Archive for May, 2009

My religion is obviously not cool enough

3
1106 days
by

Ordinarily I take no notice of celebrities and the bullshit that seems to surround them. However, something caught my attention this morning on the radio….The DJ was speaking about Madonna and her new lover Jesus.

Now apparently, Jesus who is Catholic by birth, has decided that he is going to convert to Kabbalah(ism?) in order to make/keep Modanna happy, which at face value may not seem so bad. I mean, if you believe that one religion is more inline with you self-belief systems, why the hell not, right?

Well that’s precisely the problem! This dumbass has been going out with Madonna for only a few months and of course in all that time he has managed to acknowledge that everything about what he fundamentally believes in is different (all of a sudden) to what he has always been taught and Kabbalaha is the answer!!!

Is this all religion has become? Something frivilous that can be exchanged at random times to support random needs?

Now before you bitch at me and tell me that its only the stars who do this kind of thing, lets be a little bit honest with ourselves…

I am Jewish by birth and atheist by practice and my wife is Christain. Throughout the years leading up till when we got married and moved away from our parents, both of us were constantly subjected to the ramblings of the parental units triumphantly stating that we were ” unequally yoked” and that it couldn’t work. Now what does this have to do with the subject matter? Well, most mixed religion couples that I know, have ultimately had one person convert to the others religion before they were (allowed to get) married. They were dealt the pressure and fell into the same trap that Jesus (pardon the unfortunate pun) is falling into now….they are changing their religion, not because they want to, not because they need to, not because they even believe anything the religion postulates, but rather, they change because they are not strong enough to fight their each other, their parents, society and everyone who thinks a mixed-religion relationship cannot work.

Even as an atheist, I still respect the practice of one’s faith but it seems that many others have an ever dwindling respect for there own….There are obvious issues around raising children in a mixed religion environment but to be honest, these issues are no different than raising children in a homosexual environment. To my mind, these issues are not real, they are just excuses because it’s easier to concede than stand up and fight for what you want and believe in.

Da Graziella Dunvegan Restaurant Review

7
1106 days
by in Food

When they say an eatery is authentic, what exactly do they mean, how authentic is authentic and does it matter? Are they talking about those trendy places in Parkhurst or Greenside that have somewhat of a regional theme? Perhaps they are referring to classic dishes from the culture at hand? To me, authentic means that when you walk in to the restaurant, you are the only person in the place who speaks English, the people around you have been coming there for donkeys years, the place is 167th generation owned and managed and everyone seems to know each other, a real sense of family and community.

italian-blt-sl-352568-l3

Do most claimed authentic establishments meet this criteria, unfortunately not. However, on walking into Da Graziella on Sunday afternoon with my wife for what was promised to be an authentic Italian lunch, I was pretty much blown away! The place looks simple and old fashioned, the menu is a couple of typed pages in a plastic binder, serviettes are straight from the Pick n’ Pay down the road and there are kids running around screaming at each other in Italian – it was exactly what I was looking for!

The place is exceptional and beautifully disorganised. The bread came after the starter while the drinks came after that. They make no excuse for that and why should they, you are not in Sandton and it makes the place that much more charming anyway. To be honest I can’t stand perfectly efficient service, where they have you in and out in an hour. That’s not what it should be about.

The food was amazing. For starters we shared these funny little deep fried rice balls with mice meat and mozzarella inside them. Main course was the Roast Rabbit for me (their most popular dish) and Napolitana Gnochi for my wife. I have never had rabbit before and although I felt bad for 5 minutes because a rabbit could be someone’s pet, I quickly forgot about that once that beautiful rich taste began permeating my taste buds, mmmm, my mouth is watering just replaying the moments in my mind!

Dessert was chocolate mousse and this long phyllo parcel filled with Ricotta, mixed fruits and some other stuff, WOW is all I can say!

The prices were great and nothing on the menu, including seafood dishes, is over R100. Rare these days!

I think what makes the place even more special is that it shows that there are still places where families and friends meet every week, share great food and wine, kids play together and the owners actually come and introduce themselves to you because you are new. This sense of the restaurant being part of the community has been completely lost amongst the trendy northern suburb eateries and although this place will probably never make it onto the eatout.co.za top 20, it is has a real warmth and genuine ambience which none of those Michelin type of places can ever match.

You can find it at the corner of Dunvegan Avenue and Boeing Road East, Dunvegan, Johannesburg.

Tel: 011 454 6202

Opening times:

Lunch Tues – Sun
Dinner Tues – Sat

Gotta love Nandos!

0
1109 days
by

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Aq042KPSg

Of course, this ad lasted about a week before the ANC decided that freedom of speech is good and well until it comes too close to home, wankers!

Now the ANC are saying that Nandos should pay “Julius” (the real one) for using his brand identity….once again, I say, wankers!

The worlds greatest and worst invention

2
1109 days
by in Technology

The Internet. Yes I believe it is both. I am not gonna rant and rave above why it arguably is…connecting the world, breaking all geographical boundaries, the source of all information blah blah yackity schmackity! you know all that that. I am gonna tell you why it’s the world’s worst invention.

Have you noticed over the last 10 years or so since the net really took but in general over the last 50 years of history, that fundamental discoveries, especially those in science, art and music have kind of dried up? Now I do not mean that great works and theories are not occuring, what I am referring to is a general loss in our generations ability to solve fundamental questions? Perhaps it’s just me but where have people of the order of magnitude of Einstein, Mozart and Da Vinci gone? Is it that core understandings of the universe have reached a point where there is little left to discover or that art and music is now something that is so well understood that the universe no longer needs priceless works anymore? Somehow I doubt that concept, instead I argue that the ease of information gathering and transfer, coupled with our generations desire to simply see what Google or Wikipedia says about a topic, has rendered us somewhat limited in our problem solving abilities and in general, quite uninterested in really understanding the core of any issue…

I have noticed this very specifically in my day-to-day as a software developer and project manager. As time goes on, each set of new graduates seem to have less and less ability to problem solve without being hand-held. Now obviously I cannot say for sure what is going on, but I have a suspicion, that as children are being introduced to the pc and Internet at an earier and earlier age, their desire to discover with some manual effort and their ability to really understand something is going down the toilet. I mean in the days of the great scientists, one couldn’t just go to google, type something and get back 1.345 million results. No no, one had to figure that shit out, how ever long it took because there simply wasn’t another way….

Now don’t send me examples of all the Noble prize winners over the last 50 years claiming that more has been discovered in the last 50 years than the last 500 years…you need to look at the quality and magnitude for changing life, of that discovery.

The Internet has made us take everything for granted, everything is easy, everything is about the next big thing, quantity without any quality. I mean take twitter for an example, seriously what’s the point?? It’s just facebook statuses which facebook was already doing well so why is facebook as my friend put it “No longer relevant”? To my mind, we are becoming a society where we are losing respect for the basics of life and I blame the Internet.

« Previous
Go to Top