Here it is, my last post for two weeks... maybe.

I am now going to get ready for my flight. I have extended my flickr badge on the right so that more pictures are displayed. I will hopefully be moblogging my trip so check it out to see some photos of me and jen and our trip.

Thats it from me. Shutter closed.

Blogged with Flock

So, due to my brothers incredible car accident i have become motivated to start publishing photos of the most outrageous crashes that have happened to people that i know, or know of, or who's brothers sisters second aunt twice removed knew at some point. So, send in those photos of your crashes, let me know if you were injured, if someone didnt make it. Let teach some people a lesson about speeding.

Im sure the Hamster (Top Gear) will be excited about this. so lets do it.

Email me photos and story to: nharalambous@gmail.com

Blogged with Flock

It's Wed night, its 11pm, im tired but cant sleep, im excited but its delayed.

Im scheduled to fly in exactly 22 hours. wow, that could be 22 days, 22 months right now. Time drags on and on, especially when I am going to see her.

Blogged with Flock

Do Not Let This Happen! The Govt is trying to squash the show sayin that it is a bad influence on people and that it promotes recklessness. This is utter bullshit. people kill people, not guns, people kill people, not TV shows.

Follow This Link and Sign The Petition. As an avid petrol head and follower of the show i urge you to take two minutes and sign. My signiture was number 28,120. Get yours in there now.

My thoughts are with Richard Hammond and the rest of the Top Gear team.

Read Jeremy Clarkson's statement.

Blogged with Flock

Ha! HA HA! guess fucking what? I am going to London tomorow night, I have posted about this already. But there is a kicker here, my forex (foreign exchange) is to be picked up today by yours truly. Well I am unbelievably excited to report that todays exchange rate is the highest it has been for the pound in over three years.

How lucky am I? i get to pay out of my ass for my £200... yes my £200 is going to cost my about R5 more per pound than i ordered it for... lucky lucky little me.

Fuckin exchange rates and fucking Zuma and fuckin Shabir Shaik-my-ass, and fucking anything else that has fucked the economy the day before i am meant to travel.

Blogged with Flock

This is a rock

It is a big rock. Those are skid marks on the road and at the bottom of the photo you can clearly see debris. The debris is from a car. A car that is very much now broken and has been for a few years. My brother had a car accident about 3 or 4 years ago. Blogging really wasnt around back then so I didnt have a forum to publish these photos. The story is one filled with "coincidence" (I dont believe in coincidence) and events that should never have happened, but did. These events saved his life. I wont explain the story cause I think that these photos speak louder than any Arrive Alive advert

Oh, the rock weighs approximately 5 tons.

This is what a 5 ton rock does to a BMW

And this:

I believe that these are a few very good reasons not to speed. For a couple of years dearest John insisted that he wasnt speeding. The proffesionals came in and calculated speeds of over 180Km/h.

Now make a choice. Speed. Or not speed. Its up to you.

Blogged with Flock

Last.fm is an amazing initiative that i discovered through Mark Comerford's blog MarkMedia.

Download the Lastfm software to your pc/laptop/mac, install and start "scrobbling". Scrobbling is the term that Lastfm has coined to explain thier concept. when you scrobble, you play music from your media player (Itunes, WMP, Winamp etc etc etc) that is then picked up and stored in the LastFM server and made available for other users to view.

Now, you can join groups of users with similar interest, find stations that these users have compiled and listen to their choices. find music similar and new to the music you like. Its an incredible musical network!

You can also enter "Journal" entries about music and gigs, live shows and rants about instruments if you so feel, somewhat of a blogging feel to your user profile.

Have a look at my first journal entry here: Jump, Little Children - Journal - Last.fm

Blogged with Flock

I am one of the happiest people in the world on this magnificent Sunday evening. I have come back from Captivate, as I have posted below. It was great but I have more fish to fry. I am off to London on Wednesday evening. I am going to see someone whom I love dearly and I miss. I am leaving my life (the internet) in Jozi .

I will not be taking my laptop, I will not be blogging, I will not be reachable on my cellphone or anywhere else for that matter. However I will be looking in to extending my Flickr badge on the right so that I can Moblog.

To those of you who know who I am talking about, I will deliver what you have asked. To those of you who dont know the lovely lady in question, She incredible.

I have two more days of blogging, my last post for two weeks will be on wednesday.

Blogged with Flock

I was scheduled to leave the Port Elizabeth airport at about 17:10...We left at about18:30. Awesome. Its amazing, the plane actually got off the ground, thats not the amazing part. The amazing part is that every infant in the ENTIRE fucking country was on the same plane as mine. Not only did they delay our plane (I am guessing the babies had prior arrangements to uphold) but they sat next to me, on top of me, behind and in front of me.

I thought that planes of that size mostly carried like a couple hundred people, max. I WAS WRONG, there were about 2 gazillion babies on this plane and they all sat by me. No i digress, they did not sit, the cooed, and coochied and wailed and cried and yelled and messed and Holy Mother of anything good and gracious on this Earth. I wanted to actually kick the window in (I managed a window seat) and jump right out of that plane. But then i thought that i would be destroying the potentially fantastical lives that these infants might one day have. If they stopped yelling.

Speaking of the window seat; the joy of the window seat is that you get to lean your head on the window, or thereabouts and have a lekker little kip in the corner...Not so much. No sleep, baby, no cleanliness, baby, no nothing, baby. I am also one of those people who likes to exit the airplane while it is still moving. I do not like to hang around on planes for longer than need be, but i was trapped like a drowning rat smelling the end,..and it was baby poop.

But hey, I got off the plane, i got outside and i got home. Happy and snug in Jozi again.

Blogged with Flock

Richard Hammond of Top Gear fame has had a major accident while driving a dragster around a track. Hammond is one of the funniest little dudes on TV and a guy that i personally enjoy watching and having a laugh to (albeit all on my own, but a laugh nonetheless).

The TV star was apparently travelling at about 480KM's and hour when his dragster overturned. He was attempting a British land speed record.

Read the full story here.

Blogged with Flock

The Rhodes University TV 4 students have produced amazing documentaries.

Jason Von Berg sent me his documentary which you can have a look at here. I am very proud to say that He has worked hard on this project and is very happy with the result, as I am sure most (hopefully all) of the TV 4 students are!

Good work to everyone and we'll have a MASSIVE party this weekend!

Blogged with Flock

Original NetBaby as animated GIF

This little dude made me laugh till i hit the floor when i first saw the animation on Ally MacBeal some time ago. On that point, those of you that watch Grey's Anatomy, I think that the lead actress, Ms Grey, kinda looks like the Ally Macbeal Character. Figity, nervous, lost sort of feel about the characteristics!

Anyways, just have a laugh at this. Oh, I found it under the list of the 25 WORST WEBSITES.

I found that site courtesy of Gregoogle - keep those posts coming my man!!

Blogged with Flock

PaperCut seems to be someones interpretation of one of the most frustrating things in the world - the paper cut.

Follow THIS LINK to see more.

Blogged with Flock

I have just watched an interesting and thought provoking film... documentary... im not sure what it was, ok?

The documentary is called "What the bleep do we know?"

The movie is based on and attempts to put forward theories of quantum physics. For those of you who are unaware, quantum physics plainly put is the science of possibility. There is obviously a whole huge chunk of this theory that is attached to science of some kind or another; such as the atomic theories, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, chromodynamics and electroweak theory. Yet this movie did not really focus on this aspect of quantum physics. There was a more inquisitive tone and existential feeling to the documentary.

Why are we here? What is my purpose? etc etc etc. These are the questions that became the focus of the film. Religion, love, addiction and many other troublesome man made creations were spoken of. You are your own god. You can create your own reality. You do create your own reality whether you are aware of it or not. If you are a victim in your own life, you are choosing to be that victim and therefore allowing yourself to be more receptive to the victim status that you have chosen.

If you say you are in love how do you know? Are you addicted to that feeling? is it the person, the way that person makes you feel that keeps you coming back to that feeling of euphoria? Or is it simply love; inexplicable, incredible, painful love?

Does god really exist? Or did organised religion create this omnipitent figure to rule over our choices and place us on a path that is easily manipulated and dominated by anothers' perception of what your reality should be? To run with this particular example, I am somewhat of a religious sceptic if you will, ok im a big fat atheist. THERE I SAID IT! So obviously I believe that the wonders of god do not exist in reality, or in my reality (to maintain or existential direction). I have for a long time felt that religion is a variation of fear and weakness that has been spread by those who are more insecure than anyone else to control the world (yes, yes, i know this is awfully conspiritorial). You can't handle your life and its' issues, so you ask god to do it for you. That way, when it all falls down it isn't really your fault, it's god's choice for your life. Bah, hogwash and all the other interjections I could use at this juncture.

I think that quantum theories hold more truth and possibilty than any other religion i have encountered (given the number of religions I have been exposed to is somewhat limited). I am the master of my own destiny, I choose my path, I take the blame and the responsibility for everything that happens to me. No "god" let me fail or created my success, I did and that is that.

These are all my own personal thoughts, I am not discrediting the possibility that religion works for some people and it may be proven to be the way, the light and the truth at some point in the future, the distant, distant and possibly non-existent future. I just cannot place my life in the hands of another, possibly non-existent being.

As the motto of this blog states: "There are no coincidences. Live every moment like it's your last. My World, My Views, My opinion," and a little addition to that: My reality.

Blogged with Flock

What an incredible site Breathing Earth is. A flash site that illustrates facts about a country in the world. I located this site via the awesome ChumpStyle Blog

drag your mouse over a country as seen above and random facts are generated in a bar at the bottom of the screen. I logged on to the site about 10 minutes ago. It tells me that since that time nearly 2000 people have been born and 800 have died. Aint that some shit right there?!?!

I find this to be incredible. Not only do you get these facts but you are able to finaly pinpoint where that one country is with that one strange name.

I feel that Americans must be extremely excited about this site as they can finally identify where Iraq is, was, used, will be... oh, you know what i mean. They can also now find out where the closest "civilised" country is with a Mac D's in it is.

Blogged with Flock

I hate Manhatten,

I really do, I know I go there often but I hate it. Today I hate it cause I am supposed to be at gym about an hour ago and my head hurts and i have work to do and even the moaning that im doing right now is bugging me!!!!

Stupid 2 for 1, stupid Klippies, Stupid Juger, Stupid stupid stupid.

Out.

Blogged with Flock

One of my best friends, Erin, sings in the UCT Choir. They are up in JHB for the week doing a little tour or something. I went to watch them perfom last night at a church near the Zoo Lake.

Wow, what an experience. I mean the choir is great, they girls are hot, they can all sing, etc etc etc bullshit. Wonderful. But here we sat, watching a half Jewish girl (Erin), her dad who is jewish and many other religions, races and creeds singing songs about Jesus, about the new and old testament, Im an atheist and I was listening to it. Dont get me wrong, i can appreciate the validity of the half sacred half secular vibe that they choir attempts. But seriously, why is it that choirs must sing in churches, and must sing sacred songs written in the early hundreds by some dude that we have never heard of???

The second part of the show was a much better, upbeat, secular, African jives etc. Lots of fun, and it was fun cause the choir wasnt trying to hang themselves by the cross hanging over their heads. Seriously, they became enjoyable because they were singing in english (And Zulu amongst other African Langauges) and not in Latin, who sings in latin anymore?

I know it sounds great and is moving to the elderly folk in the audience but times they are a changin believe it or not. So lets get it on (the al green version not the Celebrity Death Match version), lets make love tonight, lets get fucked up and lets sing the praises of the lives we lead, not the lives that some latin guy lead a gagillion years ago.

Blogged with Flock

So Rhodes Music Radio is going for a World Record Attempt soon.

They will be trying to break the record for the longest that one DJ stays on air and broadcasts.

I think its a fantastic initiative and one that they can definately achieve; lets be honest, down at Rhodes there is some major talent and some seriously bored students with the time to spend that many hours on the radion in one go!!

Get the full story at studentwire - get wired!

Blogged with Flock

Is the Digital Indaba the Internet Berlin Conference of 2006?

African Bullets & Honey

The African Bullets and Honey (AB&H) blog has sparked some awesome dialog about the state and nature of the blogosphere.

Issues that seem to be prevelant here are ones centered around the question of a code of conduct for blogging in Africa. Apparently there already exists a "Handbook for bloggers".

I need to ask the question though: Has anyone cleared up exactly what the intention of this code of conduct that DCI is trying to put forward? Has MMK from the African Bullets and Honey blog recieved the wrong end of the right stick and placed his/her mouth along with the foot that was already there? If this is the case and the code of conduct is meant to be another "Handbook for bloggers" Simply targeted at African bloggers then i think that some opinions need to be retargeted and rethought

However, if the African Bullets and Honey has got it right and this code of conduct spoken of by Vincent Maher is trying to define "valuable bloggers" and discard the rest, then i think that there is a bit of a problem. What makes my thoughts less appealing (note, the use of the word "appealing" here and not correct) than anyone elses. I may not be right 100% of the time, but the whole point of blogging, as far as i understand it is that people, the masses, get to speak their minds and express themselves and their lives on a global platform.

As alexcia said on the AB&H blog,

"The pen, be it on blogs or paper, is still mightier than the gun,"

and

"As i see it, blogging is not the be all and end all in our lives. We,after all, blog about what we see outside the blogging world. And everydecent blog like any good piece writing is not "self-centered". Stateddifferently blogs are closer to photos than abstract paintings, whereone captures what we see and hear the other what we imagine."

I think that alexcia has a great point. Life outside of blogging exists. Yes blogging is a forum that can have a massive impact on the natue of things and on opinions amongst many other things, but if we restrict bloggers then what exactly will be heard? And who decides what is to be heard? How do you possibly restrict a forum as far reaching as the blogosphere?

I dont have answers, I am simply posing questions that i think need to be answered.

Finally, i think that someone needs to find out exactly what the point and aim of the DCI's code of conduct is or will be. I'll try see what i can do on that front.

Blogged with Flock

So, the post below states my grudge with Vodacom and the means through which i went to get heard.

I was emailed by the hellopeter.com site asking me if I had been contacted by Vodacom in response to my complaint against them. I had not, so I graded Vodacom badly. This was on Friday night that i recieved the email.

Subsequently, this morning I recieved an SMS (Text message) from Vodacom stating that my complaint had been recieved, they provided me with a reference number and told me that I would be contact within one day.

Lets wait and see what happens.

I must commend the hellopeter.com site on their impact. I am so glad that the site is making such a difference to consumerism in South Africa.

Blogged with Flock

I LOVE HELLOPETER!!

I made this complaint on hellopeter.com today:

Attempting to get my Cellphone repaired at Vodacom Sandton I was repeatedly told there were no loan phones available. I was told that I would simply not recieve calls while my phone was being repaired. I recieved bad service (a lady sending SMS's while helping me). I eventually pushed the issue. The manager was called and proceeded to give me the last "loan phone" out of his pocket. He was using the Vodacom Loan phone that i was initialled denied for his personal cellphone usage that day.

I have such a huge, massive, um big problem with service in South Africa. Companies seem to think that as consumers we owe them something for their existence. When in fact, it is the large corporate who actually needs to get on their knees for the consumer. I KEEP YOUR FREAKING BUSINESS IN BUSINESS YOU ASS!!

But alas, this is not the case. When i made my complaint with the Manager at Vodacom in Sandton a few days ago, he cocked his head, smiled and told me that as soon as I left he would reprimand the lady who did not take proper care of me and my issue. HA!!! As if. he then took the loan phone that i was assured did not exist, out of his pocket and placed it on table in front of me. No skaam whatsoever.

The only person who suffered in this situation was me. And the only thing that got them to jump was when i walked over to Cell C and subsequently returned to Vodacom threatening to transfer my contract there and then (this didnt work as well as planned as the law only kicks in on the 18th of September). But my point was made.

hellopeter.com - Free service line containing comments on good and bad service experiences.

Blogged with Flock

What is it about poker that has absolutely devoured the attention of the world, the rich, the poor, the hopeful, the intelligent, the moronic, the silly and the rest?

I must be honest, i am none and all of the above cause i am hooked. I am addicted. Not to gambling as some might label poker. Poker is not gambling. Or at least i dont think it is. Poker is about playing the cards, pitting them against the other possible hands and the choosing your odds, choosing your wins and letting your losses go. Yes there is an air of gambling about poker. there is money, there are cards and people lose.

Then so is life a gamble isnt it? No, this is not the part of the cliched tail where i equate poker to my sob story of a life. I swear my life is not half as interesting as a game of poker!!

I am simply writing this post to let everyone know that I am hopelessly addicted to the thrill of playing a hand of Texas holdem, and winning.

The All Africa poker tournament has drawn my attention. I cant afford to play but definately entered to win a seat. I didnt. Oh well, next year!!

Poker South Africa

Blogged with Flock

studentwire - get wired...

So this is my website. It started last year as an idea from a student media conference, Captivate.

Studentwire.net has come a long way since then and is progressing quite well. We have now signed up over 11 Campus newspapers to our contributors list.

One of our latest projects is the Studentwire and Zazone.com Gig Guide. Zazone.com have done brilliantly to provide us with a weekly Gig guide that spans the entire country and is updated every week, once a week. Thanks to the guys at Zazone.com for their help.

Check out the Gig Guide by clicking on the image below.

Other great things happening at Studentwire include a permanent link with 38.com. Visit Studentwire and check out the latest pics from your campus events via 38.com.

We have also just recently partnered with SASCO Rhodes in hosting their newsletters when they are released. Visit the SASCO page at Studentwire and check out what SASCO is up to.

Blogged with Flock

So my shutter has changed and so the aperture is a little bit off. I think that my blog has finally caught up with the rest of my life: A little bit off.

I have made a move today to a new browser: Flock. This browser is absolutely phenomenal and thanks to Vincent's "If there is one browser you have to try, it is Flock" post I got my hands on this browser.

Flock has subsequently rejuvinated my blogging hopes and aspirations. The ease through which one can make use of Flock to blog is ridiculous and is perfect for lazy oafs like me!

Thus I have decided to slightly re-angle the title of this blog. The name stays the same, shutterview, the concept stays the same: "the world through my shutter", yet I am taking a more metaphorical approach to the concept, not necessarily photos only. My shutter is my view, my opinions, my life and the people within my life.

If you like what you see hang around.

Hope everyone enjoys the new approach.

Blogged with Flock

Vincent Maher posted the below post with regard to another bloggers fairly interesting post regarding the Digital Citizen’s Indaba on Blogging being held soon in Grahamstown.

Follow the links below and check out the arguments, comments and counters offered by various bloggers, including myself.

This may be a photography blog, but seeing the world through my shutter appears in more than one form. I personally think that initial blog post is terribly "im looking for an argument" instead of intelligent or well thought out. Just my two cents. I think that I am as african as anyone else out there on this content. My generation has shared mutual experiences. Apartheid has been dead for 12 years and I think its ok for me to call Myself African.

Quoting Maher:

" Sour grapesCheck out this racist and sour response to the Digital Citizen’s Indaba on Blogging. It’s telling that he/she has comment moderation turned on.My only response to his drivel concerns his remarks about the African citizen journalism code of conduct. Somewhere in the middle of his rant he says:

…are Africans so misbehaved or even depraved that they are always being subject to codes of behavior? Is the governance agenda and its associated funding buzzwords now to seek us out even in the digital world?

As the person who put this idea forward in the first place, I am going to defend it simply by pointing out that the idea behind the code of conduct is to create a framework of credibility that will enable citizen journalists using blogs to be taken more seriously by the media when they report on blogged news. It’s a completely opt-in system designed to avoid exactly the kind of loss of credibility this person has just achieved for his/her own blog. "

Vincent Maher - Media in Transition

Blogged with Flock