Yesterday I had the priviledge of attending Season's Wither 5 .. it was a festival held at Truth Nightclub in Midrand .. 4 stages, 25 bands and lots and lots of really sexy girls 
I covered the event for LTmag. All the LT girls were there and as an added bonus Circus Gothica also performed. Here is a couple of pics.. the rest can be found here.
I covered the event for LTmag. All the LT girls were there and as an added bonus Circus Gothica also performed. Here is a couple of pics.. the rest can be found here.
Otherwise not much is news except.. please show some love for Pia's set "Young Fire"
OK so after running my web design business for almost 8 years, I finally got round to designing my own site .. kind of terrible to try advertise without having a site but hey it's up... and then I decided that while I'm at it I might as well make one for my photography as well ....
If you would like to check them out, here are the links:
Brilliant Edge Design
and
Lens Flair Photography
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
on a different note....
the curse strikes again ... I go out with a chick and less than a week later she's in a relationship.. with someone else... kill me now
If you would like to check them out, here are the links:
Brilliant Edge Design
and
Lens Flair Photography
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
on a different note....
the curse strikes again ... I go out with a chick and less than a week later she's in a relationship.. with someone else... kill me now
I was wondering if I should blog about this, but decided I might as well.... It all started just over a year ago. I was asked to design a website for a company called Alcatraz Consultants. The website was quickly up and running and they paid me for my design as well as half of the hosting fees as that was "all they could afford". Then 3 months later they asked me to design another site for IDKID .. another one of their ventures operating as a sub-business of Alcatraz. They offered me 10% of the company in exchange for designing and the upkeep of the site and I agreed (and we agreed that they will carry the cost of the hosting) as the offer seemed more than fair it worked quite well till about August (ie it worked well for 2 months) then they started skipping payments. Between August and March they skipped 6 months of payments and sent them an invoice for the hosting every month that got sumarily ignored.....
Skip forward to this month....
I had to renew the hosting for Alcatraz (and half of the hosting was STILL not paid and I got told to simply cancel the site, and I might as well just write off the outstanding money. So I told them IDKID will be taken offline as well if they don't pay me by sunday. Then suddenly they wanted the invoice from the hosting company as all of a sudden my invoices aren't good enough anymore. Now bear in mind they have sold 9 franchises at R160 000 each during the last 6 months... and they owe me just over R2000 but apparently they still don't have money to settle their bill. The whole company runs off the site and the connected e-mails, so I told them one last time.. pay or the site goes down as well as all services pertaining to the hosting. This was once again ignored... so this is what I did ... I replaced all the pages with a page saying "This site is down due to non-payment" and I deleted all the e-mail addresses connected to the site... if the franchises paid or not .. that is not my problem.
So after basically a year of paying for their advertising and business out of my pocket, I put my foot down. Did I do the right thing?
One thing I learned is this ... NEVER do business with a company that claims they do business with christian values .. this is the 3rd time I got burnt by companies like that.. and never ever do work without a deposit or pay hosting before receiving the money first.
PS: I know that R2000 is peanuts and might not be worth it, but considering I only made R6000 all of 2010, that R2000 was a third of my income!!!!
Skip forward to this month....
I had to renew the hosting for Alcatraz (and half of the hosting was STILL not paid and I got told to simply cancel the site, and I might as well just write off the outstanding money. So I told them IDKID will be taken offline as well if they don't pay me by sunday. Then suddenly they wanted the invoice from the hosting company as all of a sudden my invoices aren't good enough anymore. Now bear in mind they have sold 9 franchises at R160 000 each during the last 6 months... and they owe me just over R2000 but apparently they still don't have money to settle their bill. The whole company runs off the site and the connected e-mails, so I told them one last time.. pay or the site goes down as well as all services pertaining to the hosting. This was once again ignored... so this is what I did ... I replaced all the pages with a page saying "This site is down due to non-payment" and I deleted all the e-mail addresses connected to the site... if the franchises paid or not .. that is not my problem.
So after basically a year of paying for their advertising and business out of my pocket, I put my foot down. Did I do the right thing?
One thing I learned is this ... NEVER do business with a company that claims they do business with christian values .. this is the 3rd time I got burnt by companies like that.. and never ever do work without a deposit or pay hosting before receiving the money first.
PS: I know that R2000 is peanuts and might not be worth it, but considering I only made R6000 all of 2010, that R2000 was a third of my income!!!!
Well Rammstein visited our shores.. and after tonight my hair is singed, my body is wrecked but I couldn't be happier
All hail the mighty
I took some pics and here is a few highlighs.... the rest are in my albums, so check it out if you want...
All hail the mighty
I took some pics and here is a few highlighs.... the rest are in my albums, so check it out if you want...
and I made a few wallpapers too:
My ink is on hold for a bit while I try to gather some money together etc. I have moved recently and the new place is small, but quiet and peaceful so that is a bonus.. and we are right next to the Rietvlei Dam in Centurion now.... just a pity that all there is .. no telkom, iBurst, MTN, Vodacom or Cell C internet coverage.. just a little bit overflow Neotel signal so my work is suffering a bit but I'm looking at other options... if anyone has knows of an affordable alternative, please let me know...
well it's quite early saturday morning right now.. suppose I have to head off to bed....
OK so I just came back from sitting number 4 on my dragon... it was another shorter session but I'm very happy with what we have accomplished...
My dragon got transformed into a golden dragon!! Yeehaa! here you can see what we did:
My dragon got transformed into a golden dragon!! Yeehaa! here you can see what we did:
So far I sat for 19 hours ... and I still need some highlights in the dragon as well as the backround (I'll be going tuqoise and dark blue for that so that the dragon really pops) .. we will get started on that on Jan 4th 2011 .... how I wish time would go by faster....
In other news I went to Ensiferum when they played here and they rocked!!
The next 3 days I spent at the "Cool Ink Tattoo Convention" which was a lot of fun 
Good ink, nice vibe and great music .. what a weekend (and if you look closely you might spot Tarion & Latara)
Well that's it from me for now Cheerio!
Well I went for ink again today, but it was a shorter session, so we didn't get a hell of a lot done. We added a few Horochi around the dragon .. but in light gray as well as light gray smoke for the background. We also started some color and put red in the fins of the dragon.
As soon as the tattoo is healed, I'll post pics as it is looking a wee weird right now as the light gray appear red due to the skin's redness and swelling.
I have uploaded a few pics in the "My Ink" album of some of the fun we had though ... here is a few of the highlights....
The first 2 Horochi faces (before the shading)
Some of my facial expressions on some of the more tender parts....
Afterwards Piet (the artist) wanted to torture me a bit and drilled me right on my nipple....
and then on my elbow right on the bone .. this didn't have any effect though just to spite him.. and he ended up with the WTF? face
Next Session is on November 9th... hopefully we'll get a lot more done then.
Hope you all have a great week ahead. May blessings be bestowed upon you 1000fold
PS: Pia's new set "Golden Sun" hits MR on October 13th ... make sure to send her some love... she is a real sweetie...
As soon as the tattoo is healed, I'll post pics as it is looking a wee weird right now as the light gray appear red due to the skin's redness and swelling.
I have uploaded a few pics in the "My Ink" album of some of the fun we had though ... here is a few of the highlights....
The first 2 Horochi faces (before the shading)
Some of my facial expressions on some of the more tender parts....
Afterwards Piet (the artist) wanted to torture me a bit and drilled me right on my nipple....
and then on my elbow right on the bone .. this didn't have any effect though just to spite him.. and he ended up with the WTF? face
Next Session is on November 9th... hopefully we'll get a lot more done then.
Hope you all have a great week ahead. May blessings be bestowed upon you 1000fold
PS: Pia's new set "Golden Sun" hits MR on October 13th ... make sure to send her some love... she is a real sweetie...
OK I just came back from my second session on my 1st sleeve... I started of with:
Then today we added all the scales and shading .. check it out....
Lemme know what you think
Then today we added all the scales and shading .. check it out....
Lemme know what you think
So I finally mustered the money together and got started on my dragon sleeve yesterday.. after 6 hours of sitting under the needle the outline was finally finished
I started the day with something small.. to get my toes wet so to speak (my last tattoo was done 14 years ago)
so I got this:
(I showed you mine.. now show me yours)
Then we got started on sleeve.. here is the stencils and drawings applied:
then the inking started:
And then at last... here is the outlines as it is now:
I will start the shading in 3 or 4 weeks (hopefully.. money is a rare commodity), but watch this space
Oh the work is being done by Painless Piet at TA2000AD.. if anybody want to get some work from him, contact me and I'll put you in touch.
Oh well, thats it for me.. Ta-ta
I started the day with something small.. to get my toes wet so to speak (my last tattoo was done 14 years ago)
so I got this:
(I showed you mine.. now show me yours
)Then we got started on sleeve.. here is the stencils and drawings applied:
then the inking started:
And then at last... here is the outlines as it is now:
I will start the shading in 3 or 4 weeks (hopefully.. money is a rare commodity), but watch this space
Oh the work is being done by Painless Piet at TA2000AD.. if anybody want to get some work from him, contact me and I'll put you in touch.
Oh well, thats it for me.. Ta-ta
Firstly let me state that I am proudly South African .. even though my pride is for selected things only, but I am proud to call myself South African and I am proud of my heritage, That said there is a lot of things I am not proud of.. like our government that makes impossible promises and the people who believe them only to be angry that the promises comes to naught and then re-elect the same idiots for another term.. and one one idiot in particular makes the rest look like Einstein’s twin brother.. the one and only Julius Malema (Time magazine had him in their 100 most UNinfluential people list this year.. under the moron section) he even makes this news agency look like geniusses….
The FIFA Wolrd Cup 2010 kicked off here this week with a kick-off concert of “the best music from SA with international bands” and I had to record it for people so I had the sound off and even then it was terrible.. except for Shakira who is always nice to look at. When will the people realize that the best music SA offer isn’t in the hip-hop field but in the Metal scene .. look at Sacrifist, Bile of Man and Contrast The Water to name just a few. Then we had the opening Ceremony to show off our country its people and and we are a re proud of … the best thing there was the dung beatle walking across the field.. I presume to collect all the other ideas that fell flat… and then Bafana Bafana played against Mexico … I almost had a heart attack during the game, but luckily Mexico equalized and my prediction still stand strong.
In other news.. Our Rugby Team clobbered the French today with a 42-17 win. Given that we are the current Tri-Nations champ and France the current Six-Nation Champ this was a match of Best of the North vs Best of the South … no wonder we are the Current World Champions as well.
Winter has truly shown it’s fugly face here and I hate the cold so I tend to stay in bed quite a lot, but here is the big news. I have recently joined a new company called IDKID where we create profiles of kids that parents can send to the police or media in case of the kid goes missing. This includes a photo, fingerprints and DNA sample as well as an emergency medical card with all the allergies and or chronic illnesses the child might have in case of an accident or something happening at school.. so far it seems like we are doing to do very well.
Well that is about it for me.. for now.
The FIFA Wolrd Cup 2010 kicked off here this week with a kick-off concert of “the best music from SA with international bands” and I had to record it for people so I had the sound off and even then it was terrible.. except for Shakira who is always nice to look at. When will the people realize that the best music SA offer isn’t in the hip-hop field but in the Metal scene .. look at Sacrifist, Bile of Man and Contrast The Water to name just a few. Then we had the opening Ceremony to show off our country its people and and we are a re proud of … the best thing there was the dung beatle walking across the field.. I presume to collect all the other ideas that fell flat… and then Bafana Bafana played against Mexico … I almost had a heart attack during the game, but luckily Mexico equalized and my prediction still stand strong.
In other news.. Our Rugby Team clobbered the French today with a 42-17 win. Given that we are the current Tri-Nations champ and France the current Six-Nation Champ this was a match of Best of the North vs Best of the South … no wonder we are the Current World Champions as well.
Winter has truly shown it’s fugly face here and I hate the cold so I tend to stay in bed quite a lot, but here is the big news. I have recently joined a new company called IDKID where we create profiles of kids that parents can send to the police or media in case of the kid goes missing. This includes a photo, fingerprints and DNA sample as well as an emergency medical card with all the allergies and or chronic illnesses the child might have in case of an accident or something happening at school.. so far it seems like we are doing to do very well.
Well that is about it for me.. for now.
Is downloading really piracy?
I understand that people view the downloading of movies and TV episodes as piracy.. but is it really so black and white? I decided to give my views on this and would like to hear what the rest of are thinking…
Is South Africa where I live we have 2 systems of television we can access. Firstly is the national broadcaster (SABC) and the second one is DSTV… Digital Satellite TV.
SABC offers us 3 channels (SABC 1-3) as well as a public channel (e-TV). Since we have 9 official languages (of which I speak English & Afrikaans – and have no desire to learn the rest) I can only watch 1 channel (SABC 3) as the rest is either broadcasting soccer or local programming of weak quality and mostly in gibberish. When they do show international programming it’s years behind for instance:
We can now enjoy (read “suffer through”) the first season of Ugly Betty
Big Bang Theory Season 1,
How I met Your Mother season 3,
The first celeb apprentice just finished (the one with Pierce Morgan & Trace Adkins)
Smallville Season 5
Lost season 2 and Heroes season 3 just finished a few months ago….
And then my “soapie” WWE wrestling is about 3 weeks behind the rest of the world, when you try to go to their site you get pictures and stories on the front page where you can’t miss it that gives the results away.. and if you watch RAW or SmackDown over here you get a watered-down 35min episode out of the 1.5 hours you get elsewhere!
On the satellite broadcaster it is slightly better as they are only about 6-9 months behind on most stuff but there is some real disappointing time delays as well. Ie:
Stargate SG1 – Season 9
Stargate Atlantis Season 2
They are showing SGU as well now … it has to be said. and American Idol is on the same week as in the US.. but who in their right mind will willingly watch such crap?
They have never even heard of Justified, Human Target, Ricky Gervais show, V, Spartacus Blood and Sand and The Tudors to name a few… and for this we don’t only pay a required TV licence fee as well as the R500+ per month!
The way I see it, I am paying to watch what I want and therefore if I want to download it (and especially at the redicilous prices Telkom set for bandwidth) and watch it with the rest of the world, why should it be illegal?
As for movies… a ticket these days costs more than R50 so can sit sit in a stuffy room with noisy kids being pelted with popcorn and other sweets and stuff. often having to sit on a wet seat from the previous show’s viewers spilling drinks etc all in all resulting in a terrible experience you would not like to repeat. It is much better to wait for the DVD to be released, rent that (about R25) or buy it (from about R150 upwards) and enjoy it in the comfort of your own home and pause for smoke breaks or whatever and you can watch it as often as you like… problem once again is this.. when the movie is released on DVD in the US (in most cases) it still haven’t even appeared on the radar of the local movie theatres and since we live in a virtual world interacting with people for all over the world, we get spoilers and plots everywhere.. facebook, movie sites etc. etc. etc.. so I will download the movie, watch it, and then rent or buy the DVD when it comes out so no-one loses money like it is said they do when movies gets downloaded.
So I believe I do pay for what I download (more than the original price if you include the fortune spent on bandwidth) so is it really piracy?
I understand that people view the downloading of movies and TV episodes as piracy.. but is it really so black and white? I decided to give my views on this and would like to hear what the rest of are thinking…
Is South Africa where I live we have 2 systems of television we can access. Firstly is the national broadcaster (SABC) and the second one is DSTV… Digital Satellite TV.
SABC offers us 3 channels (SABC 1-3) as well as a public channel (e-TV). Since we have 9 official languages (of which I speak English & Afrikaans – and have no desire to learn the rest) I can only watch 1 channel (SABC 3) as the rest is either broadcasting soccer or local programming of weak quality and mostly in gibberish. When they do show international programming it’s years behind for instance:
We can now enjoy (read “suffer through”) the first season of Ugly Betty
Big Bang Theory Season 1,
How I met Your Mother season 3,
The first celeb apprentice just finished (the one with Pierce Morgan & Trace Adkins)
Smallville Season 5
Lost season 2 and Heroes season 3 just finished a few months ago….
And then my “soapie” WWE wrestling is about 3 weeks behind the rest of the world, when you try to go to their site you get pictures and stories on the front page where you can’t miss it that gives the results away.. and if you watch RAW or SmackDown over here you get a watered-down 35min episode out of the 1.5 hours you get elsewhere!
On the satellite broadcaster it is slightly better as they are only about 6-9 months behind on most stuff but there is some real disappointing time delays as well. Ie:
Stargate SG1 – Season 9
Stargate Atlantis Season 2
They are showing SGU as well now … it has to be said. and American Idol is on the same week as in the US.. but who in their right mind will willingly watch such crap?
They have never even heard of Justified, Human Target, Ricky Gervais show, V, Spartacus Blood and Sand and The Tudors to name a few… and for this we don’t only pay a required TV licence fee as well as the R500+ per month!
The way I see it, I am paying to watch what I want and therefore if I want to download it (and especially at the redicilous prices Telkom set for bandwidth) and watch it with the rest of the world, why should it be illegal?
As for movies… a ticket these days costs more than R50 so can sit sit in a stuffy room with noisy kids being pelted with popcorn and other sweets and stuff. often having to sit on a wet seat from the previous show’s viewers spilling drinks etc all in all resulting in a terrible experience you would not like to repeat. It is much better to wait for the DVD to be released, rent that (about R25) or buy it (from about R150 upwards) and enjoy it in the comfort of your own home and pause for smoke breaks or whatever and you can watch it as often as you like… problem once again is this.. when the movie is released on DVD in the US (in most cases) it still haven’t even appeared on the radar of the local movie theatres and since we live in a virtual world interacting with people for all over the world, we get spoilers and plots everywhere.. facebook, movie sites etc. etc. etc.. so I will download the movie, watch it, and then rent or buy the DVD when it comes out so no-one loses money like it is said they do when movies gets downloaded.
So I believe I do pay for what I download (more than the original price if you include the fortune spent on bandwidth) so is it really piracy?
