Nicisms

The end of the year, as always, brings with it end of the year blog posts.

I think that this year my blog post is going to be short, sweet and to the point.

I loved 2009.

It’s been a crazy, upside-down and incredibly fruitful year.

The quickshots

I bought a Townhouse.
I bought a new car (Honda Civic, 1.8 Exi)
I changed jobs to possibly one of the best places I could hope to be working at with thanks to Vincent Maher.

Some of the achievements

I was selected as one GQ’s top 30 men in media.
I was selected as one of Mail & Guardian’s top 300 South Africans to take to lunch.
Appeared on an SABC TV Show talking about the youth and politics before the 2009 elections.
Interviewed on 702 about the zahell debacle or the “zahellgate” if you will.

The madness

I was involved in a freak plane crash and managed to assist in helping some people stay alive. That was probably, in hindsight, one of the more dramatic, thought-provoking and gut-wrenching moments of my life as well as one of the proudest, for myself and the friends I was with.

Out of that day I also gained some new and true friends.

Here’s a list of some of my favourite things that emerged out of 2009

Favourite Game
Guitar Hero 5

Favourite album
aKing – Against All Odds

Definitive album of 2009
Jay-Z – Blueprint 3

Favourite Song
David Ford – State of the nation

Favourite TV Series
The Big Bang Theory
The Take (still new but looks promising)

Favourite Movie
The Hangover
District 9 (local smash)

Favourite take out
Steers

Favourite restaurant
Bombay Bicycle Club (Cape Town)
Fork (Cape Town)

Favourite Airline
Kulula.com

Favourite Day of the week
Sunday

Favourite thing about Jozi
Thunder storms that attack with vengeance and rage.

Favourite Web Application/Service
Basecamp

Favourite mobile application
Ubertwitter (I think it would seem a bit bias to say The Grid).

Favourite website
The Best Article Every Day

Favourite Blog/Lifestream
Blacknotes

Favourite webisode
Jake and Amir

Favourite online comic
Cyanide and Happiness

Favourite Tech Blog
ReadWriteWeb

Favourite Twitter follower
@Donpackett – Hilarity at every turn.

Favourite Twitter stream
Shitmydadsays

Favourite hobbies
Poker
Golf

It is a bit dramatic to say that after this year the world will never be the same. I think what I actually mean is that my world will never be the same. Which invariably is the whole world if I want to be a bit narcissistic.

I have learned that you cannot have everything right now. Time is constant and change is inevitable and sometimes you need to crouch, touch, pause and only then engage. You cannot constantly engage.

This year saw the end of manic blogging from me and the increase of twitter activity and listening. I’ve begun to listen more than I speak which I am sure is a welcome change.

Next year is going to be about consolidation, establishing a platform and working off of that platform in my personal life and in my career.

The killer concept next year is going to be mobile. There is no doubt about that in my mind. We are going to see some amazing mobile developments emerging out of Africa (I say Africa because the first world still believes that mobile = iPhone).

Enjoy the holiday because I know I will.

2010 is going to hit us with a bang (not the big bang I hope). My prediction for early 2010 is that we truly have no idea how massive the 2010 World Cup is going to be and South Africans are going to overwhelmed.

Don’t be a fool, don’t drive drunk, but feel free to drink without the drive.

OK, so I saw Jason’s post on his lovely Castle hamper that he received and all of a sudden felt like a terrible person.

I have received one of the Castle hampers too. And they rock my socks off, truly. There is a freakin’ place to hold your beer of choice in the braai apron. That’s classy stuff right there.

But on a more serious angle, Castle Lager is doing something very smart this year. They are telling people to drink, but stay the fuck away from driving cars if they are drunk. Now they obviously didn’t use these particular words in their campaign but that’s the gist of it.

Don’t drink and drive. Don’t be a tit, don’t be a murderer and don’t be a tool. Wait, wasn’t that a Van Wilder line? “Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool” – Not pertinent to this topic but nevertheless great advise for this festive season.

Anyways, the entire point of the campaign is to promote “designated drivers”, to make sure that those guys and girls are not the losers of the evening. So you can download the pdf now to find out where the parties are happening and get smacking.

This old-school type meme was found on David Airey’s blog. Haven’t done one in ages so thought I’d kick it off in SA (if I can make such a bold claim).

So you simply list the alphabet and type in the corresponding letter to your address bar of your browser and enter the first url that appears for that letter:

a – absa.co.za (Online banking changed my life)
b – bit.ly (Gotta keep URL’s short)
c – chrome.google.com/extensions (Looking in to Chrome extensions for Mac)
d – digg.com (No idea what that’s doing there)
e – explosm.net (The hilarious home of Cyanide and Happiness)
f – facebook.com (Uhu)
g – gmail.com (It’s the hub of my world)
h – http://gmail.com (just brought up the first “http”)
i – isohunt.com (Downloads, lots of ‘em)
j – jakeandamir.com (The best webisode in the world right now)
k – knowyourmeme.com (Know your meme crops up in a meme, shocking)
l – lamebook.com (It’s the lame-center of the Fbook)
m – maxgames.com (Typo on a gaming site I was looking for)
n – nicharalambous.com (Not surprising)
o – onthegrid.mobi (Work)
p – posterous.com (Lifestreaming)
q – qatarairways.com (if you can believe it, I got a “Q”! Was searching for flights to France.)
r – readwriteweb.com (Techhub of my world)
s – sarocks.co.za (Not surprising)
t – twitter.com (Not surprising)
u – ultimate-guitar.com (Guitar tab resource helping me learn my favourites)
v – vintage pin-ups (Search term that I have been obsessing over. Chrome allows you to search in address bar).
w – wap.thegrid.co.za (Work)
x – xe.com (Currency site)
y – youtube.com (Shock, horror)
z – zoopy.com ( – )

So there you have it… my URL ABC’s.

Top notch. Now let’s see yours.