I just read a post over at Mike Stopforth’s blog about Stormhoek. Or more specifically, about why they are not a finalist for a blog award.

As it happens coda and I were the panelists for best food blog (which incorporated wine blogs), and I can tell you that the answer is pretty simple. They’re not finalists, because no-one nominated them, not Stormhoek themselves, not Hugh Macleod their patron, and not Mike, who wrote the above post.

The real question then is: why is that?

Graham from Stormhoek asks the same question. I’m thinking that the answer is pretty simple. Stormhoek is not, in my opinion, a great wine blog (others do disagree) – it is however a great blog about Stormhoek (which happens to be a wine). If anything, it should have been a best business blog contender.

The bottom line is this, local bloggers obviously see you as a great wine, and a great brand in general, they just don’t see you as a great blog. Yet.

If it’s any consolation, we’re in the same boat

The good news is this, you’re blogging to sell wine, not the other way around. To hell with the awards, they’re drinking, and that’s what counts…!

Update: I changed the original name for this post, as given the amount of attention this non-issue(to reiterate, they’re not in ‘cos not one person nominated them in the first place) is getting, it seemed more apt.. Sheesh. I wish people would say what they really felt. Stormhoek is the excuse here.

Here’s more (be sure to scour the comments):
- vincentmaher
- Stii
- Wired Gecko

Okay, so I don’t usually re-post stuff that I read on other blogs, but in this case, on the off-chance that you missed it on Splattermail, you really need to see this.

Dude!

How crazy is this? Fuck me, I wish I had a phone cam when I was at school, mad props to the kid that got this.

Here’s the question though, should the guy be fired? Hell no. I was chatting to D’ave about this and I agree with his take. Unless we want to breed undisciplined dumb-asses like half the kids in UK and USA, we need education, and discipline – as such teachers need to earn and get respect.

Should kids try it on? Hell yeah?
Should a teacher be allowed to fight fire with fire? Hell yeah!

Here’s the thing, assuming school is about preparing kids for real life then why pull punches?

“Bloody bastards”…!

Update: Picked this comment by jv up on the splattermail post:

The man in question is Mr Bayliss; Grey High School’s eccentric – and incidentally, brilliant – art teacher, and what has happened here is deeply sad. Art teachers typically have limited social skills, but truly brilliant art teachers, well they need to be protected in my opinion. There are some amazing stories to be told about this guy, but the fact is, he’s the best there is in PE. Kids these days have no idea where to draw the line, and in the end, the people who will be most harmed are themselves. -Matric of 2000.

I was up at sparrow fart this morning to drive out to Hartes for a meeting at de Wildt.

Expecting a regular meeting, it was pretty rad when they told us that the recce involved watching a race between man… and cheetah.

Wicked. Guess who won!

Oh, the highlight of the whole day had to be this scrumptious breakfast (I’m not shitting you):

Mmmm, yummy.
I’m thinking we’ll go with professional caterers for the gig itself…!

(Much respect to David Potter for the pics)

It’s the wheel that’s pissed…!

Last week Don and I were talking about this very thing – it’s my pet hate:

Seriously. WTF? The pirate versions don’t have the warnings. Aaarg, I hate it.

No wonder your industry is dying, idiots…!

Yeah, I gotta say it, I actually am an MTN fan. I post about ‘em a fair bit, not because I have to, just because they know how to push my buttons. Take their new product i-mail for example (nice idea, crap name, i-yawn) Oh, and respect to Andre for the heads up..

Basically, when you leave me voice mail, I get it emailed or mms’d to me immediately. Now as I use my inbox to manage my todo list, this service is the mutt’s nuts. Here’s one such message:

Loads of other features too. You can change your voice mail message online, and even have different messages for different times, so one for work, one for nights, one for weekend – that shit’s cool.

Fuck branding, the proof is in the product, and this product rocks…!

Or perhaps about 2 hours or so, as British director Danny Boyle (wiki) has now eyed out the once considered super dodgy but is now really looking up after new management Ponte City for his next movie, a thriller loosely based on Norman Ohler‘s novel Stadt des Goldes (‘City of Gold’ – the third of a metropolis-based series).
“He tells the story of the young German journalist named Kraner who once again meets, in Johannesburg, the black South African Lucy who, at the end of Apartheid, was arrested in the USA as a drug smuggler. After five years in prison, Lucy’s story continues with her deportation from the USA and her return to Johannesburg where she starts searching for the person who gave her the job at the time. ‘Stadt des Goldes’ is an urban adventure novel and at the same time an exciting portrait of a city on the edge of social abyss.”

From the director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and more, this can only prove to be a killer flick, can’t wait.

Saw this advertised on National Geographic this weekend. It’s called Wildcast.

From the About section on the site: “You can think of Wildcast as a new interactive channel broadcast to you over the internet, directly from the wilds of Africa, where award-winning filmmaker, Kim Wolhuter is creating his latest masterpiece.”

Basically, Kim Wolhuter is filming his next doccie, and you get to be a part of it, with regularly updated posts with video and pics. Pretty rad I think.

I should preface this post saying that I really hate myspace.
This week Trig finally came out of beta and is now open to all.

It’s a great site, we dig it. In fact you can find all the Jo’bloggers lurking there somewhere.

Rich..!, Don, D’ave, ../Ant

Basically think myspace, without the poxy designs, and with user ranked (trigged) content. There’s also loads of music to find, you can even embed your playlist in other sites:

Oh, and to keep it local you should know that there’s quite a South African following growing, including a herd of hotties and some bloke that swims…!

Yeah, I rock.
I just bought myself R250 worth of kitchen kit for R100 from Cherryflava’s new site Cherypicka.

Kick-ass concept, lets hope the man gets new products often enough. There’s a product feed here.
Now, if only I can get the biatch back into the kitchen…!