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Thatcher's rants and musings 2006

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• The capital of Botswana, Gaborone, where we live, could be mistaken for a newish American suburb. Shopping malls: check. Multiplexes: check. Acres of manicured ranch-style homes, check. Coffee shops, check. Family eateries, fast food, Chinese, Indian, Thai restaurants: check, check, check, check, check. Last time we lived here, in 1999, Julie and I used to play a game called "you know what they need here?" And then we'd say "Taxis!" Or "Pad Thai!" Or "Pizza delivery!", etc. Now, in 2006, the only two consumer items I really miss from America are 1) a burrito, and 2) an edible hamburger. Botswana gets a pass on the burrito, since NYC doesn't even have a decent one. The burger is a bit of a mystery since Botswana's second leading export is beef, every restaurant serves affordable steak which is usually pretty good, and the fast food fried chicken is often better than at home. Don't get me wrong -- burgers are on offer -- they're just digusting. They mix something into the patty to make it taste like greasy styrofoam, and then douse it in an approximation of sweetened motor oil. Mmm.

• Food items from here that I would like to see back in America: Bokomu Fruity Flakes cereal (photo) (it's just good, I think it's puffed rolled wheat with bits of dried fruit), Salticrax (photo) (like Ritz but without the weird artificial aftertaste), Red Label Lemon Creams (curiously lemony), the Spur Steak House "Hot Rock" dish (they give you a platter with raw meat and a red-hot piece of grill surface; imagine hazardous Korean barbecue at TGI Friday's), Appletiser (basically, carbonated apple juice), soft drinks and candy in general (sweetend with cane sugar not high-fructose corn syrup), the "Ten Pula Lunch" (a heaping plate of grilled meat, coleslaw or other pickled item, and choice of starchy substances for the equivalent of $1.50, served by the side of the road), Fatcakes (homemade deep fried yeasty bread dough), french fries (aka "chips" -- ubiquitous, not crispy, but fresh and kind of mushy and made from slightly sweet flavorful potatoes -- fabulous). The restaurant and packaged food in Southern Africa is a bit antiquated compared to the good old USA. It often seems to be made from actual ingredients according to an actual recipe, with a curious absence of guar gum.

• I was driving around one day, and pulled out behind a tractor-trailer truck. It was a big, all white, double-trailer job. Painted on the sides of both trailers, in large, blue, slightly irregular capital letters, was: "HUMAN'S". That's all, just "HUMAN'S" on the sides and back of two windowless trailers. As I drove along behind the truck, I thought "I wish I had my camera!", "Hm, so what IS in there?", "They wouldn't dare haul humans, that would be crazy...", "But if you were smuggling humans, wouldn't it be ballsy to paint HUMANS on the truck?", "Somebody really ought to pull them over and take a look." Moments later, the HUMAN'S truck slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder at a police roadblock. The police waved me on, so I continued past, and didn't get to observe the inspection, so that was that.

  But a week or so later, I saw another HUMAN'S double-trailer -- almost identical, except on the back of the rear trailer, underneath "HUMAN'S" was a slogan in painted script: "Your reliable hauler!"

  Julie still thinks I'm making it all up.

• There are now lots of personal taxi services around for rich expats like me, for when the car is in the shop. But the true public transport are the "combis", which are Toyota minivans that carry around 20 people (in a space that 8 or so Americans would find cramped), piloted by teenaged boys. Combi drivers are more than a little intimidating to us mortal drivers on the road. Anyway, one day I was driving behind a combi, and ahead of us a skinny but cute puppy dog ran into the road to dine on a bit of what looked like roadkill. As a lover of all things cute and puppy dog, I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next: the combi swerved TOWARDS the puppy, and accelerated to boot! Fortunately the cute puppy, in its short but no doubt violent life in Africa, had learned to be ever vigilant, and it scampered off the road, far enough back that the combi reluctantly returned to the pavement without scoring a hit.

• Another combi observation. Driving along, I saw someone in a small sedan make a turn in front of an oncoming combi, slightly impeding the combi's rapid advance. The combi driver, road enraged, pulled a weapon from on top of the dash. Not a gun, mind you, but a switch -- i.e. a long slender branch with the bark whittled off, that thing you use to whip naughty children or dogs or what-have-you. "Ha ha, funny," I thought, but this was no joke -- as the turning sedan pulled past the combi, the combi driver took a mighty swipe at the driver of the sedan, and very nearly striped the other driver, through the sedan's open window!

here

In other news, I'm moving to Africa.

I've been playing around making T-shirt designs. My supply of band T-shirts has dwindled over the years to almost nothing, and I'm too uncool to find new ones. I'm left with computer-related shirts, and the random stuff people give me. So it's time for some new shirts. My first attempt was a Pokey-themed design, printed courtesy of zazzle.com:

You can click on the picture above and order one for yourself. They use a kind of fancy iron-on process similar to Cafe Press. When I first got my shirts I was a little bummed by how the printing looked, but after a washing I think they look pretty decent.

Anyhoo, I also came across http://threadless.com which is kind of fascinating -- they accept T-shirt designs from anybody, and anybody can vote on the designs. Every week or so they pick the best designs from that week and screen them, and sell them online. It's all very cannibalistic/mad-cow-disease. I do like the concept of designs for the sake of aesthetics, without trying to promote a brand, whether its a band or product or political party or what have you.

Here's where you come in: I have submitted a design, and I want you to vote for it, so they will screen-print it and make me rich and famous! Click on the doggie, and give it the highest rating your conscience permits:

(Truth be told, the pooting dog is based on an old Sinkhole T-shirt I drew. Next time I will try something more novel.)

Ambush At Junction Rock has a myspace page. With music. OMG!

I just wrote a small note about plotting burndown charts using gnuplot.

MythTV has a great feature called "Time Stretch", where you can speed up TV programs. Great for NewsHour; right now I'm watching slimebag Alberto Gonzales try to justify illegal wiretaps, 1.2x faster (and shorter) than real time.

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