Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Consistency

To all you bloggers who consistently update with posts, week in, week out, I 'pour out a l'il liquor' (no thanks to 2Pac) on your behalf.
How you guys do it, I clearly have no clue.

So, I'm a just keep pushing it the way I know how - inconsistently.
One of GNG's peeve's.

108 days of marriage now.
I shouldn't be counting, I know. I'm in this forever. But what the heck.
I am counting. Shoot me.
108 days of living with J in my parents house.
108 days of her not cooking for me. (We eat all sorta junk + my folks do a fantastic job of sending food over to the BQ when we really do need it)
108 days of different estate agents calling me from work that they've seen a 'correct' place for me.
108 days of me dashing off from work for 2hrs to go inspect silly apartments that I can't imagine living in.
108 days of fighting with J and making up, of laughing and crying, of praying and arguing, of bliss and strain. But most importantly, of love.

So, I eventually got a place last week.
J wasn't so excited at first especially as the house ranked as the ugliest on the street and the rent cost didn't help matters. But I saw it as it is to become and managed to convince her to feel the same way too. We paid for the place and the landlord has given us 1 month free to renovate it.

I've never seen J so busy.

The paint colours for the sitting room, kitchen and rooms have changed as much as 20 times in the past 3 days. I kid you not. I just smile and snuggle up to her while she virtually paints/repaints the rooms on the internet. Ok, I lie. I curl up in a corner and read my book, answering 'uh huh', 'nice' to 'What do you think of peach and lavender?', 'violet and burgundy?', 'fuschia and indigo?'

What do you expect me to say?

I only think in primary colours - red, blue, green, yellow. Throw in black and white for good measure.

LASTMA - LAgos State Traffic Management Authority caught me not breaking any law 2 weeks ago (on my birthday) in a very amateur way. Very silly of me.
I still have not returned to my old aggressive Lagos driving self. I need to wake up.

They stopped the car in front of me, then walked around to stand in front of my car on Eko bridge. One of them walks over to the passenger side and asks me to wind down. I do so, but only a small bit. While he was talking, another comes over to my side and asks me to open the door. Only God knows how, but the one on the passenger side managed to squeeze his hand through the window (I think the guy was specifically employed because he had thin hands) while I was distracted and opened the door. Sharp guys.

I just smiled and asked what I had done. Two of them, (in the car by now) went on to explain some gibberish to me which made no sense.

So, in no mood for bullshit, I told them to take me to their office where they would prove the offence. If guilty, I would pay.
They told me we could settle before we go.
I refused.
'Take me to the office. We will follow due process'

I drove off to their office but they told me to park on the street just before the office and went on to tell me I would pay a N25,000 or N50,000 naira fine in the office depending on my traffic offence and go to get a certified fit-to-drive report from a psychiatrist before I could leave with my car.

Anyway, bottom line is that I negotiated with them and paid off N5,000 eventually.
Sad, I know. Especially after my 'gra gra' and I take full responsiblity.

Tobenna is promoting corruption.
Scratch that, I am corrupt.

I should have just done this:


So, I'm looking for a miniature camera to fix in my car so I can capture such delicate negotiations in video for your viewing pleasure. Anyone know where I can get one?

On a side note, I wonder where all my friends are.
They don't call no more. We don't hang out no more. Why?
Is it because I'm married?
Ok guys. You can come out now. I'm done with my honeymoon phase.

P.S. I asked for volunteers to run the Glo marathon with last week and not one person did.
Sad to note that most people are unfit.
When last did YOU work up a sweat?

Keep fit!
I watched bits of the marathon on TV that morning. I couldn't wake up early enough.
Besides, it sounded too stressful.

As to consistency, I can't do it.
Not on this blog at least.

Today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of the Lenten period.
I wonder why we Pentecostals don't mark this.
Thursday, February 05, 2009

Glo Lagos Half Marathon

I always thought that this yearly half-marathon was done in November.
It looks like this years' has been scheduled for February 21st - less than 3 weeks from now.
Online registration expires 10th of Feb.

So, are there any bloggers or blog readers that would like to do this as a team?
Just for fun?
I may. If others join me.
We could all just pretend to run/walk/crawl the distance but generally sweat, make noise and have fun.

I'll try to convince my girlfriend (she likes that, since she's wifey now) to join us, I doubt if I'll succeed though.

A half-marathon is 21km.
Now I'm scared. I think I should do the 5km race on the 14th
Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Help fill survey

After going through glassdoor recently, I just thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to have data like this by Nigerians and for Nigerians.

So, I'd appreciate it if you follow the link and answer the single question survey.
It is only for people working in Nigeria though.

Click Here to take survey
Monday, January 12, 2009

Are people born evil?

Yes, No; Yes, No;....yes, no;...... hmm..... NO!

Thats how difficult it is to answer this question.
People will answer yes or no, based on the way their lives have been shaped/influenced by their social interactions.
Is it possible to answer this question objectively?
I think it is rather difficult.
Kinda like - Is there a God?

This is my take.
People are born blank.
Just a clean white/black board.
We become what we eat, where we live, who we interact with in a very complex way such that it is impossible to have 2 people eating the same thing, living in the same place and interacting with the same people being exactly the same.
Though we are born blank, we are born with different gifts and weaknesses that also interact with the above.
So, combine my love for my ego with my weakness for not caring for others; and my childhood of savage beating from my dad with my love for fighting (war) games; and my good leadership skills with my religious zeal; and a history teacher I admire that taught German Nationalism almost fanatically, and you get a Hitler.

There is no logic to this. No science. It just happens.
Are there 'good' genes and 'evil' genes?
Not sure.
But, I can conclude that people become good or evil. Not born.

My thoughts.
What are yours?

As promised earlier:



1 hour only
Posted by at 10:13 am | 42 comments  
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

60 days

of marriage, that is.

The last two months have been ultra busy for me for two main reasons.
I got married.
I've been transferred to Lagos from Port Harcourt.

In between these two, I don't have a car anymore(I sold it, like I said I would here); I moved all my stuff from my PH apartment to a BQ (boy's quarters - I wonder why it's so called) at my parents place in Lagos where I'm currently squatting with my wife (did I just say wife? and squat?); We are house hunting and I am mobility impaired.

I had no clue that I would be going through all this within this period and frankly, it has been very trying on my relationship with J. I'd be honest, she is the very best I could hope for. Period.
So, I have said nothing about my wedding and honestly do not intend to say much.
It went well with only minor hiccups compared to what I hear about weddings.
Didn't tell her about the honeymoon plans until 3 hrs to the flight which made her really excited.
Dubai was great just like some of you recommended.
Did almost everything. Wild Wadi, Indoor skiing, mini shopping for the wife, swimming in the lovely beaches in the blistering sun, safari (not for weak stomached) etc.
We ended up with barely $5 left in our pockets on our way back to Lagos!
That was November.

December, just before Christmas, I moved back to Lagos with all my PH bachelor pad belongings.
Which was better for J (she works in Lagos), especially as I left her in the BQ all alone in the loving embrace of my parents :P
Ok, I admit a lot of wives would refuse to do that. But she's not them. She's J.
So, we are looking for a decent 2/3 bedroom apartment on the Lagos mainland, with proximity to the island. Anyone know any available ones or contacts?

I'm a husband now.
I wear my wedding band on my right hand.

Wait a minute! 'Shwepps!' I forgot the ring at home!

Truthfully though, there are some things that I miss now that I never thought of.
a) I can't hang out with the boy's on weekends and do nothing but chase or at least ogle at beautiful women. Ok. I can still ogle, but I do that with her. Its more fun. Only one look though.
b) I can't just wake up one day and disappear or take a trip, solo. To wherever. As I please.
c) Being on my own.
d) An emotionless relationship with myself & buddies hours on end with my PS3

To further tell the truth, my life is a whole lot better.
a) I'm a lot neater (not like I was not before)
b) I have my bath every night (sigh)
c) I have great meals!
d) I have someone I can tell almost anything. A best friend.
e) I do things for people that I would never have done before
f) She has gradually taken over buying clothes for me and dresses me with style. Yep.

Notice that this list is longer than the previous.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Just 60 days.
I'll let you know if anything has changed in a year's time.
I expect it to. A sexier wife as evide

I'll put up a link to some pictures for about an hour next Monday morning.

Happy New Year everyone!



P.S. Jarrai, Naijalines and Mizchif, can you send me invites to your blogs? If there are others that have gone VIP too, just generally invite me abeg. Or do I have to beg? My email address is on my complete profile page.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009

okada

okada
n.
a motorcycle taxi that is used to carry one passenger. In Nigeria, it can be used to carry more than one passenger, sometimes up to four. As the need arises.

This year, it seems the Nigerian government is determined to take some steps to reduce traffic accidents occasioned by okadas.

Rivers State has banned them entirely.
Lagos state has ordered that okada riders and passengers wear crash helmets.
This has resulted in a high demand for crash helmets and the resultant increase in its cost.
Due to helmet scarcity, Musa had to make do with ....... an empty paint bucket.


Can this be the most popular Nigerian picture this year?
Who took the picture?

Posted by at 3:52 pm | 18 comments  
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Friday, November 28, 2008

Cough, cough. Ahem.

Can somebody who knows somebody(apparently, thats how things work in Naija) tell the airport officials to fix the AC's, reduce the wait time for luggages and expand the arrival terminal of the Lagos International airport!

I took a few weeks off work and the internet to attend to some personal issues.
Now I'm back!

It seems a lot has been happening in my absence.
A floating hotel in Lagos.
Kid witches being burned in Akwa Ibom! Shocking!!
The Nigerian Stock market indices taking further dips in Lagos. Sigh.
New Governor in Edo.
Uzoma Okere beaten in Lagos by mad naval personnel.
Former EFCC boss, Ribadu being investigated.
GNG coming to have fun in Naija
OluwaDee going for NYSC
Princesa touring the west coast of Africa and then showing up for my wedding!
Afrobabe disappearing
Struggling to understand FFFlorida new blog - Ruffin' it
and plenty more that I need to go and catch up with

KAI!
I'm dizzy.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Pre-wedding jitters

I have avoided putting up any post that relates in anyway to my upcoming vows.
Vows of absoluteness. Totality.

The title says it all.
I have gotten ice cold feet about getting married.
No, I did not just develop this now.
It has always been simmering in the background but I've managed to push it to the furthest corner of my mind successfully until now.
A category 6 storm. Quietly brewing. Gathering steam.
Hurricane Tobenna
Now! Its jumped to a category 2!
(Or is it a category 2 to 6?)
And it's threatening to blow my head OFF!

I'm getting married in about 3 weeks time.
3 weeks!
23days and 20hours!!
My life as I know it now is about to end!

Now if you ask me what the problem is, or what exactly I'm scared of, I will not be able to give you an answer that makes sense. My excuses can only be understood by menfolk. I hope.
I have no doubts about J.
She's my best friend and the sweetest thing to happen to me.
I'm truly lucky to have her to myself for the rest of my life.

But still....
I'm freaking SCARED!

What if.
What if..
What if...
What if....

Honestly, I've run out of what if's.

WHAT IF?!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What Nigeria is to me...

NIGERIAN nationality was for me and my generation an acquired taste like cheese or better still like ballroom dance. Not dancing per se for that came naturally, but this titillating version of slow, slow, quick, quick, slow performed in close body contact with a female in rivalry with an elusive beat....

This was the introduction Professor Chinua Achebe made in a speech last week in Lagos for The Guardian newspaper's silver jubilee. For me, his speech was interesting, challenging and enlightening.
In my mind, there are very few better writers.
The Noble prize for literature does not deserve him.

Click here for the whole speech.


What are your thoughts?
Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Nigeria & America comparatively

Is it just me?
I seem to get the feeling that America and Nigeria are becoming more and more similar.....

I know hurricane "Ikechukwu" struck, nevertheless, some parts of Texas was visited by "NEPA" or "PHCN" for over a week. Over 2.2 million people were affected!
A whole week without power!
How were they coping?
Did they have candles, torchlights, rechargeable lamps, inverters?
I hear generator sales was off the Richter scale during this period.

Another one.
Some parts of Atlanta are having issues with buying fuel for their cars.
Dry fuel pumps!
In yankee?!
Some people there are waiting for one hour to get their fuel tanks filled!

Add to this, the current American financial crisis:
The biggest bank failure in American history - Washington Mutual amongst others
Failure of two big mortgage institutions - Fannie whatever and Freddie whatever.
The subprime issues - whatever that is.
The credit crunch, as banks are holding on to the funds they have. Nobody's giving loans to anyone at the moment.
The New York Stock Exchange losing over $1trillion in one day.
The crumbling housing market - 300,000 fore-closures in August. Up 27% against last year.

Truthfully, I'm not even sure Nigeria can beat this.
Oh well, I'm sure we can. In other ways.

I made a presentation at work this week and I started with "As George Bush once said, this will be a no question session". Only our ex-president, Baba Sege can say something like that.

Ahmadinejad was probably far from the truth when he suggested that the American empire was nearing an end, but I don't think he was too far off.

What am I driving at?
Nothing actually.
Just making observations....

As we mark our Independence Day celebrations today......
God bless Nigeria.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Commuting in Lagos

The Lenovo T61 laptop I ordered over a month ago just came in and I'm loving it.

I had to order one with low specifications so I could add the cannibalised parts of my old laptop to beef it up. No sense in condemning the laptop since it was only the motherboard that was damaged.

My T61 now has 3GB RAM with a 2.5GHz processor. Woah!



I took Monday last week off work so I could spend one day extra in Lagos for pre-wedding activities, specifically with the church we were getting married in. Spent a few hours with the church administrative staff on the requirements we had to meet et al and was done at about 4pm.

After waiting a while for a non-existent taxi cab to show up, I decided to walk to the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) in Onikan, aka Race Course to see if my luck would be better. Upon getting there, I saw the newly introduced Bus Rapid transit (BRT). Apparently, TBS is a major stop for these buses.

I took this taxi-cab picture later in the day.

Note the "danfo" buses in the background with the same ubiquitious yellow with black stripes colour.


On the spot, I decided to get on one of these buses and have fun.


Before I even got to the bustop, I was accosted by different people selling tickets like the lady in this picture. New job for people, I thought. This was a good start.

I found out what bus route I needed to use before I get on a bus to another state (apparently, the red buses go to straight to Oworonshoki, and the blue ones go to Mile 12 while stopping at certain bus-stops along the Ikorodu road axis)



So, the nearest bustop to my destination - Surulere, was the "Barracks" stop. Ticket cost: N50 (40 cents). I promptly paid, picked up the ticket and walked over to the bus stop.









Check out the queue!


Damn!
There were at least 200 people in front of me!
I was beginning to have second thoughts about getting on this bus. This was going to take a long time.
Crap.

Anyways, I made up my mind I was going to get on that bus whatever it took.
So, I joined the looong snaking line. Everything kinda looked organised at that moment.

See that FAN ice-cream cart on that picture to the right, up there? After waiting for about 20 minutes in the hot Lagos sun, I told the person behind me on the queue "I dey come oh" and strolled over and got me a "FAN ICE" yoghourt. Didn't taste like the one I used to love but it helped cool me down.

Got back on the line and joined in the disjointed banter and arguments of my fellow "line mates".


A molue (yes, they are becoming rarer in Lagos these days) shudders by, spewing toxic fumes into the queue. Everyone, or at least, almost everyone, grabs his/her nose to block it out.











I noticed that this sign was on each of the BRT buses.

NO Hawking
NO Preaching
NO Advertising


If you ever had any experience with "Molues", you'd remember the hilarious craziness that accompanies each ride.


Someone would stand up and start with the sentence "Praise the LORD!" and then go on to regale the captivated passengers with jokes, then try to sell something and probably end with a song of praise in which people would join in.

Back to the QUEUE.
While the line was slowly crawling forward (I'd say 1 step forward every 5 minutes), we argued about the probability that our president - "Yardy" was still alive, talked about politics in the US (Obama of course - after we saw this car parked across the road with the OBAMA sticker) and what business it was for Nigerians to be concerned about it, compared fake Chinese products to Aba-made products, cursed and insulted the useless buses and people who were trying to jump the queue. Don't forget the government and other people who were "eating" our money, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
We tried calling the number on the back of the buses to alert them that there were few buses getting to the stop. No joy. But at least we got a recorded message asking us to leave a message.
I couldn't be bothered to.

Then, these unfortunate ladies stroll over and try to "psych" this guy behind me to get on the line in front of him. They were unprepared for the assault on them from the people around.
"C'mon will you go to the back!", "You want to jump queue abi?", "See this small children oh, you want to enter in front of me, una don chop liver oh. If I slap you eh!", "Omo we're, tin gba fo eh l'eti eh!", "Ashawo, comot for there jare!"

But these ladies were not bothered oh, they just moved on to the front and somehow wrangled their way into the line.

After one hour with little progress, we, the people began to get agitated.
We sadly noted that people were "shunting" the line in front and getting on the bus by hook or crook. Kudos to the people on the line as by and large, they maintained their cool.

As I got closer to the front, it began to look like pandemonium. People shouting, shoving, cursing and even fighting. Check these guys out.
I wonder what the issue was.
"You must pay me my money OH!" I heard one of them say. Not sure what kind of "wahala" was going on.







This guy barely got into the bus before the door closed. Unfortunately for him, his bag remained outside the bus.

Still, the line stretched on.....

Eventually, after roughly 2 and a half hours, I finally got on the bus.
The bus was clean, neat and looked sharply different from the pandemonium outside.
The guy in the green check shirt was able to jump the queue and get into the bus.

Sharply and promptly, other passengers shoved him off. He did not make the ride.

The bus moved on.
I got to my bustop and shouted "Oh wah oh!". Reminiscent of my "danfo/molue" days.
Nobody answered me. The bus was still moving on. I repeated myself a bit more desperately, "Oh wah oh!!"
Someone then replied "Press the buzzer!".
Press the buzzer "ke"?
"Wey the buzzer dey na?"
"Bros, you never enter BRT before? Pull the rope on top ya head!"

I pulled it, heard a ring and the bus came to stop, missing my stop by only about 10 feet.
Phew.
It was an interesting experience for me.
I'm not sure I'd do it again though.
What if it rained while we were on the line?
Sigh.


P.S. Thanks to NoLimit and Dee! for their awards
I really appreciate their thoughts.
Posted by at 12:20 pm | 36 comments  
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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Quiz

Ok, shoot me.
But I have to make this as difficult and fun as I can.
You want my wedding site?
Decode this:




When you do, buzz me privately and I'll give you the key.

Caveat: Do not put the answer in any comment you may leave here.

P.S. I forgot to mention this had a 1hr time delete.
Posted by at 12:10 pm | 50 comments  
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