It's been so long since I've last posted (almost a week, which is forever and a day by my standards.)
So what's been happening since I last blogged?
Well, the long and detailed account of my travels on the cruise ship will follow some time this week. I'm just waiting for the photo's from the official holiday photographer to be retouched and sent back to me. No extreme photoshopping or anything. I just needed him to turn 15kg's of blubber into a 6-pack and sublime abs.
It will be the concise version of the cruise-posts you've already read (I hope) previously.
In the meantime however, I had the opportunity of meeting with some of the folks on Twitter in person. A Tweetup is what it's called. A fantastic opportunity to put a face to the names we chat to more often than our family or siblings on any given day, for most of us at least.
So this Tweetup was organised by the same two brothers who had arranged the previous Tweetup I attended in Durban, @bashhar and @noohar. Admittedly that one had me as it's only guest, which was perfect because it meant I was the star of the show as well as the audience. Just the way I like it :)
I think I may have blogged about the Durban Tweetup earlier. I'm too lazy to check right now. (It's just after midnight on Sunday, give me a break!)
@bashhar and @noohar were down in Jozi this week and organised another Tweetup, this time inviting a few more Twitter characters, and characters they certainly were.
The venue was Primi Piatti in Melrose Arch.
The Capetonians (@bashhar and @noohar) had clearly never encountered Joburg traffic before in all it's glory, as they scheduled to have us all meet at 6pm on a Friday!
Of course I misunderstood the initial invite as I naturally assumed it was for 6am on Saturday. This would have made more sense because I'd probably have been up since the night before anyways, but more importantly it would mean I would have avoided the dreaded afternoon traffic. At 6am the only people I'm bound to bump into (literally) getting to the venue would be drunks, ravers or newspaper vendors. All of these would tell me that for a lousy 7 Bucks they can give me the latest news of the world.
I got a Tweet just after 6pm to say that @yusuf_garrick was the first to arrive at Primi Piatti. There are 47 possible reasons why he got there so early. I'm going with the fact that he was just so excited, he slept at Primi the night before and stayed there, waiting an entire day before posting his tweet. I'm basing my guess on the realistic bed-head look he had going on :)
I got there around 6:30pm and was met by the rest of the party who were already seated, except for @AmeshJeram who arrived fashionably late 5 minutes after I did.
@bashhar as always, was full of smiles and just seemed happy that we were all there. He reminds me of a weed smoker in a permanent state of happy high :) I like that about him. Though I don't think he smokes.
@noohar is like the professional dressed in tekkies. He has this cool way of changing his facial expression from laughing to serious in under 3 seconds. I'd shit myself if he were my dad ;) But luckily we saw more of the laughing and less of the serious. Right now I have this weird image of him as a judge dressed in the legal robe, wearing Ben10 pyjamas underneath, with white tekkies on his feet ;) Moving on.
@saajidamoolla was the first of the girls I met. She had this nervous look on her face when I stuck my hand out to introduce myself. I wasn't sure if she thought I was the waiter, or whether she was considering the Shariah ruling on shaking hands with a strange guy. She turned out to be tons of fun and has sarcasm down to a fine art. Must be all those hours she puts in working at Telkom ;)
@zaakiramoolla was seated next to her, and based on the names I'm sure you've already figured out that they're sisters. If you haven't, Hanna Montana starts at 7am! You should be in bed already! I met @zaakiramoolla for the very first time a few months back when the Apple store held a Joburg day for a few select people, and the two of us including @yusuf_garrick got to cruise the streets of Jozi in a Mini Cooper of our choice and take random pics. No wait, thats not right. The first time I met her, I was selling her a laptop and she brought her mom along because her mom knows Karate, Ninjitsu, Taekwondo and 7 other Japanese words, and they weren't sure if I was legit. Turns out I am, and we've been friend's since. I was disappointed I never got to see any of those Karate moves from Mrs Moolla, but there's always next time ;)
@pandora2707 was next at the table, and I'm still confused by her job description. It's three days later a I'm still not sure whether she said she did marketing for a rock-band, if she was the lead singer in a rock-band, or whether she breeds rocks and sells hair-bands. Either way, she rocks and I liked her sense of humour. (By sense of humour I mean her constant smacking of the table whenever someone said something doff... hang on! She smacked the table a lot whenever I was speaking!!!) Also, she guessed my age at around 28 which makes her a favourite in my book! ;)
@corpsekicker was the last of the girls I met, and admittedly at first I assumed she worked in the morgue based on her name, and wasn't sure about the customary hand-shake. It turns out she's engaged to another Twitter friend I had met a few weeks earlier while in Durban, @concerningmj. She is funny as all heck and I can see why the two of them make such a power-couple. Did I mention that she's also the sister of @pandora2707 ? She had the hugest mug of latte I have ever seen in my coffee-&-latte drinking life! If I described this juggernaut of a cup as something African tribes use to store water for the village, it would be no exagerration. (I think I may have spelt that wrong but its too late to spell-check dammit!) I'm hoping that once they're settled and all honeymooned out, they'll come around and visit or just hang out. Awesome company the both of them.
@AmeshJeram made the late arrival and sat next to me. For some weird reason he kept standing up each time my missus walked in (she was shopping in the area) or whenever my daughter walked in (shopping with the missus). At first I thought he kept standing up because he's English, but as soon as he started talking I figured that can't be it ;) English folk have a liking for scones & tea, not boobies and adolescent girls ;) He turned out to be lots of fun and had the craziest stories to tell. My favourite is the one about girls from Lenz who he clubs on the head and drags back to Limpopo where they fall in love with him and want to move to his village :)
@yusuf_garrick made up the last of the characters and he sat to my left. He's studying to be a Doctor and was hoping to specialize in Neurology but after having spoken to me during the course of the evening, he's changing his focus to Proctology. He offered to give me a complimentary prostate exam at the table but I'd just ordered pasta and figured it could get messy. He's a swell guy and I've just decided to make it my duty to find him a decent Indian girl to settle down with. All this hanging around at the Plaza is getting him nowhere. Besides, security is starting to flag him as a crazy white guy stalking brown girls.
So there you have it folks. The Jozi Tweetup was a fantastic evening and I'm so looking forward to the next one. I chatted to another great friend of mine, @Georgie_81 , and we're thinking of hooking up and doing it together. That will be epic and awesome on a grand scale!
Watch this space.
PS: Thanks to all the wonderful folk who made Friday night so great. We should do it more often.
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