Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

5 reasons they suck! or don't...

Well, we live in a society where multiple personalities is the order (or disorder) of the day.

Everyone is unique, special and here for a purpose; just like everyone else.

But some few habits I have noticed are very annoying (degree varying in intent, situation and previous perception of the person).

The following are my top 5 Beef-Points with Kenyan Chics:

1 – The ‘Kila Dame ni Msupuu’ Myth

The good book states that we are all ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. At least 3 out of every 7 Kenyan chics conform to the ‘wonderfully made’ category. These females are hot, nice, cute and THEY KNOW IT. The rest fall in the ‘fearfully made’ category. Like I noted in my blog-post about Ugandan Women, if the user interfaces (mostly the front-end) of this second category of Kenyan and Ugandan gals were to be compared, Ugandan Chics would be the Mac. Kenyan women are MS-DOS. DOS version 1. Then again, there is NO COMPE in the back-end. Ugandan women all have a nice and BIG future behind them.

And the worst thing that will happen is getting to a Matt or club and sitting next to this second category. Dame amechapa utadhani ni mChapanese. Then you talk to her. Just saying Hi. Just being kind to the unfortunate. To the beautilly challenged. Then she gives you attitude. FFFCUKKK off!!

2 – The ‘Wazungu wana Doo’ Myth

It is said that Black people are the most racist people on earth. They don’t like white people, black people or even pink people. We all know this. Plotless chics love accents. A ka-pointii or muhindi could be reeking of the ‘this-week-sijaoga’ cologne they like to paka but he will still get the first-mover-advantage on the chics. I know of a white jamaa who was being used by the thugs at Changes in westlands to steal from hot gals. Gals like and immediately trust the skin-color.

Not wazungus alone. Foreigners in General. Today’s Zuqka page 14 had a story of a Kenyan Chic who is ‘madly in love’ with a deaf guy from Burundi. Just because he is not Kenyan. My gawd!!

3 – The ‘Nitatulia Nikiolewa’ Habit

I know. There is nothing worse than inviting your campus friends to your wedding and they all smile after seeing who you are marrying. “Huyo dame ako sawa. Umeget wife mpoa.”, a ‘friend’ will tell you. He vividly remembers all the after-rave shagathons they used to have back in campus. How she would preemptively multi-suck 5-6 jamaas at Mamlaka. And then he looks at Pato, Kis, Mette, Msagha, Kabwili and Knoxx. And they all smile. They have all configured all her ports. And they know she is still giving them guest access.

“Manze hii si second-hand mzee, ni 36th-hand.”, a REAL friend will tell you. She is not the ‘road-less-travelled’ like you thought. She is like an CDN. Multi-user. Freeware. But she has you hooked. She is a signatory in your accounts. She has your baby. Jibambe.

4 – The ‘huyu msee ni ATM’ type

Yeah. We all know this type. Broke-ass chics trying to live large. Or maybe not necessarily broke. But there to milk you. From the first day you meet, she makes it clear. “You must take me out, for me to take you in”. And she won’t to go Bettys. It is too cheap. Full of common people.

My buddies who have been unfortunate enough to meet this type tell tales of how they immediately become commercial. I need a new phone. I need tampons. I need credo. Whatever happened to the Independent women we, ohh, so adore!!?

5 – The ‘sipendi machali coz my Ex did this and that to me’ type

No. I am not talking about lesbians. I got no beef with them. I love lesbians. I have a lot of lesbian friends. Yeah. I am talking about these sick, sad, little people who will categorize and profile you based on their past relationships. She will not go out with you coz ‘utamuacha kwa club’ just like her former broke-ass Ex did. She will not BELIEVE a single sweet word you tell her because her ex ‘used to tell her that too’. Fuck you!! This really makes by blood boil!

I just genuinely want to be a friend, but we CAN’T BE because ‘my ex told me that too and we ended up fucking’. Bitch! Grow up. Give a brother a chance and maybe he will show you what a REAL man is like. And help you erase all those memories of your loser ex-toyfriend.

#nimeponaSasa.

Back to code.

Wazi.

So this is how it ends...

Well, Griffin always made us take 2 bitter Anti-Malarial tablets daily when we were to go to the Mombasa Camp for holidays. This was a ‘sickening’ experience, but coming from the highlands, it was necessary that we do this as the Coast (Lowland) Mosquitoes had a particular liking for people like us.

The female anopheles mosquitoes would just get WET when they saw the Men in Red and Blue (#mirab).

So, on Monday night, I boarded KQ 416 to UG and the flight that was to leave at 10:30am was just slightly delayed and left at 12:30am.

We reached UG at 1:25am and from the window, I could see Mosquitoes touching themselves and SMSing each other: “Salim is here. The ONLY disease he gets is Malaria. It parrrty time!”

Ofcourse, Safaricom were also happy to see me go to UG. Saf-to-saf call rates remained the same, despite the fact that everytime you made a call, you get 2 SMSes thanking you. So a heavy caller like me had to delete over 100 SMSes daily for the 2 days I was there.

The data rates were also very good. For Safaricom. I downloaded my proposals and meeting documents worth 1.1 MB of data. this made my airtime go down from KSHS 1945 to KSHS 1860. Browsing from your Safcom line via MTN costs just KSHS 75 per MB. I think Safaricom can rescind their IPO if all Kenyans went to UG for a day and they each downloaded the song ‘I am speaking to pamela.’, once.

So, the meetings went well and soon I will change my walking style. Can’t yet decide between the E-240, the Vitz or a Probox. But I am sure I will make the right choice.

Malaria

Yeah. Obviously. I just had to get bit. Ugandan Mosquitoes don’t buzz. The WALK to you and Bite you when you least expect it. So, from my hotel room, I was easy prey. Focusing on the presentations to the UG telcos makes one very vulnerable.

I could hadly walk yesterday and thought it was jet-lag. (For the 55 mins flight). But I know Malaria when I got Malaria.

I am in bed shaking and shivering, then again the rain doesn’t help. Obviously I can’t code today or poke some routers, so I will do something easy. Like web-design. I feel www.iddsalim.com is more than just a blog. Thus cometheth the site.

Back code. Not!

Wazi…

NTV - Turning off Youtube Channels...

Yesterday was a VERY sad day for me, an ardent Youtube user.

Well, as my confides might know, I was living in Uganda from 2004 to 2008. The I realized that unless I was selling matoke, there was no place for a coder like me there. I was always speaking Greek and talking of ‘advanced systems’. So I decided to come back to Kenya.

In 2007, me and some friends in Uganda decided to Start a Youtube Channel and named it Ndazi TV (NTV). This was meant to be a joke-site for lovers of Quarter-Ndazi like me, Danoch, Sibelenje and Cris Kiagiri. All Starehe boys LOVED quarter ndazis.

So, we registered the channel : http://www.youtube.com/ntvuganda

Then come 2008, Kenya’s NTV station started broadcasting in Uganda as NTV Uganda (A TV Station). I sent various proposals their way via email detailing how they could create a station-buzz using technologies like email,  web, social media and SMS. They called me on various talk shows like Money Matters etc.

Little did I know, that NTV would screw me in the rear orifices.

So on 24th July 2009, After I had relocated to Nairobi, I got an email from Robert Samuel Muganga of NTV Uganda. it read:

Hullo Sir;

Iam called Robert Samuel Muganga an IT/ Tech Support Engineer with NTV – U.
I got your address from Rosemary, and yes for some time now we have
perused through the channel on a request from administration.
It appears that due to the changes to the company group policy, all
divisions including NTVU are required to have a web presence with Youtube
only that by the time we checked we already had a presence to which we had
control over the content;

Would you please kindly  relinquish the passwords for this channel. we
would highly appreciate that sir.

Best Regards
Robert Samuel Muganga
IT/ Tech Support Engineer
NTV – Uganda

I was appalled! Now NTV wants to take what was rightfully mine!

I replied apologizing for the name collision stating it was purely coincidental.

So, they did not respond or contact me again, but last week, to my utter HORROR, it appears they had contacted YouTube, who YANKED me off my Ndazi TV network, deleted ALL my content, changed my passwords  and handed the channel over to NTV Station.

Wazi.

My daughter’s 5^th Birthday was on December 4^th, 2009 and my SO’s was on December 5^th . Also, due to possibly 72 reasons, my SO’s sister decided to get married on December 5, and So I had to travel to Mbale, being the good father and mpenzi I am.

On my last trip to Uganda, My 3 boys flossed about how they could now to talk to their 16 campus girlfriends all day and all night for just Ugx 1000 (KSHS 40), thanks to the new Warid talk plan dubbed, ‘pakalast’ or ‘pakarasiti’ in luganda. It is said that Warid has all the other players in the Ugandan Market Worried, no pun intended. So I decided to test her and see if she is as versatile, portable, satisfying and hot as the guys claim.

Being a heavy mobile Internet user, I needed to access my Gmail, Sembuse, FaceBook, Zunguka and LinkeIn accounts, lest I become as old as VB6.

December 5^th 9am. I buy a Warid phone line. I get about 13 SMSes in a space of 2 minutes. Some welcoming me to warid, some promising to make me Ugx 25M winner and some promising me a ‘Kikompola’!! Whatever that means. For a moment, ‘Kikompola’ sounded like a homosexual invitation.

So I read the pamphlet and it stated ‘Call 100 for Internet Settings’. I call 100 and the IVR nearly bored me to death. ‘To change language, press 1. To Do x press 2.. blah… blah… to topup press 132… to topup another number press 133.. to speak to a customer care rep, press 0.’!! Damn!! Why didn’t that ZERO option come first. So I press 0 and speak to Rena. She asks the normal stuff about the phone make and all then promises to send the settings in 2 seconds.

3 Minutes later, the phone beeps and alas!! Warid Web Settings! I click on Open, but the settings had a PASSWORD!! ‘Please enter the PIN for the Internet settings’. My Hacker mind started buzzing. ‘Try 1234’, ‘Try 0000’, Try ‘6666’ since Warid is a Muslim company. I decided to act a fool and called 100 again. This time, before the IVR voice could reach 2, I pressed 0 and presto, I am number 125 on the queue. After 2 minutes of waiting a Patrick comes on line and tells me to enter the code 1234. groan!!!

Warid charges Ugx 2.00 per KB of data. Sounds nice and fair, BUT when you consider it is an EDGE connection and convert the per MB rate to KSHS, you realize the deal is not as good as it sounds. Extrapolate that to Per MBs and then to Kenya Shillings and it makes Safaricon look like an angel.

Safaricon charges a maximum of KSHS 8 per MB of data. That is Ugx 196 per MB. For 1 MB of data on Warid, you pay Ugx 2, 048. Warid is 10.4 times MORE EXPENSIVE than our local leech, Safaricon. With Ugx 500 bob on my phone, I cant even poke 100 people on Facebook, leave alone send 2 Kgs of e-Miraa on Sembuse.

The uptake on Internet in Uganda is 4.5%. You wonder why? Even a retarded kid with the IQ of a dung beetle can see it is because EVEN the BEST rates for Internet, make it look and feel as a thing for the rich! Simple AS!

Sadly, even MTN and UTL are on the same 2/= per MB madness.

And here I am complaining about Kenya Data Rates. This was a good lesson on Humility. It still does not mean I am suddenly going to jump to bed with Safcons offer or Zains 250 bob per day unlimited internet rate. Still Bloody Expensive.

Even as we approach 2010, Mobile Service Providers are fighting the voice and SMS battle. This, ofcourse wins over some promiscuous customers who hold more than one line at a time, but in the long run, the primary sim card war is WON by the holistic provider. In Uganda, there is NONE!

Data and Content infrastructure is set and ready to go [Warids EDGE feels like 3G, SuperFast! Possibly because it is too expensive for the average user to log in and clog the small pipe] but lethargic and 2002ish thinking make people do this new thing the OLD tired way.

I believe the clear winner for the Primary SIM war, especially with the advent of Mobile Social Networks like Zunguka.com, Sembuse, CM, CN and CC plus mobile web social networks like FaceBook etc will be someone who will charge the user KSHS 10-40 per day for data. Come on MSP, you have NOTHING to lose!!

Back to code!

-Salim, Idd.