This is by far the funniest advert that I have seen in a while.
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Posted on 31 March 2009 by DChetty
Earlier this year, I posted a list of items that I felt were realistic resolutions to strive to achieve in 2009.
Its the end of March, which puts us squarely at the end of the first 1/4 of 2009 and I think that its a good idea to see how well am doing against my resolutions. Doing this has also allowed me to refocus on them and those items that are still outstanding will now be highlighted again.
I resolute to:
In 2009 I will greatly reduce the intake of: (not GIVE UP, just reduce!)
In 2009 I will greatly increase the intake of:
Posted on 09 March 2009 by DChetty
Whether you’re suddenly unemployed or just looking to change up, starting out in a new career is daunting. Take our advice on how to write—and plan—your way into a new field.
Photo by Yo Spiff.
Blogger, career writer, and Brazen Careerist founder Penelope Trunk knows from jumping ship. From her own ups and downs at work, both office-based and freelance, she’s compiled a (relatively) low-stress approach to making the switch. More important: She lists reasons why you should and shouldn’t move on:
Here are some bad reasons to switch careers:
1. You hate your boss. (Switch jobs, not careers.)
2. You want more prestige. (Get a therapist – you’re having a confidence crisis, not a career crisis.)
3. You want to meet new people. (Try going to a bar, or Club Med. What you really want is to get a life. Pick up a hobby.)Here are some good reasons to switch careers:
1. You want a role that is more creative, more analytic or more management-oriented.
2. You want to live in a location that does not accommodate your current career.
3. You want more flexibility or fewer hours.
Now that you’ve set your mind to making the big move, let’s talk text.
Alexandra Levit, career specialist and author of How’d You Score That Gig?, graciously offered to provide some guidance on writing a resume for a new career path:
As for the rest of your text, we’ll recommend one of the five tactics we’ve suggested to rebuild your resume: Start with a list of reasons why you’re great, then distill it into your resume. All the other stuff—fonts, vertical bars, exact wording of “coffee-grabbing intern”—is just finesse. Start with a blank text editor or sheet of paper, and start throwing down whatever skills you have that the others don’t. By doing so, you form the basis for a punchy, concise resume, and (bonus!) you hone your talking points for your interview. Photo by emdot.
Now onto the cover letter, often as important in getitng a hiring manager’s attention:
Cynthia Shapiro, career strategist and author of What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here?, points out to the Wall Street Journal that taking the time to explain your layoff not only wastes cover letter space, but won’t win you many sympathy points these days, as there are a lot of layoff stories to be told.
When applying, avoid expressing bitterness or self-pity. Many layoff victims send cover letters that blame the economy for their job loss, says Ms. Shapiro. There’s no need to even point out the fact that you’ve been laid off. “If your last work day was in October, your résumé will say that,” she explains.
Photo by sunshinecity.
In the same article, an IBM hiring manager notes that in a crowded, competitive group of candidates for a consulting job, what helped her pick the winner was a “can-do attitude.” More importantly, that applicant didn’t make a lot of requests, requirements, or pitch themselves for an exact job doing a precise thing. Get the job first, then work your way into the working environment you dream of.
Not to keep hitting on the suck-it-up nail, but crossing into an entirely new realm of experience and work probably requires a bit of sacrifice. To jump-start a stalled job search, you might have to start humble and work your way into career confidence.
Career specialist Levit explains that process in detail for us:
If you’ve successfully gone from apples to oranges in your career, or even just from apples to different-colored, slightly sweeter apples, by all means—tell us how you got there in the comments.
[This is a repost from Lifehacker]
Posted on 05 January 2009 by DChetty
I know that this post is a bit late, but I have been traveling and have just returned to civilized lands where internet access is a reality.
2008 was a really crappy year for me. Everything that could go wrong, did! Loosing my kid brother in a car accident was certainly the low point of 2008. It did have a few high points though. My trip to see IslandChic in Beijing was certainly the highlight!
2009 snuck up on me like a taxi driver at a four way stop. But its here and its first week is already drawing to an end already.
I’ve put together a list of resolutions that I feel are worth sticking to. I’ve tried to be realistic about it and I certainly won’t be promising massive weight loss!
I resolute to:
In 2009 I will greatly reduce the intake of: (not GIVE UP, just reduce!)
In 2009 I will greatly increase the intake of:
I think thats it for me. I’d love to hear yours!
Posted on 10 September 2008 by DChetty
I really enjoy a good cup of coffee. I’m also naturally fullashit to the point that I rarely trust a cup of coffee to be good when I buy it, so I tend to prefer making my own. There are some really great coffee joints in Cape Town where you can buy a decent cup of coffee, but sadly, they are far and few between.
This evening, I tried the new Vida e Caffe at Century City. I grabbed an Americano on the run. I love Vida e for the concept, for being the only “on the run” coffee franchise in SA and for the excellent branding. But oh dear is their coffee CRAP!
But I know this! I’ve known it for a while. Infact, most would agree, the coffee at Vida really doesn’t deserve to be called coffee, but more akin to dirty water with a bitter taste and a dash of milk!
I go back to their stores with this deep down hope that perhaps the refugee behind the counter with the cool personality and funky accent will by some great act of the heavens, pull off a great cup of coffee.
Kudos to the company for putting together an excellent brand identity and for a very slick experience everytime, but c’mon people…
Posted on 09 July 2008 by DChetty
So after a month away from my blog, I am back!
The circumstances have been the absolute worst, with the loss of my little brother, Kiyashan aka KeyZ, a month ago in a horrible car accident.
He was the most full of shit person I knew
, never let a day pass without making me smile about something. The guy was loved by everyone and was super friendly. He impacted everyone that he met in a positive way and I am so glad that everyone has good memories of him. I am sorry that at 24yrs old, he left us so damn surprisingly!
I’m going to miss him and life just won’t be right without him.
Kiddo, if you get to read this up there, I love you!
Posted on 20 April 2008 by DChetty
Just in from watching Rogue Assassin with Jet Li and Jason Statham. The movie is known as War in other countries.
It’s the typical action-packed movie you’d come to expect from these two actors. Jason brings the same arrogance and violence from Transporter and Italian Job into his role here playing a FBI agent and Jet, well, what else would you expect? He plays a hired assassin and gets involved in the Chinese Triads and the Japanese Yakuza.
The movie has REALLY cool cars, with Jet driving a Spyker C8 Spyder throughout the film and Statham sporting a Mustang. There are shots of a few Lambos, Ferraris and Maseratis. The movie has a pretty cool car chase with the two of them going head to head in a decent battle. One would naturally assume the the Italian has the advantage, but the brutal muscle of the Yank gives it a run for its money in the traffic filled streets.
Lots of swords, pistols, snipers and automatic machine guns.
The movie is definitely nothing new, but it does have a fairly cool twist at the end. The action sequences are very well choreographed, and I am almost certain that John Wu himself couldn’t have done it better.
Definitely worth a watch if you like it rough!
Posted on 13 April 2008 by DChetty
Yesterday saw the final leg of the 5fm sponsored concert through SA. Hosted at the Good Hope Centre in town, which i should state is a bit of a washed up venue lately. I really don’t understand why the organisers went with the new industry standard of having it at the Bellville Velodrome.
It was disappointingly attended, but then again Hip Hop never gets the support from Capetonians as it should.
The show was cool. Definitely nothing “WOW!”.
Ready D, the local Hip Hop god tore up the decks with a 45 minutes set that was absolutely unbelievable. He is without a doubt the best Hip Hop DJ in SA and is currently ranked in the top 20 best Hip Hop DJ’s in the world. Y’day saw him play out his best set yet, in my opinion. Better known as the guy who played for “Prophets of the City” and the pioneer behind “Brassie Van Die Kaap”, he has played next to giants like the Fuggees, Ja rule, Ice-T, Public Enemy and even featured as the regular resident DJ for the Phat Joe show on SABC a few years back! I really wish him luck and I can only imagine how hard it was for him to break through the scene and set himself up as being SA’s Hip Hop god!
Grant and Anele made an appearance next to Poppy all from 5fm. For the record I would like to say that G & A are the most annoying wannabees in the history of the great station. It is really sad to see 5fm slip into hiring such sad DJs. The next few local acts are not even worth mentioning, but I think its fit to say I really miss Red Angel! R.I.P Angel! The Hip Hop scene greatly misses you bud!
Black Violin was the first of the 3 international sets. These guys were downright brilliant!!!
They are Hip Hop violinists! I have never heard anything like it before! They whack out tracks by TI and DJ Khaled on a set of violins, so imagine! They also stand as a huge inspiration to black kids who see classical music as a looser thing! I think Black Violin really made their point when they played out a piece written by Chekovsky (I think thats how you spell it).
Fat Joe and the Terror Squad took to the stage. In true CRACK fashion, he was accompanied by loud gunshots as he walked out. He did most of his famous tracks, including Whats love?, Lean Back, New York and also did a Big Pun, B.I.G. and Tupac dedication!
Joe was honestly a disappointing act. I’m a huge fan of his, but I think he made it clear that he is a studio artist and not a performing artist. And Joe, how the hell can you can you come out in public without a cap man? What’s wrong with you?
Akon on the other hand was a great set. He is a true performer and a crowd pleaser. Besides ordering security to remove the divide between Golden Circle and the rest, he spent a lot of his time in the audience. He sang most of his latest hits and did a good job with them too. What I thought was funny though, was when Mr Senegal decided to crowd surf and someone stole his shoe
. C’mon man, this is SA, what did you expect?
All in all a good show! Besides the venue selection, the organisation was good and it was really good to see these industry giants in SA!
The Terror Squad Boys have an album launch later this year, so look out for that and I truly recommend picking up Black Violin’s album!
Up next is 50 and the G Unit crew in May 2008!!!
P.S. I really hope Ready D plays again
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Posted on 09 April 2008 by DChetty
I would like to consider myself a gadget person. I don’t allows buy the gadgets that I would like to, because then I would be sitting in a room filled with about 12 laptops, 6 HDTVs, probably 30 cellphones and more iPod accessories than your average Apple store.
I’ve made a list of five of the gadgets that have become major part of my everyday life.
What are some of the gadgets that you can’t live without anymore?
Posted on 09 April 2008 by DChetty
Durban has a whole language of its own. Its pretty much Indians who run the show there with this kinda of slang, but here is a simple attempt (if not long) to decode what they are actually saying.
CHAROU VOCAB:
lucker – nice
meet up – see you later
cherrie – girl
stekkie – girl
outie – boy
ou – person
lightie – child
garner – child
tune – tell / talk
whatkind – hello
vye – go
skrik – frightened
byzad – frightened
span – a lot of
dala – fight
speech – fight
moor – hit
smaak – like
bru – brother
sissie – sister
ma – mother
bullie – father
cuzzie – cousin
dop – alcohol
skafe – smoke
zol – marijuana
babalas – drunk
cab – car
pozie – house
pozie upon a pozie – double story house
dos – sleep
charou – indian
bruino – coloured
vet – white
madher – good / nice / dumb ass
boppa – tell on / told on
graph – work
Chassie – Chatsworth
Durbs – Durban
waarheid – for true?
waar – true
100’s – excellent
naaring – smell
klere – clothes
swak – nothing / shame
cameway – lets go
red – angry
plek – place
crown – money
shot – thanks
exseh – used at the end of any sentence
28 – gay
morphe – gay
happy – gay
smiling – drunk
jol – party
bra – friend
chommie – friend
blay – live
march – walk
roti o / bread o – hindi person
porridge o – tamil person
slum o – muslim person
hot cross – christian
darkie o – african person
kickdown – run
soek – look
sny – look in a funny way
dagga – mud mixed with water / marijuana
number – song
jigga – fool around with
CHAROU PHRASES:
warrhapened – what happened?
hit a march – take a walk
pull a job – steal something
dala a thing – do something quickly
organise a thing there – get something done
in a quiet style – do something in a quiet way without being noticed
catch a drop – fall
dala a move – do a trick
light a thing / pour a thing – organise the alcohol or ciggarette
meet up in da timingz – see you soon