All posts for the month February, 2011

Love made in Radio

So another day I happen to listen to radio, which is a rare thing as most Kenyan radio presenters talk too much, and I caught a conversation that really intrigued me. Apparently this show is the one for playing cupid, if I may put it that way. Why anyone would go on national radio to look for a spouse is beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, I digress, back to the story. The presenter asks the lady to give background about her and the kind of man she’s looking for. The lady says she’s 24, unemployed and is currently helping her mother out in her business. When asked about her education, she said she was a class 8 dropout. Her father died back then and they were unable to raise fees to take her to school (I sympathize). What has she been up to in the past lets say 10 years? She joined an acting group, did some acts with them, dropped out, joined again, and dropped out than finally she decided to join her mum in the business venture. Oookay

The guy she’s looking for? He has to be 30-35 years of age, driving a car, employed. What if he has a child, will you mind? No, as long as the child is a girl. Why??!!? Boys are not easy to handle. Long pause (mainly for me, followed by chants to calm me down). And the presenter went on to ask if there was anyone out there interested, that they should call in or was it email and they’d be hooked up!!! Yay! Cupid strikes again!!

Totally unrelated

After that I think I switched to the other station cuz I could not believe what I had just heard. Was that girl for real? Or was I being too quick to judge? Either way, it got me thinking, what was she putting on the table? I mean, many years, women have been known to make lists of their dream men/Mr. right/ the one etc. Articles have been written, books have been published, and shows broadcasted discouraging these lists, all because those lists can get a bit unrealistic. But I won’t discourage it. I say, write on, if you won’t get the perfect one, at least it will serve as a guide to getting someone similar.

Mr. Right

But the question is what are we (ladies) putting on the table? Fine, we want them rich and famous, lean and handsome, focused and disciplined, loyal and loving….ta da da da da da. What are you offering in exchange for all this?

We need to up our game too. Partners complement each other, not complete each other (however romantic it sounded in Jerry Maguire!!). When making the lists, I think we should also consider what we are going to give too. Let’s not wait and sit pretty hoping someone will pick us. You want that phenomenal man? Be phenomenal too. You might not make more money than him, or more educated than him (or the opposite of all this) etc, but you can match up in your own way.

So, that said, I’d like to be very clear that I’m not a therapist nor am I famous for my flourishing relationship with a man. But I felt I should spread the word as this is what I was told by someone who has been there and done that, happily married with children, living life (can I justify this any more). As for me and my list, at my age, the only thing that’s there is, let him be alive and breathing .

Totally related!!!

Other posts by the author can be found at http://pre7amer.wordpress.com where she pretends to blog.

3 Comments

by pre7amer on February 17, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by pre7amer on February 17, 2011

https://alternativefocus.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/love-made-in-radio/

Review: Twitter App LMAO!

Before I begin, it is good if I ask you to register the following information somewhere in your subconscious mind: I am not a tech guy. I try to know what is helpful for me, and let other people, whom I can consult when I need to know about something, worry about the newest inventions. For example, it is enough for me to know Google Chrome is a better browser than Internet Explorer. What use is it for me to know that Internet Explorer 9 is about to be released or Google has ditched built-in H.264 support in Chrome? No use whatsoever! Now that we have a background on where I am coming from, we can begin.

I think twitter has more apps than I have followers! One of them is LMAO! LMAO! is a “mobile web interface to twitter’s API. It is a twitter client for idiots developed by another!” according to the developer, Amasy. I have used it for about two weeks now and I have no doubt it is one of the best out there. LMAO! is like Dabr’s sister, only she is younger and therefore, more attractive. Not only is it developed by a Kenyan, it has several Swahili and sheng words such as “Fuata” and current in-words such as “mpango wa DM”, “Mara that”, “PAP!” etc. I can only hope that the words will be replaced with other in-words when their time has come to an end. However, I must say the use of words that are in general use by almost any young adult makes this app much more fun to use than its sister!

Unlike snaptu, I did not have to download anything. I just went to www.enlightglobal.net/lmao where I was asked my twitter username and password. Once I gave it permission to access my account, I was good to go, as easy as it sounds! The first thing I saw was the purplish background with menus at the top. (Luckily, I was able to change it to a more male colour of Blue.) The menus are as follows:

Home: which displays the tweets of the tweeps you follow according to date and how long ago the tweet was posted. This can be changed in settings so that instead of how long the tweet was posted, it shows the time. I should also mention that unlike snaptu in which you can only view a maximum of the last 200 tweets, in LMAO! you can view as many as possible by clicking the “older” tab available down the page.

Replies: No points for guessing what is found here!

Directs: Again no points for guessing what is here. I should mention that unlike snaptu, LMAO! allows you to view the DMs you have sent in the “Ma DM’s Zile Umesend” section

Search: I really enjoyed using this part, mainly because it was faster than I imagined.

Favourites: All my over 500 favourite tweets were here. Favouriting a tweet is also as easy as ABC. Unfavouriting a tweet, however, gave some sort of error, but still did the job.

Followers: Shows my followers in the order in which they followed me from the latest. There is some information given to help me decide whether to follow (Fuata) or not. For example, the average tweets per day, number of followers, bio etc. This info is normally not available in snaptu. On clicking the username of the tweep following you, you get more options including @replying them, following them, blocking them (Block hii fala) or reporting them (snitch this ass to twitter) and not forgetting the tweep’s tweets.

Friends: Shows the tweeps I follow with the options as I have given in “Followers” above.

Twitpic: You can upload a twitpic directly from the device you are using or from the memory card, easily I must say. You also have an option of adding a message of 110 characters!

Trends: Show the Trending Topics. You have an option of checking the TT of certain areas/countries like the UK, Canada, India, various states in the US etc. Unfortunately Kenya is not on the list.

Lists: Show the lists I am in

Settings: You have options to adjust the app to suite you. You can change the background colour, set the app according to the device you are using (if it is touch screen, a PC, normal phones etc)

About: Tells you one or two things about the app and developer. (not three.)

Logout: I know you are smart enough to know what this does.

The app does not refresh itself, which means you have to refresh it in the “Si urefresh?” tab. The advantage of this is that it does not eat up your data charges if you forget to close it. Another disadvantage is that, unlike snaptu, it does not allow you to use multiple accounts. When writing a tweet, snaptu will not let you continue once you reach the 140 character mark. LMAO! on the other hand will let you be an “idiot” and write whatever you want, only for it to give you an error when you post it. I also forgot to mention that you have two options of retweeting (old school, where you can edit the tweet or new school).

I assume that the app is a work in progress, even though it is better than most apps around, since the developer does not mind comments, suggestions or questions. He does not seem the type to take criticism though, and fairly, for coming up with such an app, he should not get any. Big up to Amasy for LMAO! I will suggest you take a look at it, and give it a spin. If you do not like it, “download snaptu uache kusumbua watu kichwa!”

4 Comments

by The Greatrnk on February 14, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Reviews

Tagged Google Chrome, greatrnk, Kenya, Kiswahili, Mobile phone, Reviews, Snaptu, Social Networking, Trending topic, Twitter

Posted by The Greatrnk on February 14, 2011

https://alternativefocus.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/review-twitter-app-lmao/

Why a Kenyan Revolution Will Never Happen

By cdohnio

I needed to out this up quick which is why I’m doing this on a day I already have on post up but I feel the longer I wait the less relevant what I have to say becomes. Also I’m not a political scientist or any sort of expert on revolutions and such matters, these are just my thoughts.

Recently, ever since the Tunisia and then Egypt protests and revolts there’s been a lot of chatter on my time-line(Twitter) about whether such a thing can be repeated in Kenya. Today there was even talk of one on 28th February. I don’t know where this one came from but there were a lot of tweets tagged with it in the morning.

I kind of found this laughable because I knew it could never happen, not yet anyway. Why? Well that’s why I’m writing this to explain why I know it could never happen.

We don’t have the balls. We’re way too comfortable to have a citizen-led revolution. We’re too scared to do what it takes. The post-election violence that happened in 2008 has put in us a health fear of such “revolution”. Even today, when the #feb28 tweets were flying around tweets going around begging for calm, that there were more peaceful means to change the piteous state our country’s in. Someone mentioned the new constitutional implementation as a way to change things.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very pro-peace but what I need my fellow Kenyan’s to realise is that for change to come, a revolution to take place you have to be ready to make sacrifices, I’m not talking about money but lives. Yes, I’m saying that for change to happen in a revolutionary manner we must be ready to die. Until that day we’re ready to lay down our lives to see change we’ll have to be content with the manner that reforms are being implemented in our country, snail’s-pace and probably a couple of generations out.

I’m not saying that the revolution must necessarily be violent but I am saying that we must be ready to die for it. I say this because the system we’d want to change, the corruption and impunity will not want to change. The people who back it will not want to change, they will fight back and do so violently. We all saw it during the post-election violence. They have the power and means to hire and entice people to kill and intimidate anyone who tries to change the system that has given them vast amounts of wealth and power. Case and point the Ocampo six.

These guys have managed simultaneously make their prosecution and tribal and political debate and coerce the government to somehow consider their defence one of national pride and honour, hence pay for it, simply because they’re part of the government. I mean are you fucking serious? Crime cannot be protected simply because it’s committed by the government or members of it.

Also for this country to undergo a revolution the middle class needs to take part in it. We won’t. We’re too selfish. We all only ever think about ourselves and/or our families. Think about it. Sure we’ll complain about the corruption, the sorry state of our judicial systems and poor infrastructure but when it comes down to it we all manage to living with them, quite comfortably I can add. We’re not ready to lose that comfort. I think this still goes back to what I said before.

I’ll leave you all with this short story from the post-election violence period:

Kibaki had just been declared president and sworn-in in increase darkness. We saw on TV that Kibera was rioting. Looking out the window you could just make out the smoke in the distance( we stay liked 20 mins walk from Kibera in those days).

Later that night there was talk that Raila had called a rally at Uhuru park, that he was going to swear himself in. My aunt and mum made plans to go. They weren’t going to stand for their election being stolen.

Morning came. They woke up psyched, charged. They dress in jeans, t-shirts and running shoes. There was talk of “If there’s no transport, we’ll walk. Even if the police come there we’re prepared to stand our ground.

They left the house and out of our court. I immediately put on the TV to find out what the situation around Uhuru Park was. A ring of police and GSU all round the place, armed to the teeth.

3minutes later the door opens and there are my aunt and mum. Apparently the GSU(General Service Unit, special police unit used in special situation mostly riot control) men had chosen outside of gate to deploy to stop protesters who were trying to make it to Uhuru park on foot and they had been told to return to house immediately. I laughed my head off!

I fear this is what will happen if we ever tried for a revolution, we turn back scared at the very first opposition we meet. I’d like to point out that both relations in Egypt and Tunisia started with death. Also in Egypt, when they had gathered together in Tahrir square they stayed there besides the police harassing and wounding and killing them and today apparently there been pro Mubarak supporters causing havoc and death. That’s all I have to say. As always peace!!!!

PS: I read an interesting post on revolution on Diasporadical today by misternv. I suggest you go check it out. Again peace!!

8 Comments

by alternativefocus on February 4, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Keeping it Kenyan, Politics, Rants and Raves