April 2009
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Ten Things About Me

I been wond’rin’ all about me
Ever since I seen you there.
- SPANISH HARLEM INCIDENT

Well, I normally wouldn’t play this game. But I also normally wouldn’t be lucky enough to be on Kas Thomas’ esteemed blogroll. If he tags me and says play, I’ll play. I’m nowhere near as interesting as Kas, and I’ve never been a pilot. And there is nothing about technology or Content Management either. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

  • I am a born and bred South African. Studied at the University of Cape Town, although my working life has been based from the US, the Netherlands and, for the last 10 years, London. I can sing the South African National Anthem in Xhosa if I’ve had enough enough to drink.
  • I am a chess geek. I thought I was good, I won the South African under 18 championship once. Since I started traveling, I’ve realised I’m just crap. Did you know that Iceland has 9 chess grandmasters out of a population of about 300,000. South Africa has 0 out of 47 million. These days, I play better chess when I’ve had enough to drink.
  • There’s a pattern emerging. I used to drink far too much beer, but now get a hangover after three or four pints of Guiness.
  • I have a wonderful 11 month old son. He has done 12 international flights. He’s one of the reasons I don’t drink too much any more. He’s also the main reason my blog entries are written between 12:00 and 2:00 am and I’m not getting enough sleep. He rocks. His name is Noah. It might have been Dylan, but my wife said that would be confusing because …
  • I have two Persian cats. One is named Dylan (after Bob, who supplies the intros to all my blog posts) and the other is Poo (’cause she looks like one).
  • I love cricket and rugby. Watching, not playing. I dress my son in a South African shirt for the games so I can taunt him when he grows up to be an England supporter. Did I say we’re currently Rugby World Champions. And #1 in the world one day cricket rankings?
  • I did the first year of a Bachelor of Arts (Economics, German, Astronomy, Religious Studies) when I couldn’t find a supervisor for my thesis on dynamic shortest path algorithms in 2D strategy games (think old Warcraft or Command and Conquer). Can’t remember anything from Economics. Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut. Astronomy was probably the most enjoyable thing I ever did at University. I’m not a religious man.
  • I won the Girl’s Prize in a Maths Olympiad once. I used to call myself Jonny but they read it as Jenny. They called my name out a few times before I had the balls to stand up. Which technically I shouldn’t have had. So it’s Jon now.
  • I monetised a FaceBook app that I wrote ( with James) in my spare time. About 100 man hours netted £0.42 in ad revenue. But how many people made anything at all from their apps. I’ll link to the app for prosperity, but one of the many changes to the FaceBook API fux0r3d it badly.
  • I’m the worst artist I know. Unlike Kas, I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag. You can’t even tell if my stick figures are male or female. And I can’t choose colours that look good together either, although I do use a lot of pastels.

Well, that’s me done. Let’s never speak of this again. It’s all tech from here on in. Find yourself a real post from my useful new index page. Irina, Julian, Lee, Pie and the rest of you on my blogroll. Anyone care to step forward? You’re it.

Here’s a Meme ID just in case: 42a4263e9ae40c23da79bd43370fd814

Nothing like a bit of rugby

Nothing like a bit of rugby. Did I mention we're currently World Champions?

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April 14th, 2009 | 4193 comments | Tags: , , , | Category: Ramblings, Top 10

4,193 comments to Ten Things About Me