We’re Ultimate players and Ultimate players never travel without an Ultimate disc. When you’re traveling, it’s not just a disc, it’s a friend-making tool – friends of the disc.

Having said that, Ultimate players never travel without cleats either, but here we are in KL and neither Julia nor myself have cleats. Perhaps we’re not such hardcore Ultimate players yet. Or perhaps we’ve foregone the 2kg in cleats because Tour D’ Tom Yum is supposed to feature lost and lost of beach sand.

Our compromise was bringing trainers for the two Ultimate sessions we planned – the first one is here in KL and the second we’re aiming for is Soidawgs in Bangkok. Our Sabah Ultimate Guru, Ken Kassim, is now based here in KL, so he invited us out for a game over at KBU. The 3rd taxi we flagged agreed to use the meter and we set off.

We saw the discs flying long before we knew where we where, so it was an easy find. We proceeded to reacquaint ourselves with Ultimate players we previously met at the Malaysian Ultimate Open and also to meet new ones. Of course, their level of play is beyond anything we have in Sabah, so we really appreciated the opportunity.

Ken quickly dismissed Julia’s sneakers as unsuitable to play in and when I took mine out of the bag the gaping soles dismissed mine too. So barefoot we played, which turned out detrimental to Julia, as in one of the first point she managed to stub her foot against the heal of a cleated player, instantly rendering 3 of her toes swollen and red. She would hobble for the rest of the game.

Other than that incident it was a great game in very hot weather and we worked up a suitable appetite, which is just as well, because Ken then carted us off to his usually post-ultimate grazing grounds – banana leaf at Kana Curry House.

Where is Kana Curry House? I have no idea – the road there winded left and right and I don’t know KL that well, so I might well never find the place again. Section 14, says Julia, but what do I know.

Anyway, the size of the banana leaf they placed in front of me was a prelude to how much food was to come. And come it did. For the next 20 minutes people came past with all sorts of food items and if you do anything that looks like a nod you get a portion on your leaf. I appeared to be nodding quite a bit, so before I knew it my banana leaf was stacked. So ate. And ate and ate and ate until I could no more – then I ate some more to clear my leaf, because it’s rude to leave food on your leaf.

Kana Curry House became the second place on Tour D’ Tom Yum where I would pick up weight. This banana leaf was also hands the most expensive banana leaf I will ever have, but I believe it was the large, nearly-half-a-chicken piece that I had that pushed up the price. But good stuff. Burp!

Take me away to Out of Africa

Luckily this was very early on in the day and we had been quite active, because we had Out Of Africa, that fabulous South African restaurant in Petaling Jaya, lined up for dinner. And Ian and Eve were joining, so we knew lots of food and fun was to be had.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I think Julia went shopping, I can’t remember what I did – I might have been nursing my bloated stomach. Near the evening we met up with I and E and set off to Out of Africa. We repeated a class act similar to our previous time there (except less Vodka).

We started off with biltong and chicken liver pate – it would be rude not to. We followed it up with with pap-en-wors, venison pie and Ian had the ox-tail potjie – trust him to have something of an animal other than meat. For desert we shared a portion each of Cape Brandy pudding and Lemon Meringue pie between the four of us. As usual, everything was outstanding.

We were in time to catch the LRT home and because Ian wanted to take us for one of his action packed activities – which supposedly started quite early – for convenience sake we stayed over at theirs. Again there was some walking involved to get home, but it was all for the greater good as we were stuffed yet again.

Tour D’ Tom Yum is certainly looking like it’s going to leave a few fat people in its wake.

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You know how people say you should plan for the unexpected, because you never know what might happen? It’s good advice that.

Certain aspects of my life is so predictable, that when I planned to come to KL to see my son on the first leg of Tour D’ Tom Yum, I necessarily had to have a contingency plan.

You see, my x has become so predictable in using my son as a pawn in her bitterness, that even my sister in

Cape Town, some 7,000 miles away, knew that she would let me fly all the way to KL only to come up with some crock about why I couldn’t see him.

And that’s exactly what happened. The drama of it all *rollingeyes*.

Luckily there’s good people in KL too

With the predictable part of our visit to KL having run its course, related emotions boxed and tucked away, we forked our plans and met up with tree-hugger extraordinary, Ian and the lovely Eve.

Immediately they plunged Julia and myself into culinary abandon at some secret Baba-and-Nonya restaurant tucked away in the corner of a building, which was a much longer walk away than Ian claimed. It was worth it though as Ian demonstrated the barrel of laughs hidden in innocent looking cendol.

With our stomachs full a nap was in order and much desired (considering our 4am start this morning), but instead we headed to the SA High Comm to go and sort out some stuff and meet some interesting people and some not-so-interesting people. But it turned out well and Julia was treated to a good 10 minutes of Afrikaans banter as I sorted out my stuff.

We then indulged in a bit of window shopping over at KLCC and sampled some of the food from which we are deprived in Kota Kinabalu. Our day ended in the company of Ian and Eve again, them clearly being on a mission to fatten us up.

Their local food haunt in Lucky Garden was to be where we gained our first kilos on this Tour D’ Tom Yum, and to make sure we didn’t burn it off in the day immediately following, we chugged it down with beer.

Great day, and all things considered and some ignored, not a bad start to Tour D’ Tom Yum.

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From a previous post on the topic it will be easy to see that there is no love lost between myself and a certain person at the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

Over the last 8 years I have had no choice but to interact with the face of the SA High Comm in KL, Komotie*.

*I didn’t change her name on purpose (although I might have misspelled it), because I hope she or her superiors discovers this post and do something about her attitude.

Komotie, I have no doubt, was once a diligently compassionate employee of the SA High Comm servicing the needs of South Africans and those hoping to do business in or travel to South Africa, whether it be silly questions or otherwise, pertaining to their status in Malaysia and their connection with South Africa.

That was likely very, very long ago.

From the post above you know that I first encountered Komotie in 2000 and few things have changed since.  It was then with little pleasure that I had to phone the High Comm again this afternoon to ask a rather simple question.

You see, according to my xyf, I’ve recently infiltrated the bureaucracy of the South African government and can now manipulate government processes at will. “Someone smells like a fish, isn’t it?” she said in her accusatory, but otherwise delightful SMS.

If she is to be believed, I have maliciously manipulated the passport application of my son and made it miraculously disappear.  Aside from being the most outrageous thing she has come up with this er, month, it is also patently false (let the record show).

As a point in case: My lawyer says I should should phone, so I phone the SA High Comm to find out what the story is.  Yes, like everyone else, I have to phone the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur’s office number (which btw is +60 3 2168 8663 or +60 3  2170 2400), because unlike what the xyf may believe, I don’t have a red phone waiting for my call.

I have formulated the very simple question: “what happened to the passport?”, with some pre-amble to explain who I am and what my involvement is with this situation.  I expect it to be an easy call.

Komotie’s not unpleasant voice answers the phone, and I recognise it immediately.  I know I’m in trouble, because she’s like a stone wall, and if at first she says “no”, that’s all you’re getting, whether you beg, cry or plead, the woman will bend not an inch.  I explain who I am. I always make the mistake of thinking because I’m South African and she’s working at the South African embassy, she will be happy to hear from me. “We were just dealing with this”, she says in a patronising tone of voice, “why now do you suddenly phone?”.

I struggle to not put my arms up in defense of her aggression. “I’m the boy’s father and my signature is on the passport application form, I’m inquiring as to what happened to the passport.”

“I’m not saying anything”, she says as if I’m a reporter phoning to hear what her personal opinion is about Jacob Zuma and his prospects as South Africa’s next president, “you can wait until Marianne gets back from Bangkok.”

“But,” I start, now a little more defensive because of her tone and blatant rudeness, “do you know what the problem is?”

“Yes,” she says, “I’ve already explained it to your wife so you can talk to her.”  I can only imagine the conversation those two must have had.

Now I’m on the offensive, “It’s my EX-wife”, I underscore, “and if we were talking I wouldn’t be phoning you, now would I?  Can you just tell me what happened to the passport?”  “No,” she says, wielding her unrelenting batton of authority making sure I’m well aware of exactly where I am in the food chain, “I won’t.  Sort it out with your EX-wife.”

“Let me guess,” I say in an effort to catch her of guard, ” this is Komotie, right?”.  There’s only half a second of hesitation.  “Yes,” she says with an audible full-stop.

“I’m asking you a simple question to which you know the answer, why can’t you give me the answer?” But there is no guard to catch her off off.

“I’ve already told you” is all she says.

Now, completely exasperated, I say “Komotie, are you naturally attacking and unhelpful, or have you been jaded by all your years with the South African embassy?”

And that was the end of that conversation, because after the question mark Komotie from the South African High Commission in Kuala Lumpur hung up the phone.  This was at about 2.30pm and the 4 consequent calls I made went unanswered, except for one particular long-ringing call, which was picked up but hung back up a few seconds later. I guess she’s alone in the office and can do as she pleases.

So, there you have it.  Not so in with the South African bureaucracy after all.

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“Have you checked your computer for spyware, trojans and other malicious software, sir?”, asked the support tech at Telekom Malaysia’s Streamyx Support Line.

“I use Ubuntu”, I said slowly and smugly, relishing her inevitable conundrum, not knowing what Ubuntu is, but being unable to admit it lest she seems ignorant. I let my superior operating system’s name sink in for a few seconds before I added, “Ubuntu Linux. I Use Ubuntu Linux.”

I could hear the relief on the otherside of the line as she recognised the word Linux, but before she could flip her Support 101 Manual to the Linux page I continued “my operating system doesn’t suffer from spyware, trojans and other malicious software.”

“Oh”, she said as she reliased that all of her other made-for-windows-cookie-cutter solutions suddenly didn’t apply.

You see, my notebook computer, which I’ve been using for some hardcore Internet interaction for the last 4 months, has encountered the grand total of 0 (zero) viruses, spyware, trojans and other malicious software. Why?

Because it’s Ubuntu. A community supported operating system of the highest calibre.  If any of the above exploits anything on Ubuntu, it’s patched even before most people know about it.  That’s of course assuming the nasties can figure out how to exploit anything, because each user on Ubuntu is self contained, and no malicious piece of software will ever have the power to destroy an entire Ubuntu installation.

And that’s how I know that virusses, spyware, trojans and other malicious software have absolute nothing to do with my slow Internet connection.

StreamyX doesn’t mix so well in my house

Yup, for months my broadband connection has been slightly faster than an ISDN line (remember those?) and after experiencing lighting fast connections, on slower packages no less, at my friends’ houses, actually watching a 3-minute YouTube video on the fly, I decided it was time to complain.

For the last week I’ve been in fruitless deliberations with the Telekom Malaysia’s tech support, them trying to solve the reason for my slow connection.  On 3 occations I had to sit through their 12-step solution-to-everything support exercises. It’s like calling to say your head hurts when you knock it agianst the wall, but then still different people ask you to knock your head against a wall to ask again you if it hurts.

At the support’s request, I’ve done more than 6 speed tests where I log into their ftp server with a piece of Java software that downloads a 1MiB file and confirms, time and time again, that I get max 245kbps off a connection that advertises 1028kbps and aims to deliver at least 80% of that.  As if by telling them my head hurts when I knock it against the wall isn’t enough, they have to see me knock my head and feel the bump before they believe me.

They’ve even sent over a technician (phone line technician) who looked at the admin area for my ADSL modem, saw that it says I’m actually connected at 1,536kps and took that as the obvious, irrefutable proof that they are in fact giving me what I’m paying for, yet couldn’t explain why his own website, www.tm.net.my took a good 3 minutes to download.

“It’s the computer” he says, pointing at my incriminatingly alien operating system. “Erm, no, it isn’t” I say as I repeat the slow-loading-tm.net.my page trick on my desktop computer that runs XP (and is riddled with malicious software that I got from sticking my pendrive into computers at my previous employer) and Julia appears, doing the same with her notebook that runs Vista.  But he has nothing to say about that.

Eventually he left saying he would switch the physical port of my line at the hub, but as it turns out he had the last laugh, as after he did that, my connection slowed to speeds I last experienced when I had to dial up.

The tech support saga continues, and I only hope that I can get up to a speed that will allow me to download the much anticipated Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex that is due to be released in about 8 days time.

Yup, it’s good to be using a free, community supported operating system that releases an improved version with new features every 6 months.  I had my first whiff of Ubuntu when it was Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, my first steps away from Windows.

Soon after I was awed by my current installation of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and I can only expect great things from the Intrepid Ibex.  I see also that the next release has been named and will be Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, scheduled for release in April 2009.

Of course, a fast connection sure would make life…. faster.

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You know, I may feel many things in my life are beyond my control, but my blog is not one of it. Nope, my blog is mine, completely under my control.  What I say goes, what I say stays.  My blog is my country and I’m the dictator.

I therefore feel not unlike Robert Mugabe when Morgan Tsvangarai went all democratic on his ass, when something that I didn’t explicitly OK’ed appears on my blog.

So it was then, quite by accident, that I looked at my own RSS feed and saw some new stuff that I didn’t rubberstamp appear there.  Sneaky YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) had unilaterally decided to not only insert some related posts into my feed (new feature!), but also to reward itself with a promo link back to its own website below every single entry - without asking or even telling me!

YARPP is a free piece of software from the Wordpress Plugin Repository.  It doesn’t require me to pay for it, it doesn’t even require me to link to it in exchange for using it.

Of course, it’s a great piece of software and we all have to eat, so donating a link is the least I can do to thank the creator for his hard work, right?

But for crying in a bucket, ask me first! Don’t go and be clever and write yourself into my country. Subverting a dictator will cause heads to roll.

When I auto-upgraded YARPP it came with these new features. One’s automatic inclusion in your RSS feed and two is an automatic link underneath every entry (which on an RSS feed with 10 items listed means 10 links to YARPP).  And it’s on by default - disable it in the plugin settings.

Here’s a link mitcho, please don’t take liberties on my blog like that again - there are other plugins that does that same thing out there.

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