. But despite the last desperate moves, more than a couple of minutes past the final horn, the Crusaders still came 2 points short.

Actually, it should have been a comfortable victory for The Crusaders. But the reliable Dan Carter missed 3 kicks, 2 fairly easy ones too. And that was the difference.

Gautrain to the game

The success of public transport can be measured not only how well it works during working hours, but also how useful it is for leisure activities. It is in the latter, that Gautrain is quite lacking. After all the train stops at 8:30pm, when clubs etc are still thinking about opening!

This afternoon, I decided to go watch the Bulls play the Crusaders at Loftus in this weekend's Super Rugby matches. The train was quite full, so I was not the only one with the same idea.

Hatfield, the closest station, is still quite a distance from the stadium (about 20 minutes walk). I noticed that this is the same for Supersport Park. So a simple suggestion; have some auxiliary transport arrangements during big events; matches concerts etc; and then the value of the train becomes so much more!

Music: Savage Lucy and Cortina Whiplash

It has been a long time since I have been to a rock gig in SA. Partly it's because there aren't many venues in the Jo'burg-Tshwane region that seems to play live rock (with a number of venues having closed down since I moved here), and partly because M doesn't like the one venue (The Bohemian) that regularly features rock bands.

With M away, and needing to kill quite a bit of time before picking up J at the airport at the ungodly hour of 23:30, I decided to go to The Bohemian with just the knowledge that there was some live performances, but no idea who. I only got to see the first two bands since the bands started well after 21:30.

Savage Lucy

The first band, was a three piece (guitar, bass and drums) with no vocalist. It was an amazing set driven by some great musicianship; a medley of styles - the first song had the theme from "in the hall of the mountain king", some had hints of riffs from other well known bands and I think I heard some samba/Latin guitar riffs in the last song.

I was absolutely blown away! There aren't that many bands that just play music, and in the style of Pink Floyd, their songs are quite long exploiting the various instruments (and their effects) to the full.

They have won some awards recently, and this is certainly a band to watch out for in the future.

Cortina Whiplash

They are a 4 piece, all girl, young rock band. After the musical medley that was Savage Lucy, their style was a lot more sedate and a bit more traditional rock. They also had a bit of a "bad girl" attitude, not sure if it was for show or real; but it did feel a bit contrived.

That doesn't mean they were bad. They have a good sound, with very clear vocals. The lyrics were interesting, and they actually have quite a good stage presence. All girl bands are a bit of an attraction on their own; this one has good music to back them up.

The Volume of Internet Porn

There used to be a saying, that the Internet was built on porn. It was afterall the first successful online commercial venture - long before Amazon.com and the likes, Internet porn was profitable.

Extremetech has a great article on the volume of Internet traffic that is consumed by porn. The numbers are staggering; and really dwarf Internet sites including some of the most popular websites. Much of the traffic is made up of streaming data (contributing to the volume), but even the unique visits etc. are impressive.

Article here: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites

Russell Peters' Notorious World Tour

Russell Peter's "Somebody gonna get hurt real bad" (YouTube) is probably one of the best comedy routines, and even though the joke itself is retired; it is still what Russell Peters is mostly known for. His observational comedy, especially on race and immigrants (himself being a child of immigrants) backed up by some brilliant accents.

Russell Peters' new show, "Notorius World Tour" just started (with South Africa being one of the early stops); and there are still some rough edges. What is possibly the sequel to "Somebody gonna get hurt real bad", featuring his white friend "Stephen", and the difference in parenting approaches has a lot of potential; but it just doesn't feel like the end version. The highlight of his show, for me, were his various impromptu conversations with the audience; and drawing out the various cultural stories and observations. The rough edges really showed in the short awkward pauses where Russell didn't say anything, and the audience didn't applaud - a bit of nothingness. It wasn't that the comedy wasn't funny - it was - the show itself just didn't seem to flow that well.

American comedian, Ruben Paul, was the support act. Like a number of comedians, his show was about relationships (what is it with comedians giving advice to the audience on relationships); and off course what it is like for an African American to get back to Africa. His show was actually a lot more polished in some respects; but I suppose he wasn't trying out new material.

The decision to go to the show was very much last minute. I saw some tickets were still available, and went to Carnival City (which remains the dreariest casino I have been to) and bought tickets before the show. The tickets were expensive, and to be honest, I am not convinced it was worth it. It was a good show; but not that great.