Jamie’s third month

Operas, mini-operas and soap-operas…

“Huh?!” I hear you say?

Allow me to explain: I went to watch La Boheme at the Artscape Theater a few weeks ago. Yes, partly to re-attain Culture Vulture status, but also because I sang in the kiddies chorus when I was 10 or 11 years old, at the same theatre in the same opera. So it was a little nostalgic hearing “eco Parpignol, Parpignol, Parpignol” and remembering the fun I had singing those words to the toymaker in the frenzy of Bohemia. Of course, it’s all a little hazy nowadays, and it’s hard to believe my singing voice many octaves higher than it is now, but ahh… the halcyon days.

Of course, my memory was usefully jogged as to the synopsis while sitting in the theater, browsing the net on my phone. Gee. Wow. Amazing. No, the thing here is that I was using Opera Mini, the latest release from Opera software. This is freakin’ amazing software, and anyone with a semi-recent phone (with support for J2ME and MIDP2) should really get a move on and dump WAP browsing into the toilet in which it belongs. In an 89k file, this thing gives you the complete, real-deal web and is utterly fantastic. Queues and traffic jams are now quite bearable.

And then, the soap-opera. My good friends Gavin and Maxine are now dating. Hoorah. I won’t deny having played a little bit of a match-maker role in all this (our F1 club meetings were not ALL about F1 Gavin!) and so obviously I’m quite chuffed that Janet and I saw this one a distance off (Oh… and of course due credit to Tandy too!) and persued it. They seem happy as pigs in… er…um, and frankly I think they’re very well suited. Best wishes to them both!

Footnote: Seems like my buddy Juan Pablo Montoya has finally rediscovered “the best of Bogota” and revived his racing career. This 2006 season has been somewhat “dry” – to be polite – and I welcome his Monégasque efforts to keep me loyal as a fan. Had to chuckle at Kimi’s new yacht – “One More Toy” – is that just clever or is it just cocky?

Ovidius of The Overberg

Yeup. I’m started to get all weirded out. I’m becoming a game-freak all over again! First it was the awesome (and ever popular) Settlers of Catan, which we are still playing at least 2-3 games a week. NOW, it’s freakin’ Cybernations.net. Basically, it’s an online nation-building game which is loosely based on Google Maps, but this whole little world becomes quite interesting once you start interacting at a forum level with other players on a team/alliance, and the details of attacks, skirmishes, nukes, politics, trades, foreign aid, diplomacy with other alliances all start being thrashed out. Yeah – I openly admit that this must surely relegate me to a greater-geek status, but it’s pretty fun, and my nation is doing pretty well, so chew on that.

Anyway, Ovidius of The overberg is actually Morne the Settler – the same infidel who addicted me at a boardgame-level to Settlers, and he’s done it again with CN. Grrr.

You will be missed.

Just remembered a rather miserable piece of news – about two weeks ago my godfather, Ashley Strickland, dropped dead. He wasn’t old, he wasn’t sick – so it came as a real boot to the head, and I’m really pretty gutted for his family – wife and 3 young children. I obviously become all reflective in the days that followed, and realised that I probably enjoyed him (and benefitted from him) more as a father than his own children will – and that was a bit of an uncomfortable feeling.

Smash, thanks for all the good times, and you are and will be missed.