Cloud Atlas, the movie

Just watched the Cloud Atlas movie today. Cleared the afternoon as it is an almost 3 hour film. I read the book a few years ago, and as was the movie, the beginning is a bit confusing. But once you get into it, it is just amazing, gripping, entertaining, moving. So cleverly written, the way 6 stories are interwoven, the hints of reincarnation and the soul carrying on  to different lives. Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings did a great job turning the book into a script. Wow! what a feat. Well done!

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Table Tennis

When I was little, my dad used to play table tennis for the hospital league. He was self taught and was quite good. My dad’s uncle made a table for the family to play at home. It was made out of old chipboard, had green paint, masking tape for the lines and rested on some wooden trestle legs. First the table was at my aunt’s house in her front verandah, it took up the entire space and there was hardly room to move around it. Later it was moved to our house, to the garage. At this stage I could…

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Kindle

Carol bought us each a Kindle earlier in June.  I can’t remember why we didn’t get a kindle before this. I’ve read 5 or 6 books already on it and am totally enjoying the experience. I’m sure I would have read many more books this year if I had it before. It’s so easy to hold, the screen is easy on my eyes and it looks darn close to the printing of a real book. E-ink technology is amazing even without a backlit screen.  Those Game of Throne books sure would have been easier to read on the kindle, if…

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Snow in Jozi

I’ve lived in Johannesburg since 1999 except for the year that I lived in London. For some reason I’ve always just missed being here to experience the ‘snow in johannesburg’.  In fact I’ve never really experienced a snow fall.  Once only when we were children, there was a snow fall about an hour from Pietermaritzburg. We took a drive out there and played in in for a bit.  Today, I was home and witnessed a snow fall in this highveld city for myself on and off for most of the day. The temperature did not go above 3 degrees celcius. It…

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Our great Namibian roadtrip…

Doro Nawas to Swakopmund – we drove a long way through the desert. The gravel road became a sand road. It is a little tricky driving on a sand road and it is easy to lose control of the car if you go over 80km  After several hours, you could see the ocean on the horizon.  At the t-junction we turned south to Heintjies Bay. I found Swakopmund to be a bit eery at first. But after we checked in at the hotel and walked around the town, I liked it much better. Quaint and quiet with lots of interesting…

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Our great Namibia roadtrip

Namibia has long been a place to visit on my bucket list. All our travel arrangements were made through Lilly at Cardboard Travel Shop based in Namibia. Day 1: We arrived in Windhoek on the 9th. Collected our Hyundai IX35 from Avis.  It had only 60 odd km on the odometer. Namibia is fairly easy to navigate without a GPS despite there being a lack of road signs. The landscape changes dramatically as we drove north from Windhoek on the B1 towards Waterberg. Our first stop was at Erindi Game Reserve. When we turned off the main road it seemed…

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