l e n s b o x s t u d i o s

On Birthday Celebrations and trips down Memory Lane…

Timothy Morty — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:48:55 +0000

I think I can safely say that this year’s birthday has been one of the more memorable and enjoyable birthday celebrations I’ve had in the last 31 years.

After Friday night’s movie, I pretty much expected the rest of the weekend to be restful and relaxing. Life, however, decided to surprise me in the form of my new housemates taking me out to Gold Reef City for the day on Saturday.

Now bear in mind, I haven’t seen Gold Reef City in probably 21 years… I was still in primary school when I went there with my Mom and her family. And my recollection of the place is dim, except for some events… like me trying to walk out of the mint with a gold bar.

It certainly appears to have changed a lot since then.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Andrew, Gwen and I went on some of the rides (Gwen’s face after the Tower of Terror was both amusing and concerning… the poor girl was quite shaken by the experience) and wandered around the park, experienced the 4D theatre, saw the Gumboot Dancers, tried our hands at winning some prizes at some of the stalls, etc.

We got home around 5pm or so and I had to get ready to go out to Catz Pyjamas in Melville for the joint birthday bash organised by Rozz for herself, Nick and I.

Craig was kind enough to pick me up as my little old VW Beetle was not up to the task, suffering a little with battery issues at present so driving at night becomes quite hair-raising unless you keep your foot on the gas to keep the lights on.

By the time we got there, most of the folks were already there, except for Rozz, Nick, JJ and Vanessa who were stuck in traffic due to some accidents on the way from Pretoria.

From there, the evening just kept on getting better and better. Good food, good company, good times!

And I got spoilt rotten… to the point that I was almost in tears, very much overwhelmed by the generosity and thoughtfulness of my friends.

Gift #1 - From Matthew, Marti and many many others who I still need to thank.

They surprised me with a TomTom ONE XL GPS… Now you have to understand a few things here… I am notoriously bad when it comes to directions. I get lost in my own backyard… And I’m forever getting lost whenever I go to a new place. Sure, I have software on my laptop to try and work out routes, etc but as my friend John recently discovered, the software does not necessarily choose the best or safest route.

However, with this gift comes a new joke… TimTim (thank you, Pieter… you’ve scarred me for life!) has a TomTom…

Gift #2 - From JJ and Vanessa

I’ve always loved swords. From the day my father showed me his grandfather’s cavalry saber (which we sacrilegiously used in the garden to chop up small branches and other such vegetation) to the day when Maarten offered me the chance to learn kenjutsu in exchange for some website work to promote his academy. There is just something awe-inspiring about holding a sword in your hands, feeling it cut through the air. And this applies even moreso to the Japanese katana.

When JJ and Vanessa gave me this long, wrapped box, I wasn’t too sure what was in it, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to open it up to find a beautifully crafted sword. Especially not a recreation of the sword from “Last Samurai”.

It is a truly stunning looking piece.

Back to the party… dinner was great but all in all, I think the best part of the evening was the company. And if the time we left Catz is anything to go by, I’d say everyone got on pretty well. We eventually stumbled out around 12:30am after which Craig and I sat talking at my place until around 4:30am, catching up a little on what has been happening in his life.

Sunday, after trying to catch up on some sleep, was spent relaxing at home, watching the Code Geass anime series I’d gotten from John, reading and listening to music or playing a little Warcraft III now and again to take a break from what I was doing.

It was a good weekend. No, it was a great weekend. But now it’s time to get back to work.

I’m on training tomorrow and Wednesday so I best get some work done today so that I don’t sit with a small mountain of it on Thursday.

Ciao for now.

On moving and upheaval…

Timothy Morty — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:17:40 +0000

Most people that know me, know all too well that I am a creature of habit.

I like my patterns… my set routines. Some would call it a rut, others may accuse me of being inflexible. But truth be told, I am just lazy. I like my comfort zones. And I do resist change. Hell, ask Rozz… she knows better than most, having tried to get me to change some of my ways over the last 8 years she’s known me.

Like some great tree, I tend to set down roots and would rather weather the storms where I am currently than uproot and have to resettle elsewhere. That metaphor continues on beyond my residence at the time… it seems to be a common theme in my life, in my career, friendships, relationships, habits, tastes and more.

Well, lately, I’m becoming less tolerant of storms. Maybe age is finally bestowing some wisdom and experience upon me.

I had to move home recently… those that have followed my story over the last year and a half, may have heard some of the descriptions of the antics of my housemates in that time. I’ve met some truly wonderful people. And I’ve met some that I would prefer not to relate to ever again. Perhaps due to my own anachronistic intolerances or maybe I just got tired of being used and abused.

The move, for me, just like all the other moves, has had it’s fair share of pain and trauma. Uprooting everything. Packing up more than just physical belongings and having to shift from one secure space to a foreign and uncertain space. Not knowing if I can create the same sense of security and serenity that I try to create in ‘my’ space.

And yes, I am delving into the esoteric here… exploring a concept based on what I heard recently on a podcast presented by the late Alan Watts.

We are more than just the physical extremes of our bodies. We are the space we live in. Work in. Move through. We are the people we interact with. We are our actions. We are our thoughts and feelings. We are more than ‘centres of awareness, locked up in a bag of skin’. And we are not separate from the world and the people in it.

Without an environment, everything else becomes meaningless. Without a description of my environment, there is no reference for my actions on that environment. Ergo, without people, my interactions, my words and my feelings have no meaning. And so on and so forth.

We are in fact, our ‘organism-environment‘. I’ll let the biologist boffins tell you more about that term.

Getting back to ‘my’ space… the ‘organism-environment’ that I try to create for myself, is one in which I try to build a sense of security. Of isolation, when I need it, yet with enough openness that I don’t remove all chance of interaction with others. I surround myself with books and music, pictures and movies. These are my friends when I need them, when the real world becomes too much for me to deal with. And they are mechanisms whereby I interact with others… a book lent between bibliophiles, a shared passion for the music lovers, a movie to watch with friends, etc.

My home is my den. I keep in it the things I need to feel comfortable. So that when I retreat from the world, I can go to a place where I feel safe. Where the chaos of the world around me is left at the door.

And so, every time that I move, I have to dig up all of that hard work and try find that ’space’ again. Or work to create it.

This recent move… we’ll see how it works out. So far so good, but I still have some reservations. But who knows… I’ve only been in here a week and I’m still adjusting to the new environment. It would be unfair of me not to give it a chance.

Anyway… enough serious thinking for tonight. I’ve just gotten back from going to go see the new Indiana Jones movie at Brightwater Commons and in all honesty, it was a fun little romp. A well needed break from reality.

Tomorrow night I am celebrating my birthday with Rozz and Nick and our respective friends and colleagues, as we all have our birthdays one after the other and have decided to do a joint celebration.

Good times, good company. May that feeling last the whole weekend… I need it after the week I’ve had.

Long Weekends, ‘Iron Man’ and New Music Discoveries.

Timothy Morty — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:04:21 +0000

Well, the last two long weekends have been a pleasant change, albeit chaotic in terms of repercussions when most people get back to the office and face the mountain of work they did not do during the public holidays. For me, it’s been a frustrating time. Making calls, sending mails, trying to get appointments to see houses or flats to share… driving all over Johannesburg…

I was also housesitting for friends of mine while they went away to celebrate a birthday. Which gave me plenty of time to reads my RSS feeds and catch up on some podcasts. One of those was a Dave’s Lounge Podcast I hadn’t gotten around to listening to yet… Dave’s podcast has become something of a regular feature in my music library these days.

In episode 107, he introduced me to a new music project called Sleepthief, featuring some of the vocalists and themes from another music project I enjoy, namely Delerium. The track he played was off “The Dawnseeker” album, called ‘Sublunar’:

Well, the lights are on and I don’t feel safe
By this tainted window
So if you’re looking in, you might see the pain
But I don’t want you to know, so…
Just go on pretending that you don’t know
All I am is empty, an empty world in my heart, In my heart, in my heart, in my heart
Sweet angel sweet angel sweet angel
All my pretty things make you stop and think
I must be a sweet angel
But when the glitter smears and the wires appear
You’ll see I’m horribly mangled, but
Hush hush hush la da da da
Hush hush hush hush hush
Hush hush hush hush hush hush la da da da da, da da

I don’t quite know how to put into words the ethereal quality of Kristy Thirsk’s voice. Reviews online describe the track as “melancholy but heavenly” and “Kristy Thirsk’s crystalline vocals are truly angelic and stunning within the celestial textures of Sublunar.”

Now Dave generally promotes a lot of smaller label artists so I wasn’t too hopeful about finding this on anything other than CDBaby or iTunes but I see Amazon has it as does Take2 so I think I may get this for myself sometime. Once my move, etc is done and I’m settled again.

The other highlight of the weekend was seeing “Iron Man” with some work colleagues. I’m not going to spoil it for those that have not seen it, nor am I going to repeat what several hundred other blogs are bound to say, except that this was a good movie. Specifically, a good comic-related action hero movie. And I think we all know how rare those are these days. It has all the elements of success in it. And as one blog put it, if you could leave your preconceived ideas at the door and sit back and watch it as a technology-fest, the geek in you would love it.

Reading some of the RSS feeds this morning on the topic, the folks at Marvel must be smiling, as Iron Man has taken the box office by storm.

Another page I stumbled upon recently lists all the upcoming movies for the next 3 years with links to their IMDB records. Some awesome titles on the cards, it seems, and some questionable ones too:

Filtered from titles slated for 2009

Filtered from titles slated for 2010

Filtered from titles slated for 2011

I can only hope that they don’t screw them up too badly. Specifically the ones in bold… (please do not let Uwe Boll near any of these movies!). As for the ones in italics… well, one has to wonder…

Seeing everyday events, especially business dealings, as metadata (Part 1)

Timothy Morty — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:52:30 +0000

Let me start off by defining metadata…

Metadata (sometimes called metainformation) is “data about data”, of any sort in any media. An item of metadata may describe an individual datum, or content item, or a collection of data including multiple content items.

Recently, a self-initiated project, involving business systems at my workplace, got me thinking about the data we do collect about business… and the data we unconsciously collect but never record for later use. Such data, is usually metadata.

Metadata (sometimes written ‘meta data’) are used to facilitate the understanding, characteristics, and management usage of data. The metadata required for effective data management varies with the type of data and context of use.

All too often, we record data but we become selective in our retention and representation of the data, etc.

I’m of the belief that all data is important, to someone, somewhere, sometime…

Hence the title of this article.

Except I want to look specifically at business, especially the IT industry, and the way we deal with clients.

By now, most of you, in the wired world, should have heard the term, CRM or Customer Relationship Management.

To quote Wikipedia:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a multifaceted process, mediated by a set of information technologies, that focuses on creating two-way exchanges with customers so that firms have an intimate knowledge of their needs, wants, and buying patterns. In this way, CRM helps companies understand, as well as anticipate, the needs of current and potential customers. Functions that support this business purpose include sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Many CRM initiatives have failed because implementation was limited to software installation without alignment to a customer-centric strategy.

Let me draw an example for you… (bear in mind I’m an engineer, not a business guru)

A sales person calls one of his existing clients to let them know about a new technology/offer, etc. Let us say that the Client could respond in one of several ways:

- Positive - sure, sounds great, please send me more information.
- Hesitant - well, not sure we need this right now, but send me some details and I’ll take it up with management.
- Negative - thanks but no, thanks. Don’t need anything now or we’re not purchasing anything until X date.

These are very simplified and I know there are many other variations, but for this example, I want to keep it simple.

So, depending on the feedback, the salesperson could begin the following processes:

- Positive - sends the client more information and mentally adds a check next to that client’s name on their list, with a note to get back to them soon.
- Hesitant - proposes a possible meeting to discuss with management if need be or asks if there is possibly someone else they should chat to regarding purchasing/procurement.
- Negative - Could try and persuade the client or may leave the issue be and move onto the next client.

On the surface, it seems pretty cut and dried. There has been an exchange and depending on the responses on one side, the other side can then adapt their responses accordingly. But even in the situations where the outcome is “negative”, there is value to be gained from the interaction.

Looking at any of the exchanges above, instead of simply mentally recording the fact that a client is still interested in business, or may be a potential lead, or is uninterested, we could expand on the knowledge we have about the client and his/her environment and thus readjust our approach. Here is some of the unspoken information we could glean from the interactions and some actions on them.

- Positive - great, so what do we know, other than the fact that the client is interested in our offerings?
  - Well, we could probably assume that we’ve maintained a good relationship with the client or at the very least, are on cordial terms with them and that he’s happy to deal with us
  - He’s potentially in a procurement cycle right now, so it’s best to step up the process of quoting/invoicing or doing proposals
  - The client is potentially aware of the technology and may be open to other offerings of a similar nature. Have a plan B or C or even D with regards to offerings… offer him different scenarios and see if you can bait them further.
  - He’s potentially involved with procurement decisions.
- Hesitant - Ok, so we’re don’t have a foot in the door just yet, but what do we know?
  - He’s not directly involved with procurement but can put us in touch with the right people
  - They may not be in a procurement cycle at the moment or have a freeze in place with regards to infrastructure. Maybe we should inquire along those lines and try find a time at which to call again.
  - He may be stalling… try another angle and ask him what services they are in need of currently, perhaps we have something or can tailor-make a solution for him. Most good sales people will do this… The more information you can get out of them, the better.
- Negative - Ok, panic stations! Is it us or them?
  - As above, but now we’re on the alert… what is our relationship like with the client? Have we done something to annoy them or failed to deliver on something?
  - If we’re on good terms, ask them when it would be a good time to call back. If you’re still rebuffed, time to do some damage control.

and so on…

Now, more often than not, all this information is not recorded centrally somewhere. It’s sitting in someone’s head, scribbled on some paper, in a journal somewhere. And generally not in a usable form.

If we could record all the information, or as much of it as our particular business needs dictate we capture, we could begin building a picture of the client, their needs, business structure, business cycles, etc. By filling in as many of the blanks, we gain a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with. It also makes it easier for someone else to take over that account and not have to do all the legwork all over again in order the build up an idea of where we stand with that client. At most, some politely phrased questions in a courtesy call to the client could confirm facts or raise the need to investigate further.

The same goes for more technical interactions, such as my recent field of investigation, vulnerability assessments. A comment overheard at a client site recently got me thinking that often we have all the answers at our fingertips but that we don’t correlate events from multiple sources that may provide a clearer picture about the situation.

For example, we may perform a Nessus scan on a client host and report certain findings (open ports, unsecured services, information advertisement, etc). The client then logs a call with us to make changes to correct some of the findings and we scan again to confirm that our changes have corrected the situation.

A while later, we scan again and find that some of the changes have been undone or new holes have appeared. We know that we haven’t done any changes to affect the status of that host, so we can then question the client, who would hopefully have some change control process in place to document their own changes. If they were not involved in the change, then we need to investigate further and rather urgently as all fingers point towards an external party making unauthorized changes!!

By recording the results from the various scans and having a history to compare against, we can track the evolution of the security solution, it’s improvement or degradation and have accountability in the form of our internal processes such as change controls, project sign-offs, etc. By mapping these together we could, for instance, prove that we were not responsible for a change that was detrimental to the client and therefore are not liable for damages, seeing as we had warned them before of the risk, had taken steps to correct the situation, then had those measures undone without our knowledge…

All of this, of course, assumes that the processes are in place to capture all the relevant data and store it. It also assumes that the data is in such a form that it can be recalled and manipulated. The degree to which it can be manipulated depends on the data types.

More to come later when I have time to type and plan.

Dusting off some of the cobwebs…

Timothy Morty — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:36:56 +0000

Wow… tempus fugit… time flies…

Considering that my last post was in February sometime, and we’re almost done with April, I feel I’ve neglected this site for some time. Time, specifically spare time, has become somewhat of a rare commodity for me lately…

Ok, some updates (for those that care and even for those that don’t):

I’m moving… where to, I’m not too sure yet, but I’m hoping it will be a little closer to work to cut down on traffic, etc. I should be seeing a place tomorrow night that sounds perfect…

Work has been going well, just busy. At present I’m on-site at BCX (Business Connexion) in Midrand, standing in for a work colleague who has decided to get married… poor sod… another one bites the dust. I’m studying as well, brushing up on my Checkpoint Security Administration knowledge so I can write my CCSA (Checkpoint Certified Security Administrator) and CCSE (Checkpoint Certified Security Engineer) exams when I get back to the Randburg office.

What else? Oh, I’ve been raiding a little again in World of Warcraft with my US Stormrage guild, Awakened Guardians. My rogue is somewhat under-geared and underpowered in comparison to some of the uber-backstabbers out there, but some recent gear upgrades has made her a far more formidable than she was.

Sadly, with this move, I’ll be offline again for some time unless Telkom miraculously pulls it’s collective finger out of deep, dark, unmentionable body cavities and does something quicky for a change…

Not that I’m a pessimist… not at all… I’m just a strong believer in Finagle’s Law, which states:

“Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment.”

OR

O’Toole’s Corollary of Finagle’s Law, “The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.”

In other words… Murphy was an optimist.

I haven’t had much time lately to discuss or even explore the various metaverse cultures out there or my more recent research into trans-humanism, but catching up this morning on one of the more interesting blogs out there on these topics, I found that Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks want to make a 3D CGI movie of one of my favourite anime films of all time… Ghost in the Shell. As a self-confessed fan-boy of the Ghost in the Shell franchise and Masamune Shirow’s work, I sincerely hope and pray that they don’t screw it up…

Reading further (my GoogleReader has too many feeds for me to catch up on all of them in one day!), I see that there is talk of a live-action version of Akira. While I was never that fond of the Akira story, it was and is still a well-known landmark within the anime/manga culture and I hope they do it justice.

Other than that, not much else to report. Eskom is keeping us on our toes with load-shedding (thank Heavens for laptops with batteries and podcasts/movies to watch while waiting for the lights to come back on), traffic is a pain in the butt (especially on Allandale and Malibongwe)… and I think I need a refill on this coffee… or maybe some hot chocolate.

Fighting a never-ending fight…

Timothy Morty — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:15:23 +0000

“The more complex our security becomes, the more complex our enemy’s efforts must be. The more we seek to shut him out, the better he must learn to become at breaking in. Each new level of security that we manage becomes no more than a stepping stone for him who would surpass us, for he bases his next assault upon our best defenses.” - This Alien Shore

How true… how very true.

Found this quote today while researching vulnerability assessment tools for a client project.

I’d only dabbled in security before, trying to harden my servers and workstations at work, making sure they all had their latest software patches, anti-virus updates, etc, but all that means little when you begin to research some of the gaping holes that exist in the products we use on a daily basis.

It seems that we can never get ahead of the ‘crackers’ out there, the virus coders, the bored digerati with nothing better to do than to see if they can find a new loophole in the system…

Everything just seems so… reactive. After the fact. And just when you think you’re up to date and safe, something new comes and pokes a hole in your defenses again.

This domain of mine has had it’s fair share of attackers… I’ve had a blog that I host for a friend, defaced by some fundamentalist group who thought it was a good platform to announce their political views from. My forums have been under constant attack from spammers. They’ve tried masquerading as my mail domain and sending spam…

And for what? My site is of no importance. This Wordpress CMS is a simple journal and soapbox most of the time… my forums are gaming related, the galleries host a friend’s photos… What are they accomplishing by defacing something I could recreate in about an hour or so. My hosts do frequent backups so I may not even have to rebuild… I could simply rollback to a snapshot…

But to someone, somewhere out there… it was an achievement. Something they’re proud of… “Look at me! Look at what I’ve done! I’m a hacker!”. To you I say the following:

So you call yourself a hacker?

Wrong kid… you’re simply the Net equivalent of the guys that spray graffiti on the neighbourhood wall, or the kids that toilet paper a house. The nosy neighbour sifting through our trash, reading our mail…

Get a life… grow up… use what talents you have for something positive, if indeed it is talent and you’re not one of the lazy ones out there that use exploit frameworks and scripts created by others to do their dirty work.

You could be helping make the Net a safer place, making stronger bonds between opposite ends of the Earth, helping build the metaverse that will be the playground for the generations to come. Instead, you’re out there, defacing, leaving your mark on someone else’s hard work.

You’re not a hacker… you’re a black hat, a cracker, a script-kiddie or worse… and those who can legitimately call themselves hackers are nothing like you.

Should my colleagues and peers in the industry find you, someday, somehow, hope to whatever Gods you worship that our reach is not so far that we can return the favours you’ve so carelessly sought to give unto others.

A time will come when fire will be fought with even greater fire and the fight will not be a one-sided reactive-only defense versus a constantly evolving barrage.

The tools of this electronic war are evolving, even as the attacks are and will separate the chaff from the wheat, leveling the playing field again so that the true fight can begin between black and white. All it takes is education for those involved, giving them the knowledge and correct tools with which to protect themselves, removing innocent bystanders from harms way, creating less victims…

When the time comes, which side will you stand on?

I know where I will be…

So much to do, so little time to do it in…

Timothy Morty — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:31:53 +0000

Or so it seems, most days…

The last few days/weeks have been busy for most people. For me, they’ve been filled with work, social events, issues at home and a general need for downtime in which it’s either just me, my PC and some uplifting music or my bed and a good book.

Let’s see, where to begin…

May as well begin with work as it is where I seem to spend most of my time these days!

I love my job. People think I’m odd, but I look forward to going to work, to see what new challenges await me. And they often do!

You see, I’m a relative newcomer to the security industry… having been primarily involved with systems administration, web development and design, ANSI development and some minor DBA work before this… And when I joined, I was initially there to look after one of our anti-virus products more than anything else. Except, me being me, I had to go and stick my nose into other things and jump feet first into the firewall tickets and try my hand at log analysis…

Now, I spend most of my time abusing my workstation’s processor and memory, building pivot tables, running SQL queries and pulling reports from client log files, trying to make head or tale of what I see before me… is this a botnet I see before me? A portscan perhaps?

Management have also gotten me involved in some of the research and development projects, which makes for some interesting times as I sit and research topics that I may have glossed over before or never even thought of.

I work with a good bunch of people as well. On the AV side of things, I have Reshan to lean on when my own knowledge of F-Secure fails me. On the Checkpoint side of things there are many talented and knowledgeable people, like Matt, our technical manager and primary Checkpoint trainer, Gary, Clive, Marcel and Teper. All of these guys have helped me when I’ve gotten stuck with an issue and have been patient enough to explain it to me without treating me like an idiot.

We all work hard. And we play hard as well; Matt provides music during the day and we often take breaks for coffee or cooldrinks, go stand in the bar area and play a round or two of pool, throw some darts or discuss World of Warcraft, something many of us play, though Marcel and Reshan are supposedly rehabilitated… We’re trying to rope them back in though. Those breaks afford us a well-deserved mental break from the stresses of concentrating on some rather intricate configurations and mystifying security incidents.

Between work and play though, we end up working long hours, seeing to the demands of clients… I think most nights the tech team leave work well after 6:30pm, if not later.

For folks like Matt, Gary and myself, it’s then time to drive home and log into World of Warcraft, to our guild, “Thunderwalkers” on Dath’Remar, US Oceanic. That keeps up busy until the next morning when our work cycle begins anew.

Beside “Thunderwalkers” though, I still belong to “Awakened Guardians” on US Stormrage, where I have most of my characters and play a role in guild management by running their website and forum which I host under this domain.

We’ve gotten together a few times offline, as the photo to the right shows. Interesting to put faces to names and voices…

Aside from my usual routine of work and play though, I also have the dubious honour of living with 4 women who keep me on my toes. Sharlene and Cari have stayed with me before, as two of the original tenants that moved into the commune shortly after I did. The two newcomers, Renee and Tarryn, have brought their own chaos to the party.

Some folks joke with me that I must be a very lucky man to live with 4 women… My response usually surprises them… It’s certainly not the ideal many would think, as there have been some spectacular blowups and unspoken issues… but for the most part it’s peaceful and it’s company… Something I’d gotten used to since I moved out of my bachelor flat and moved in with other people in a sharing arrangement. It’s taken some getting used to, but for those that cannot afford to get their own house just yet or cannot stand the idea of being alone 24/7, it’s not that bad.

It’s actually quite nice to come home, sit with someone and have a cup of tea or coffee, hear about their day, relate your own experiences, etc. This is great most of the time, but I’ll admit there are some days when I am feeling less than sociable and all I want to do is make myself some supper and go lock myself in my room, put on my headphones and forget about the world outside.

Something I need to do again is get back into my photography. I’m still working through a backlog of photos for Sheelagh’s wedding, my company’s last year-end function and several other spools I’ve had lying around and finally had developed.

And I’ve found some new subjects to photograph as well… just need to make the time to go and take some proper shots that aren’t shot with my little HTC P4350 smartphone…

The shots below were taken one evening when Rob was up from Cape Town and we’d gone to see Alien vs Predator 2… we stood outside the movie theatre area in Brightwater Commons and were treated to this colourful little display, though the accompanying music was badly distorted through very tinny and bass-intolerant speakers.

Makes me realise that I really need to get back into things again… I haven’t managed to beat shots like these and some of them are well over 3-4 years old now.

Time to get back into the habit, I think…

The last two weeks…

Timothy Morty — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:38:29 +0000

Let’s see, what has happened in the last two weeks worth writing about.

Ah, yes, the storm and subsequent demise of my ADSL modem and laptop. And MPH.

I’ll start with MPH… I’ve never been to a car show before and certainly never anything like MPH, so thank you Rozz, for a very different and entertaining Christmas present.

Didn’t get to see all that much of the car expo itself, but the ‘theatre’ part of the show was brilliantly executed by the hosts and their accompanying stunt drivers. The banter between Hammond and Clarkson was a welcome familiarity for those that have watched any Top Gear at all, and I think poor Sasha Martinengo didn’t stand much of a chance of stealing any limelight from those two.

There were some stunning driving/stunt sequences, some amusement in the form of the soccer match with cars, the hosts driving their own inventions and the half-a-car race, a rather different take on bull fighting with a very flexible female matador and a bakkie as the bull, mixed in with some of the best looking cars available today. A petrolhead’s dream come true, I think.

The whole thing was marred a bit though, by the travesty they called seating. I think no matter what shape or size you are, those seats are just uncomfortable, especially if you’re a little taller than most and your knees end up crushed against the seat in front of you.

Anyway… it was still a good time though. Good times with good company… it’s all that counts really.

We left MPH, only to be greeted by a magnificent storm and downpour.

The next day wasn’t much better. Though for the most part, it wasn’t stormy. Or so I thought.

There I was, happily sitting on my bed, playing World of Warcraft on my laptop, headset on, chatting to friends, when ZAP! … Everything went dark. Ok, not surprising, considering the mains tripped on the distribution board… flicked the switch and we had power again. Except that somethings didn’t come back up. Things like my brand new Netgear ADSL modem and my laptop. And there was the smell of ozone and electrolytes in the air to confirm my suspicions.

Ah well… It’s meant that I caught up on some of my reading this week, though I have ended up working late to get some research, etc done that I normally would have done from home.

In the meantime though, I’ve put my old Telkom ADSL modem back online and built up a small PC from spare parts. Nothing great, but it’s enough to run XP and Office, browse the ‘Net and listen to MP3’s. I got a new Netgear as a replacement but not in a rush to install it just yet as without the laptop, I don’t really need the wireless just yet. And frankly, my housemates can wait a bit before I put them back online again… maybe this will encourage them to pay me for their usage.

Hopefully I get the laptop back this week coming. Apparently they’ve replaced the motherboard, and I’m hoping I didn’t lose any data of the hard drive.

A weekend of shopping

Timothy Morty — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:41:43 +0000

I’ve had an eventful weekend, that’s for sure.

Between heading back to my normal office after my last day on-site at ABSA and catching up on mail and office news, I met up with Rob, and my other good friends, Pieter, Tania and their daughter, Zania, at Fourways for supper. Supper turned into late night coffee and cakes at another restaurant when the first started hinting we should leave due to them wanting to close and later Rob and I went to go watch “National Treasure 2“.

NT:2 was good. In some ways better than the first, but in hindsight, my reservations about the first may be skewing that judgement.

Saturday, after playing catchup with the folks at home, I got dragged around Northgate by Tarryn, who initially only went there to get some Tupperware. Several hours later, we eventually emerged, Tarryn having bought a new handbag and some clothes. I picked up a ‘Men’s Health’ book on lifestyle change to combat the typical stresses, etc men fall victim too.

Later that evening, Rob and I went to Brightwater Commons and saw “Alien vs Predator 2” after a very decent meal at Scrooges. AvP:2 was… well… crap. Not bad enough to walk out of, but certainly not memorable. The first was infinitely more memorable.

And today, Rob had some more time to kill before flying back to Cape Town, so we went back to Brightwater Commons and paid a visit to AnimeWorX, where I took the plunge and replaced my Ghost in the Shell : Alias figure, that got broken a while back and secondly, indulged in a Mon-Sieur Bome : Fate/Stay Night - Saber figure.

The first was something I was fond of, not only because I own just about every GitS product short of the games, but because it was originally bought for me as a Christmas present by Rozz, and admittedly, I should have taken her advice back then and left it in it’s packaging. Which I intend to do with both new figures. For now at least, or until I have the means of displaying them out of harms way.

The second, is a series I quite enjoyed recently (many thanks to our resident otaku, John-san, for letting me watch it - may your broken ankle heal soon) and I was quite intrigued by the character of Saber, who turns out to be a female incarnation of King Arthur, known there as King Artoria. Again, my fascination with mythology kicked in…

While I don’t count myself as an otaku, I do enjoy my anime and manga, and if I find something that I like, I tend to collect everything I can from the product range.

So far, I’m looking to collect:

Fate / Stay Night
Eureka Seven
Genshiken
Hellsing
Battle Angel Alita
Robotech / Macross
Last Exile
Ergo Proxy

with many more to be added in time to come, I’m sure.

State of the Nation

Timothy Morty — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:54:04 +0000

Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?

We live, supposedly, in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Yet hidden under all the trappings of a tourist haven, we seem to be trying to hide some very big homeland issues that need urgent attention.

The one on everyone’s minds at the moment, is our dear friend, Eskom.

We are at the mercy of a bunch of bureaucratic jerks who think that by getting snotty with the public about their consumption, it is going to make us understand why we’re stuck in traffic for 2 or more hours everyday, why we come home to a dark house, cannot prepare a warm meal, have a hot bath, etc.

You lot clearly do not understand the mob mentality of people that have reached a critical mass… Sanity flies out the window when you’ve been uncomfortable with something long enough to drive you to express your feelings either vocally or physically. All you need is enough people in the same state of mind and you have a mob. And mobs are never pretty…

And now they want to ration the electricity for home users. Right… So you’re going to make sure that people are not only miserable during work hours, but at home as well? Nice one, boys! I don’t care who you are… You could be black, white, coloured or indian… a lot of people are turning to old racist crutches and blaming the black staff… I’m beyond that! I’ll happily paint everyone with the same tar-brush at this point. You’re all a bunch of idiots! Well paid idiots!

To use a rather apt saying that I grew up with in my family… “Julle dink nie verder as wat julle neus is kort nie!”

This does not even begin to touch on the impact on business!

Oh, sure, some businesses are smiling, right about now… let’s see… companies that deal in gas appliances… diesel… generators… rechargeable lights. And because demand is so high, of course the prices have to follow suit. I hear from some places that generators have a 6-8 week waiting period for stock availability.

For the rest however, we’re stuck with UPS’s and their incessant beeping, diesel generators thrumming away in basements, guzzling thousands of Rands of fuel to keep businesses alive… and those are the lucky ones that planned for this sort of thing; the banks and other big corporates that cannot afford to be out of action because every minute lost means less money for them.

What about the SME’s that may have a few small PC’s (with or without UPS’s)… or corner shops and deli’s… butchers and bakers… what about waste from stock that goes off in fridges? Restaurants that cannot serve customers?

How about this as an alternative? You know those lovely big signboards we see all over the place? The neon signage on company buildings? The corporate towers that stay lit up like Christmas trees all night long?

How about asking them to switch off their lights after hours… you know, the last person out the door turn off the lights for their floor, etc? Turn off signboards after, say, 8- or 9pm. The same goes for corporate signage. And those pretty lamps and floodlights that you see in some company ‘gardens’ that light up the empty parking lots and sides of buildings.

I’ve spent the last month working in the Johannesburg CBD and thanks to Rozz’s late hours (definite busy bee award nominee!) and the fact that she’s been kind enough to cart me back and forth the last while, I’ve seen first hand the sheer amount of electricity wasted after ‘normal’ working hours. In fact, I remember seeing the same thing from my own time, working late in the Cape Town CBD (I was in the ABSA building there, sitting 23 floors up, you tend to have a pretty good view of the city).

And everyday, we hear new excuses… rain to affect power. This to affect power. That to affect power. And behind that, the smug voice of Eskom, not apologising, not discussing alternatives, not telling us that they’re looking for solutions… No, it’s “We are going to ration you and you will have to pay fines like a bad person for using more than your ration!”

Then we have our roads… which seem to becoming more and more like dirt roads lately.

Potholes, potholes everywhere and Oh my God, my car is going to sink!

Drive around and count the number of potholes you have to dodge between home and work, or your next stop in journey. Stop for a week. Then do it again. Hmmm, not only have they increased in number and in size, but nothing has been done to the existing ones, except maybe having some sand thrown into it to fill it temporarily, which the rain then promptly turns to mud and spreads out across the roads.

And my all time favourite pet hate, Telkom… where else can you sit on the phone, on hold for 45 minutes or more, listening to the worst hold music ever and not speak to a living person… and now they have a new option!

“Please, if you cannot wait to report your fault over the phone, feel free to report it online at our website…”

Gee, that’s nice, but maybe the reason I’m calling you is because my ADSL is not working and I can’t get online?!?

The more I see and hear these things, the more you hear in the news and in discussions between peers and colleagues, the more I wonder about the viability of staying here. I think, now, that my time left here in South Africa is limited. Time to begin working towards finding alternatives. Before it’s too late.