the triangle below canal street...

more commonly known as TriBeCa, is one of my favourite old haunts in ol' "snor city" (as pretoria is loving known by many a south african).

last night it was the scene of good food, great company, laughter, forgetting, and a chocolate cake or two... yes, my friend phil is visiting from germany and he surprised me with a phone call as i was leaving work! seeing as i missed any opportunity of meeting up with him, and of meeting his girl of 3 and a bit years, the last time he was in ptown, i jumped at his invitation of a drink. not only that though, i haven't been out in pta for ages. i miss the place. although it seriously lacks in quantity of quality eating establishments, there are some real gems. it also provided an opportunity to entice nico, who very kindly offered to ferry me around after that-event-we-shall-not-speak-of, with a taste of the capital from an insider's perspective.

plesierig.

indescribable carnage

the unspeakable, the unthinkable, the inexpressible has happened...

my poor baby was mauled... by a truck... today. i am ok. my little clio is not. or at least she is just a little maimed. of course the truck got by virtually unscathed. guess it will teach the little podhopper for trying to clamber all over the truck.

*sob*

keep on keeping on

hello everyone!

my, what a hectic start to the year! things have been all over the place, with many exciting things happening over at chilibean, and not much of anything else going on in the rest of my life. well... not much that i could blog about in a few seconds or so. we should do coffee. how is your 2008 looking?

so this post is just to let you know that i am still alive, still victoire, and if i owe you an email i know who you are, and would love to get back to you... and i will get back to you... but not anytime soon. sorry!

let me know how things are going on your side... it will help me to keep on keeping on!

lots of love, v.

discovering the nerd in me...

You Are 24% Nerdy

You're a little nerdy, but no one would ever call you a nerd. You sometimes get into nerdy things, but only after they've become a part of mainstream culture.

How Nerdy Are You?

hot chili luvin'

paul & i are very excited to announce the birth of our new media business, chilibean media! we're looking forward to many chili hot ventures and spreading the chili luv in the new media arena... check out our video for more info about our passion...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DveSuEJ8aKE

our bloopers are really funny too... or i was laughing a lot at least! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GF-iOR9NTE

as paul says...

Victoire and I are thrilled to announce that we are launching a new business which we are calling chilibean media. Given that chilibean media is a media business, we thought we would launch our new baby using this video:

You will start to see changes to this blog as we begin the process of migrating to a new blog (we have a niggling technical issue to resolve and then we’re renovating!!).

This is just a start of what we hope will become a pretty hot new direction for what is already a pretty hot blog. Thanks for being part of chilibean. We are only hot because of you.

Tags: chilibean, chilibean media, announcement, launch, business

mini makeout sessions

ok so i received the following email from a colleague... not only does it annoy me that people send this kind of thing to my work email address, but i really wonder at what a single guy at the office is thinking by sending a single me at the office an email like this. or maybe it's just me...

singles vs property ads (2)

LOL!

I am looking for a female who is of sober habits to rent the flat with me. ...

*speachless*... talk about knowing what you want...

i am also worried about receiving all these "to share" ads from private property now... if this is what's going on out there, i'm happy to be broke... but living alone!

grab a chilipod!

chilibean have launched our own chilipod! that's right, you can listen to us talking new media from now on at any time of the day or night... so go on, subscribe to the feed... you know you wanna!

oh and while you're at it... why not send us your comments / criticisms / suggestions? t i p s At c h i l i b e a n dot coza

laughter

i had the nicest compliment i've ever had today - from the cleaning lady, Joyce, here at the office!

she said that she loves my laughter... she always listens to my laugh around the office and it rings in her head. she reckons she could laugh all on her own just from hearing my laugh!

it makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside. i think i'm going to go home and laugh to myself a bit... :)

greetz to all my fellow lonely heartz...

gregor shared, and then promptly blogged about, this article earlier.

i think he really does say it all (and apparently so do i). the article is laughable to say the least... i mean seriously? yes, there are always exceptions but from what i experienced on the 27th jan i couldn't disagree more with prof keren.

anyways i won't go into my thoughts of him or ask how he became an expert on bloggers...

but i will note that i find it rather ironic that so many singles ads appear on the article...

like this one of the girl with freakishly blue eyes... or the thirteen year old (looking?) "actual member"...

chuckling in the morning...

i recently joined the obsidian jabber server, and was rather delighted to discover the administrator has a wicked sense of humour on two occasions... and since then i have been mulling over sharing them with the world. so, after obtaining his permission, i have published both admin messages below in chronological order. in actual fact, paul may identify with some of this...

Conversation with jabber.obsidian.co.za on 13/12/2006 00:30:26:
(00:30:26) jabber.obsidian.co.za: Well, that will teach me for poking a stick at the jabber server! Chaos, mayhem, destruction. My work here is done.

Will explain later, once things are working properly and my underpants are dry.

Warren
(serverslayer@jabber.obsidian.co.za)

[actually, it's ]
(02:08:43) jabber.obsidian.co.za: Right then...

Last night I decided to investigate an issue on the server that had nothing whatsoever to do with jabber. Imagine my surprise / horror / chagrin / underpants when the server died, taking her transports with her. The main server is up, along with two transports due to some serious duct-taping (during which no alt.hamsters were harmed, seduced or 'accidentally' fed Rohypnol.) Please be patient while I secure more hamsters ERR.... .duct tape..

Currently two transports are having library-version issues [MSN and AIM] - a deft rebuild of a package or two ought to set things straight.

Thanks for your patience and that LOVELY hamper of second-hand mens underwear some kind soul left on my door step... You guuuuuuuuys :) *sniff* I promised myself I would cry.....

I guess I'd better get back to the duct-taping.

Regards
Warren, slayer of Jabber


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(31/01/2007 21:54:44) jabber.obsidian.co.za: Greetings Jabberites......

As many of you must have noticed, our server was unavailable for approximately one day recently. I'd like to open this confessional with a small but important statement:

NOT MY FAULT!

Believe it or not, I was not in any way involved. I wasn't optimising, or upgrading, or experimenting in any way, shape or form - it was an issue with our leased line! There I've said it.

Be aware, however, that between our [until very recently] only telecoms company and South Africa's only power company, there may still be trials and tribulations ahead - this is Africa after all: Cables get stolen, migratory ostriches get caught in power lines and elephants routinely purloin large satellite dishes for their myserious 'Elephant Braai Area' skottel parties.

Sorry for the downtime - we're busy implementing preventative measure as I type:
1) We're painting all our cables to look like snakes.
2) We've ordered a battery of SOM (Surface to Ostrich) missile launchers.
3) We've confiscated the elephants tongs and spatulas. Let's see them skottel NOW! HAH!

So please be patient with us, Eskom and Telkom. We're doing our best!

Thanks
Warren

PS: For our foreign users:

Braai: Like a barbecue, only with more meat, beer and khaki safari suits.
Skottel: Like a braai, only you cook over gas, on something that looks like a flat-ish wok.
Tongs: The things you use to turn the meat on a braai.