Here’s a collection of random things that apply to multiple categories.
Rugby
The world champs went home and although politics are pissing on their parade, they have the umbrella of that longed-for euphoria to keep them dry for now. But it’s a tiny, tiny umbrella and the political piss is being blown in from all sides by the winds of change.
The good news is South Africa is now topping the IRB’s world rugby ranking, which as World Cup Champions is their rightful place. Interesting is how Argentina jumped from 6th to 3rd (!) place, thanks mostly to the vicious salt they rubbed in France’s wounds, and is now the number 3 team in the world behind New Zealand who is number two. If, like me, you wonder how that works, it’s all explained here.
Never too old for online dating
Whilst I was surfing my favourite South African news site (favourite, because you don’t make you pay for it when you’re logging in from overseas like the other giant, Naspers, does), I came across this little gem advertised in the sidebar. It’s an online-dating web site’s advert that features random profiles.
Meant to entice you to join, it will give you a little bit of info about who you’re seeing and what they’re looking for. I had to screen-grab this one (might never see it again), because it amused me for several reasons.
First, for relatively conservative South Africa for this distinguished gentleman to date so publicly at all is a huge social achievement. Secondly, I know my mom took a good 10 years to get the hang of this online thing, so kudos to him for doing that too. Then, I think he’s quite possibly the oldest person I’ve ever seen using an online dating service.
It’s probably a bit nasty of me, but first thing I thought when I saw his profile pic was rich, lonely, and extremely rich.
Anyway, chaps to the guy. You gotta wonder how the responses he’s getting are going for him.
Water under Troubled Bridge
I think I might have been one of the first people to travel across the new flyover next to the Kadamunsing Shopping Centre the night that it was opened to the public. Have you noticed how it hangs to the right when you travel over it direction Damai?
I picked up this little morsel of goss from architect and engineering friends of mine the other day: apparently, and these are just rumours, I don’t pretend to state them as facts, they were saving costs. See, usually roads are built slightly higher (nearly imperceptible) in the middle and lower to the sides to facilitate the efficient run-off of water, but this means draining systems on both sides, which clearly is more costly than just doing it on one side. So, slant your bridge to the right and save yourself some dosh.
I’m not sure if they were cutting corners to do this, or whether they had planned it all along, but there you have it. By having the surface slant down from left to right, they only had to fit one side with drainage holes and pipes. Hmmm.
And, I’m not sure, but if there are some mathematical geniuses out there, they could calculate the difference in the volume of the earth/gravel/rubbish used to build the ramp on the Damai side of the bridge, vs. the volume that would be required to make that ramp a proper, smooth decline.
Damn, if you approached that end of the bridge going faster than 40 kph I’m convinced you’d catch some air on the way down. By making it so steep they must have saved tons of earth, or gravel or whatever it is they use to prop it up with, and I wonder how much stuff like that goes for per truck load.
KK Traffic Problems
KK doesn’t have traffic problems. KK has driver attitude problems.
It’s true, there’s possibly 2 cars for every person in KK, but I think the roads can actually handle it. The challenge we face is the every driver is only in it for himself, which is understandable, because if you give one guy a chance, the 5 behind him will take advantage.
In order to make it easier for everybody, everybody has to be kind, patient and giving on the road. If everybody doesn’t do it, nobody will do it, so I can understand that this is going to be an uphill battle. But by making small, attitude adjustments that require very little effort, everybody can contribute to alleviating the traffic situation in Kota Kinabalu.
Tip No.1: Park properly - For instance, in this picture I took today, I returned from lunch to find the car park packed. There was this space, but Mr. or Mrs. Park-I-Cant parked their car in a way which made this space unusable. You see this in car parks every, as if KK sells drivers licenses right next to Pay as You Go phone cards.
Sure, I can squeeze my car in there and then carefully slip through the narrow space I would be left with, but do you think Mr. or Mrs. Park-I-Cant will do the same? Probably not. They will come back and without much regard for my car take little bits of my car’s paint with them by scraping it with their bag / keys / small children or their own car door, thinking nothing of it. My car is already full of little nicks and cuts that mysteriously appear while it’s parked in car parks and I’m not near it.
So park properly, it’s no effort. And if you can’t expertly maneuver your car, please stay at home.
Tip No.2: You’re not the only road user, be considerate – I was forced to drive to KK’s CBD in the middle of the day. I didn’t want to, but I had to. And then what I knew would happen, happened. Stuck in a jam, crawling along at two steps per minute, little grandma’s with walking sticks looking like they’re running past my car.
So cars were pushing and shoving and not respecting yellow boxes and not letting anyone in, but I was patient. Aircon, music, I was ok. Then I circled the Capital Hotel block to look for parking, all the while crawling, when suddenly the Kinabalu Daya Hotel mini-bus in front of me stops. More traffic, I thought, but no – this driver gets out, opens the back and starts to unload supplies, linen, flowers and other rubbish for the hotel from his van.
My incredulous look, hands up asking wtf was only met with a smile and wave of the hand. What could I do? And while he gingerly took his time unpacking the stuff onto the sidewalk, traffic was building up behind me and spilling into the road in front of Little Italy, causing yet more traffic. Eventually, after a good 6 minutes of seeing how many eggs the Daya Hotel uses per day, he hopped in and crawled off. A little further down the road a parking space opened up and he rolled in. I was fuming.
Anyway, watch out for my How-to-solve-KK’s-traffic Tips Series coming up soon.
The Doulos has Left the Building
We went to visit the Doulos last night. Got there, long snaking line of course. Armed with our secret weapon, Julia, we just waltzed straight past and went to the staff entrance where Julia hooked us up with the main man, the Director of the ship, who in turn hooked us up with Marli, the very easy-on-the-eye Media Relations Officer of the ship. She took us through the staff entrance and gave us the skinny on the Doulos.
Check out that article coming up soon too. They left the KK harbour this morning, but they’ll be spending it at Sepangar Bay today, because that’s where they will be refueling before they leave for Brunei, their home for the next 7 days. After that it’s off to the Philippines for some down-time to do a 10 day dry-dock stint for repairs.
The Doulos is a worthwhile project, and if I could afford to go without pay for so long, I would actually consider joining it. If you can afford to live on the ship, do good is many different countries while you live off sponsorship, then do go check out their website at www.mvdoulos.org for the requirements.
And that wraps it up for Issue I of Random Snippets.