The Finale

The Formula One season comes to an end this weekend, after Mercedes-Benz AMG Petronas wrapping up the constructors championship in Brazil and Lewis Hamilton, the drivers world championship the race before in Mexico, many wouldn't see the point in this race but you're wrong. With Abu Dhabi being a dead rubber race for most of the last few seasons, it still pulls out all the stops to make sure it's worthy of the season that passed. Having attended one myself, I'd rate it as a must if you're an enthusiast of the sport. It gives you the opportunity to visit a world class track, unlike any other, the glitz, the glamour attached to F1 just escalates in the Emirates, with the track being on an island, the yacht's  all docked along side it, the majestic Yas Viceroy Hotel hovering over the track and of course the fireworks. 

But with every final race of the season comes some sad goodbyes, with drivers changing teams and some drivers bidding farewell to the sport. This year see's one of the greats retire from the sport, a two-time world champion and often one of the unluckiest drivers in the field, Fernando Alonso. His 17 year career in the sport which started for him in 2001 at Minardi wasn't all doom and gloom though with him securing 32 wins, 97 podiums and over 20 pole positions. The Spaniard fort many a great driver in his time, while having stints at Minardi, Ferrari and Mclaren but it was at Renault where he truly flourished winning back to back titles in 2005 and 2006 under the guidance of Flavio Briatore. He will be sorely missed in the sport but after clinching a LeMan's winners medal last year with Toyota Gazoo Racing, he has his eyes set on claiming the triple with a win at Indy 500 in sight. His attempt last year was flawless from his side but as per usual in his career of late, the car let him down. 

There will be many drivers changing seats in next years Formula One season, the big one would be the straight swap between Ferrari and the Alfa Romero - Sauber F1 team, which see's youngster Charles Leclerc and Kimi Raikkonen change over. Much has been spoken about the young french man this season. While we still haven't seen his full potential, Ferrari will expect big things from this talent, after the disappointment of the last two seasons, the Italian team will have a point to prove with them bolstering their line up for next year. As for the Iceman, many breathed a sigh of relief to hear he will be staying in the sport and not hanging up his drivers gloves just yet. The often controversial Fin has been a bit more vocal this year, showing more emotion and jovial-ness on racing weekends. It really looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself out there and to his credit performed damn well, I'm sure much more than what his team expected him to do on certain occasions. It will be interesting to see how he goes about his business at Sauber but either way, we're glad his still apart of the sport. 

The other big name move was Daniel Ricciardo leaving Red Bull Racing to join Renault, the Aussie didn't have the best of seasons and with his high profile clashes with his team mate Max Verstappen during races, that didn't help his morale at all. Red Bull seem to be backing the young Dutchmen who has shown some great potential but often has brain farts at crucial times in races. If Christian Horner can set his head straight, he will be a proper contender next year. Once the fireworks have disappeared from the nights sky in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night, it's a long wait till the lights go out in Melbourne next year March, so lets just soak it all in this weekend and enjoy the season finale. 

Monday Choon: Armin van Buuren feat. Mr. Probz - Another You (Mark Sixma Remix)

Probably one of the stand out singles of recent from Armin van Buuren is his track with Mr Probz which has hit most radio stations and top 40 charts. It's one of my favourites as well but as much as I like the original, one of the up and coming DJ's Mark Sixma whom AvB is a massive fan of has bumped up the track a bit. The video below is the festival version which AvB played live at Ultra Music Festival in Miami, enjoy!

                     

Looking back on 2010

2010: Its been a pretty insane year dont you think? Besides the for obvious reasons alot of things went down in this year, we found out who the Stig was, we re-created the big bang, and Robert Mugabe is still a douche.

As I sit here today thinking or trying to think what went down in 2010, only one word can come to mind to describe it. LEGENDARY. I know the word is over used after Barney Stinson basically made it part of normal conversation but truly this year for me was just that. Firstly thanks to the intwerbs and twitter! It has changed my life, changed the way I do things, see things, experience things and it forced me to create this very blog! I could bore you and give you the the details on why this year was so great but I'd spare you the annoyance and give a brief summary of my years happenings in pictures, because everyone likes pictures right?
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Kiaria Lodge - Golden Gate National Park

Jan started of with me in the Berg, awesome place to unwind, relax and breathe in the clean fresh air the mountains have to offer. Whether you go for hiking, fishing, mountain biking or like me, to kick back relax with a fire and meat burning on it with a beverage in hand. There is no better place to chill.
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Clarens

We stayed near a small town in the Free State called Clarens. This place has more restaurants than houses! theres 100's of them in a town as small as a block in Jhb!
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Katse Dam

Staying so close to the Lesotho border and me have fetish for big things that are made out of concrete we saw this as an ideal opportunity to see one of the Southern Hemisphere's marvouls. The Katse Dam located in the Lesotho highlands! Its the second largest dam in Africa... its huge! but getting there, yoh be prepared thats all Im going to say, its not easy!
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Reshma & Shyam

From the berg we made our way to the land of the big hole, aka Kimberley for my cousins wedding. Now Ive been to tons weddings before but this one was special, if one has to dig up Kimberleys Tourism figures, one would distinctly notice that the weekend of the 30th Jan will stand out. All the hotels in the city were fully booked and on the wedding day itself if you drove around town you were guaranteed to spot a woman in a sarie!
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Queen Mary 2

Keeping with the big things theme. In March the Queen came to visit! No not that old hag that waves like she has an electronic wrist joint. Cunards luxury cruise liner, the Queen Mary 2! The biggest trans-Atlantic cruise ship in the world! Jostling to get a good spot at the harbour entrance to see her leave was a mission, not to mention they delayed the exit by an hour! but it was all worth it.
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First Official flight from KSIA

May saw the opening of Durbans new King Shaka International Airport. The one that was being planned from the days of the dinosaurs which finally saw green light given 2 years back. I've followed this project since the first pile was put in with a bunch of mates on a construction forum so we had to go down there for the official opening and witness the first commercial flight taking off. Plus I came on national TV!
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Tiesto

May saw me being part of a chosen 1000 to witness something unexplainable. Smirnoff brought down DJ'ing great Tiesto for a one night show. I got the call on Friday morning to say I've got a ticket, the concert was the next night, I had to chose 3 other friends to join me and arrange flights. It was one chaotic day but ended up being a weekend for the record books. The man is a legend, he had us in a trance till 4 in the morning. To top things off I got to meet DJ Fresh, Euphonik and on the plane back home I met Wayne Brady who was touring SA.
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Moses Mabhida Stadium

June saw the biggest event in the world kick off right here on our shores. The World cup has been talked about since the time we won the bid to host it. It for me was the most anticipated event of my LIFE! Yes everything for me revolved around this event. I followed the bid process, the stadium constructions and everything else World Cup related, I even made it onto FIFA's website!
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Moses Mabhida -Semi Final

I have to add more to it, all in all I saw 7 matches including the semi final in Durban. Just to experience the event was something, I made sure I took as many people as I could. I even dragged my mum who hates sports to see a game! I braved the minus temps of Jhb and partied with the Algerians and drank with the English in Cape Town. Everytime I think back to June/ July I get goose bumps. Meeting so many different people from all over the world and more importantly seeing our nation unite as one to welcome the world was just spectacular.

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Gosais Supermarket

 July was also quite emotionally sad for my family and I as we bid fairwell to our business that we've had for 79 years. My whole life revolved around the "shop". I didnt know what it felt like to do shopping until this year. Normal bread and milk was a given and brought home from the supermarket, as well as so many other things. It was tough letting it go but Im sure even tougher for my dad and his brothers. In the long term I suppose it was the right thing to do but we still have fond memories of the place.

the 3rd generation

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Kavita doing the Champers justice

My sister turned 21... you know you're old when the baby in your family reaches this age. It was quite a party too. Smack bang middle in our fasting month, this one took a long time to plan and lets not get started on the cake but it turned out to be a blast and me quite enjoying the food as told in my blog post.
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Trevor Noah & Pixie Bennett

Thanks to Rabin Hurduth for organising VIP tickets to see the most famous CEO in South Africa. And I got to meet fellow twitter buddy and major SA singer Pixie Bennett.
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Kings Park - Currie Cup Final

October saw me attend my first ever Currie Cup final. The Sharks have made it to finals before and won, but lost many as well so I wasnt sure what to expect from this one knowing we carried the dreaded chokers tag. The match itself was quite the opposite with us running away with the victory. Definitely one for the record books.
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ATB

November saw me invited for yet another Smirnoff event, this time for the Nightlife Exchange project in Cape Town. Featuring one of my favourite DJ's ATB. I also was educated in trance by the great Markus Schulz. It was an event bigger than Tiesto but I cant compare the 2 since both were epic in their own way.

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Camps Bay

Being in Cape Town I pulled an extra few days after the concert, I lived it up, pimped it up,  met up with many of the twitter peeps, partied till the wee hours of the morning and made that mountain my bitch. Basically I did that Town justice and when I left I had it begging for more, be warned mountain... I'll be back.
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Theres still 2 weeks left in the year and more memories to be made, the main thing is to be safe in what ever it is that you're doing. If you're drinking, dont drive, if you're going to be messing with fireworks on New Years, be aware of those around you and the pets but all in all dont forget to have fun! You only live once.

This wont be my last blog post for the year but seems like a good time to do a review.

Lets hope 2011 out does 2010.

Its that time again

Its that time of the year again, where the skies will be filled with lights and the silence will be disturbed by loud bangs. Now besides the actual fireworks causing a racket, the people will be making quite a noise as well. You see every year around about this time you get those that honestly do care about the noise pollution and trauma it causes to animals then you get those that feel the need to make a noise because they can. You know the type that try to give Hindu's like me a lecture on how to celebrate my culture. Now while I dont want to get into any religious raucous regarding this issue, for those that want to explain to me how I suppose to celebrate Diwali, please dont waste your time. I know back in the day when my lord returned from exile, the small village of Ayodya didnt hire pyrotechnicians to celebrate his home coming with his wife Sita & brother Laxman. They lit lamps and welcomed him with song and dance, most probably like a Bollywood movie, but like many things in this world, things evolve. Cultural celebrations did too and thats exactly what happened with Diwali, please dont tell me Jesus sat there at his birthday pulling crackers with his family & waited with bated breath to see what Santa brought for him. Some where along the years people incorporated fireworks with it and so it went on.

Now dont get me wrong, Im not saying stuff the naysayers and screw the animals, I love pets, be it a dog, cat, bird, monkey. I've seen first hand at what this noise does to them. Its not a laughing matter AT ALL. Hence the reason for this blog. My family owned a business in the Durban CBD for 79 years, we sold fireworks twice a year (legally, with a license to sell explosives issued by the Police & Fire Department) this being for Diwali & the normal year end celebrations. There are a number of different explosives available now to purchase, some so dangerous that it will cause serious bodily harm, hence the warnings that go with them. The SA government did do its best to ban the really loud ones but there are still those on the market that produce the same amount of sound but since its made safer (i.e has a long fuse & a 10 second flare warning before the explosion) that they allowed to be sold. Now Im not a fan of these that just shatter your ear drums, I like the display stuff. You know, the ones that go high up and make pretty flowers in the sky, ya those.

Also as I may like them, I dont buy them, they cost a huge amount of money and in actual sense you are burning money! I rather just stand on my 3rd level balcony and enjoy the view, also try to practice my photography.

Getting back to the issue at hand now, the fireworks itself, we've seen many a year where the front pages have had pictures of kids with half blown of fingers etc. Please for god sake, if you're going to buy fireworks for your kids, please make sure they are old enough to handle it and be there when they are using it! Its not a toy. Also Diwali is one day, not 8 days in a row. You celebrate on the one day and thats it. Some people seem to think they need days of preparation for the main event, I dont like to have the shit scared out of me whilst Im nestled on my sofa enjoying my favourite TV program okay? Also if you dont live in an area where people are tolerable to you bursting these explosives, find a place where you can gather with others to celebrate together. The last thing we want now is to cause trouble on a auspicious day, I know its your house and you can do what you want but sometimes it helps to take the higher ground. Then to those that have pets, please take the proper precautions as you know fully well whats going on. Lastly to those that want to cause trouble, whether its by picking fights or the misuse of fireworks, I honestly have nothing to say to you, besides get a life.

Happy Diwali to all