where i write my wrongs » Uncategorized

an abandoned post

Ivan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:33:34 +0000

The fastest thing about this place was the way Microsoft Word opened. Not much else could rival the speed with which Gates’ popular word processor sprung to life, blank page in front of you begging you to have your way with it. Were I a painter and this before me, were my canvas, I’d be pleased. Alas, I’m neither a painter nor is what lies before me the canvas I seek. My current engagement with the application that’s graciously permitted me to place thoughts on screen is borne out of a previous engagement with what may very well be the slowest internet in Uganda.

Previously…

I had sworn off internet cafes. I don’t know where this pride, nay, arrogance was born, but it had been hatched and there was nothing I could do stagnate its hasty maturity. One minute you’re going to internet cafes and marveling at pages and porn, the next you’re filled with derision and scorn. Just. Like. That.

Present day…

So I wandered about, trying to figure out how to kill time. I thought perhaps a conversation with a stranger may work wonders. It didn’t. It was over almost as soon as it begun, possibly even sooner.

“Hello…” said I, my voice friendly, my demeanor affable.

“You’re not allowed to sit here…” was his response, delivered with the sort of precision reserved for striking a stubborn animal.

The conversation didn’t stand a chance.

So I made like a wise man and wandered about, hoping inspiration would snake its way into my life and think to itself, “I like it here.”

And that’s how I ended up in an internet café. Actually, hang on, that’s not entirely accurate. I opposed the idea of entering that café with every fiber of my being, but I saw a foreigner hunched over his computer working hard. I thought to myself, ‘foreigners have standards, so this café must be the best café in the world’. It is very possible that if I’d bothered to look again, perhaps even closer, I’d have seen that the hunchback-of-net-ré-damn was crying, suffering silently and asking his maker why he’d let him stray down this path… I’d have seen that, but I didn’t. THAT’S how I ended up here.

The make shift poster on the wall screamed that the establishment charged 20/- per minute. My fuzzy math told me that that wasn’t a bargain, that I was being ripped off, but I didn’t care. Perhaps I’d make a friend in here.

I didn’t.

So I sat my ass down and opened the browser window, navigating to gmail. . .well, trying to. My internet connection was not having any of that and assumed the stagnant position. I hit the enter key and then the net decided to have some fun with me, asking that I re-enter my password. I did, then hit the enter key again.

This time, the internet did something different. It moved forward…into the past. The page it pulled told me that the browser I was using was no longer supported. This, for me, should not be an issue. There are people we no longer support, but they still seem to be working.

Nonetheless, because I’m a patient guy, I figured I’d play this silly game and proceeded to download google’s chrome browser…or tried to. The download window told me I’d have to wait for about 5 hours before the file agreed to set up shop on my computer…

That’s when I hatched the idea to write this and pass time.

Chrome’s download window has sort of styled up and now it’s asking me to wait for about 20 minutes, but I’m sure that’s just another game that the net wants to play with me…the bastard.

Sure enough, it’s gone ahead and changed its mind. I have to give it another 3hrs…

The android diaries; The meeting

Ivan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:23:32 +0000

You hear a lot of talk about different phone operating systems and think, "who cares, a phone is a phone. all i want to do is text and call"

For a while that's true, then you develop a nasty case of touch envy and you keep going home to your little corner, sit on the floor hugging your knees close to your chest and mutter, "a phone is a phone".

As you rock yourself back and forth, you think, you're cured, then you go back to the office and as luck would have it, you are one of those gadget fiends, so quite naturally, you will run to the nearest gadget weblog you can find and, wouldn't you know it, the battle of the phone OSes is still raging.

But what's this, it's not enough to just think OSes, not as long as Steve Jobs is around, you absolutely have to get a touchscreen, mbu who uses buttons anymore? 'The bastard' you think to yourself as you start to bring your knees closer then suddenly remember you are at work and the last time you got away with the excuse that you were trying to choke an intestine may have been just that, THE LAST TIME.

Then you catch word that there's a new phone in town, and what's this? You won't have to sell your workmate's car tyres to pay for the damn thing.

So as you sit there, a series of changes start to take place. You suddenly realise you can become part of the touch screen elite. The chosen few. You can finally be one of those people that bellows, "AH CRAP, FINGERPRINTS, why can't people just be born without them" like you're noticing them for the first time.

You see the ad in the paper, MTN introduces… you ignore the rest because, let's face it, all you are thinking about is the cost and the fact that you can touch, touch and touch some more.

That chic at the bar that asked you to take your hands away from her like she was worried she'd catch some strain of the Brazilian Flu is going to see now. You'll show her.

That guy at the office that thinks his phone can clear the Ntinda traffic, yeah, he'll get what's coming to him.

In an ideal situation you'd be fumbling with the box, eager to yank it out. But in an ideal situation, if you fumbled and dropped the phone, you'd be able to replace the buttons with pieces of wood, a pebble or a piece of rubber from your flip flops.

Here, you slide the box ever so gently, like the meaning of life lays in there. Then again, loser that you may be, it probably does.

Then you see it, lying snugly in its little cradle, you pull it out gingerly, no point in rushing this, it's not high school, you're not hiding at the back of the library with that girl from that school. With any luck this is going to last a little longer than that encounter…

…and reminiscent of that encounter, you pull it out…

You stare at it lovingly, the way John Bobbit probably did when the doctor's handed him his equipment and said, "we can fix this".

You turn it over see the word Google stretching from top to bottom like an overzealous tattoo. No matter. It also doesn't matter that it's got a yellow back. Probably an MTN ego thing. What matters to you at this point is that you have a touchscreen phone that sits snuggly in the palm of your hand without inviting glares and stares and proclamations that it's huge… or your snarky retort that everything you hold in that hand is HUGE.

Playtime is over, you reach for the button at the top and wake it up. It stirs, then vibrates then you remember you should have charged the damn thing, but that can wait, let's see what this baby can do…

Who do I have to sleep with: To get a road named for me

Ivan — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:14:09 +0000

Here’s the thing. It used to be the important people that would get titles bestowed upon them. Stuff like Sir Apollo Kaggwa, Saint Balikuddembe, Earnest Bazanye… you get the idea, and we were okay with that. They deserved these titles. Then an interesting thing happened (well, ‘interesting’ is relative, just go with it) people started to name roads.

I don’t even know how this madness started;

One fine afternoon… in a bar

Mmwe ba-guy, on my way here I crossed this ka-pretty young thing with major curves. I first stopped and stared like One Republic. That thing was just for world…then it hit me, the ka-thing was there under my feet, I just had to get acquainted with it. (Meanwhile you guys, Word has allowed ‘ka-thing’, did Microsoft set up shop here or is our software piracy being taken to the next level?)

So this thing I am telling you guys about… it was a road, as you may have surmised from the way I have been going on and on about its curves and saying I want to intoxicate it and take it to bed.

But then a problem presented itself, you don’t get someone high and sleep with them just like that. What happens when someone calls you up and asks what you are doing? You need a name. So I gave her a name…

…we now return to the piece in progress.

So now roads have names. ROADS! Granted there’s no baptism ceremony, you just wake up one morning and someone has gone and called a road Amata Gafudde Avenue inadvertently messing up your travel plans. Do you know how long it takes you to get that out of your mouth? By the time you’re done the conductor has decided to move on to do other important things like caressing the thighs of the passenger next to him with his eyes.

Nonetheless, I would like to have a road named after me. Just one road. It doesn’t have to be a fancy road by the way. It can even be one of those panyas Titus uses when he’s done cavorting with the neighbour’s housegirl and needs a quick dash.

Actually, you know what, no. I don’t want that one. Give me the one where they met. That’s fine by me.

So, do I apply to someone? Do I walk over to some government office and talk to a big shot and state my case?

“Big boss, a brother needs to get laid, name a road after me. Just allow”

Or do I have to wait for the incumbent’s campaign rounds to bring him to my neck of the woods and then make him an offer he cannot refuse…

“ka-kati, first chill all this mp’enkoni n’onsense guy. We have some serious issues to discuss. I am not going to ask you for a district and I do not expect you to expect me to (no way I could sneak in another round of great expectations) chew any rodents. But you want to create the impression that you won fair and square so you sorta need my bwino next to your name, so how about you just pick out a road and call it Majestic Musoke Avenue? Just allow also you”

Alternatively I could just wait for Peter Ssematimba to become mayor and approach him. But what if…

“Young man, you are focusing on the wrong road. The road you want is the path to heaven, and I gotta tell you, that it is long and narrow. Don’t concern yourself with the things of this world. Come over and let me minister some more to you. My house is in Rubaga over at sse-sse-sse-mats road…”

Piggin’ Out

Ivan — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 06:36:44 +0000

i have successfully gone through no less than 3 pork variations in 2 days and confidently say, pigs are a versatile species. There’s much to be learnt from them.

Happy boxing day

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

But Gaga, you ‘real’ wore a mouthful…

Ivan — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:03:05 +0000

Dear Lady Gaga,

What the hell? I thought you were on those of ‘lwali’ when you were singing about your Bad Romance, but when I saw what you were wearing at the VMA’s, I thought to myself, “self, this woman has issues”. I’ve heard mbu you were trying to get attention. I also heard that you were trying out your outfit for Halloween. Is it true that you plan to masquerade as a ‘kanyama’?

But seriously Gaga, what were you thinking? I know PETA is all up in your face using words like; rancid, smelly, and riddled with maggots, but you chill them. They seem to have run out of fur-wearing celebrities to heckle and now they have come after you.

Even Eminem said he didn’t want to sit next to a pile of raw meat the whole night. I have ha-ha’d him. Everybody knows that no one has more beef than Eminem in the entertainment industry. They are the Bayuda Chameleone sang about.

But you know who aren’t? Vegetarians.

Man, I can only try to imagine how sucky it must have felt to be a vegetarian that night. Being there thinking, ‘they better have salads at the after party,” then you walk up to receive that award and it’s all over! Withdrawal kicks in, or worse, Pink weeps silently in her seat.

Katy Perry even had the chance to weigh in. Can you believe that? The world shouldn’t have to listen to Katy Perry sing, but now, because of you, now the world has to put up with her being deep, “the costumes are the bells and whistles and bells and whistles can be really fun, but you have to have the spine, and I think that with Gaga, she's got the spine and she's got the costume”. Do you see what you have done?

People have labeled you an attention seeker. In fact, I suspect you may have displaced Eva Mbabazi’s infamous fish net outfit from that spot it occupied in many a man’s fantasy. A thank you should be in order, but I don’t want to encourage you. I accidentally liked Just Dance and Poker Face, then what did you do? You went gaga (pun honestly and truly intended) on telephones. TWICE!

What if my gratitude this time round spurs you on to wear a whale?

I have to hand it to you though, you are brave. I could be wrong, but I’m almost certain the most pertinent questions running through anyone’s head would have to be; will this make me look fat? And ‘what if the Baha Men turn up, will they let the dogs out?… I really doubt anyone’s thinking, “can’t wait to have people sink their teeth into this” or, “tonight, I will finally get eaten”.

I like that you carried your food to the awards show, though. I understand how insane power bills can get, so if you can get your meat refrigerated by an air conditioner on the cheap, good on you.

Your justification, “…it's saying if we don't stand up for what we believe in, if we don't fight for our rights… we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones.” was not profound, Gaga. It was a lot of baloney!