Friday, October 09, 2015

Nigeria time (GMT +1)

Finally changed the time zones for publishing my blogs :) Three of five used to be stamped with Pacific/California time, one with local Lagos time, while this blog used to publish from Cairo.  Took me how many years to switch?

You should check them all out:  NewsBuka for Nigeria community and governance news and commentary.  UpNaira for business and financial, money and development.  REALbubbler for entertainment, arts, culture, and lifestyle.  XBubbler for mathematics, analysis, and education.  And this (LifeLib) for whatever I want, since 2004.
  • You should check them all out now and return regularly.  
  • I'm speeding up the metabolism on NewsBuka, trying to make it a debate-friendly space, that is, to build a community of hangers-out not just passers-through.  
  • Something's wrong with the format on UpNaira, the links are coloured too light and I can't find the right balance - to bold or not to bold, to contrast with the black font or contrast with the white background, to increase font size by how much - for readability.  
  • REALbubbler is as cheesy as you like, design-wise, but at least it's very bold and unique.  In my view, it's not just a lazy entertainment feed, it actually trains you to be creative.  Here's a guarantee - if you gorge on REALbubbler even half as much as I do for a few months, you will become a more competent creative mo-fo, or your no-money back.  
  • I'm addicted to REALbubbler: I smoke my own dope.  In fact, I assembled it for myself first.  2011.  Broke at work, had to do something before I killed someone.  It was an inspiring job, a great time all around.  That's how one of the key stories of my novel started too - I was angry and wrote a tale of a love triangle in which the annoying person was spurned for their 'subordinate',  with me of course cast as The Center Of The Universe - Zuzu the nurse
  • I nearly ruined XBubbler because I made a klutzy address change six months ago that cost about 90% of traffic.  If somebody else had done that to my darling math blog - fire.  If the world really needs my math blog, the visitors will come back. 
  • You know, sometimes I read business/productivity articles about the need to delegate and um, guess that's not what I've been doing.  I have instead a need to automate, to delegate to inanimate objects.  Thank you, engineering school.  Thank you, blessed congenital laziness.  As for delegating to humans, well, I do have a need to inspire, motivate, and go home happy knowing that all these other people would do the right thing.  
That's me
making the internet a better place. 
You're welcome.  
  
My fridge smells.  There's an unopened pack of 'frozen' cauliflower in the freezer but who knows why there hasn't been electricity for the fridge for a day or longer.  None of my business anyway, it'll come back.  The inverter is doing its merry thing so I can still play music and live normal and there's water.  Some people say when they hear of my beautiful life: it's like you don't live in Nigeria.  Nna, no be me, na God. 

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10 comments:

t said...

Still no power ooooooooooo. I've had to throw the cauliflower in a pan with some oil and boil/cook it. Burned it but ok. The other things in the freezer too are at risk - some tahini-from-a-can (yummy especially when you add a little oil or mix with pasta sauce) and some spicy-marinara-from-a-can (I'm still hopeful about electricity because it smells so nice and so fresh still.) And I nearly forgot there are fresh whole carrots - those have a day or two before they're in danger of spoiling - and fresh garden eggs (no worries, there'll surely be power before those go bad, or I can eat them all.

WHAT is the problem? Not that electricity problems are anything new. If nothing changes by tomorrow evening, I'm outta here :) migration time. The toilet smells. For all I know there could be power again in two minutes.

Maybe it's the excess rain. Only in Nigeria - too little rain, too much rain, just enough rain, all are excuses for all "infrastructure" to go to shit.

Life is good.

t said...

Five other blog posts I've written about ELECTRICITY over the years, enjoy.

t said...

We still dey here o. No light. When the torrent (rain) started last night (you should hear it, it's beautiful, the way it rushes) my neighbours (a complex family of about thirty people - I kid not - they don't seem so many until you start counting, many don't live here per se, they're always out at work, they just sleep here for a few hours in the darkest of the night) ...
train of thought...My neighbours brought out basins and buckets to collect water. So this morning they had and still have lots of water to shower and everything. Me, I felt too cool to take my bucket out (and if I had thought about it, there's an extra basin too) so no water for me, just one keg that I permanently store water in for times like this. The keg too, the matron of the aforementioned family, my landlady, actually gave that to me. Because she's a sweetheart. And because she saw how I used to suffer whenever major water problems happened. At some point, I'll shower, maybe clean the sink, flush, go out to lunch/dinner with this guy and probably head to my parents' because can't take this crap.

Or maybe the power will come back.

What kills about the power problem (which is usually none of my business because there's that inverter) is the lack of information. When you think about the fact that not only has the population not had enough electric power resources to give everybody this basic good (which I guess could happen in any lootocracy or any disaster region) but the real rub, the real thing that makes me wonder if we're all idiots is that there is no schedule. Are we seriously that stupid? Inverter, bi*hes.

t said...

Just got back in from wherever (friend, hangout) and ooops, there's still no power. So I'm going to sleep. A lot. 8 hours at least. insha'Allah. But this woman told me she heard :) we would have power by tonight. I chose to believe her pretty story, deceiving myself.
Think I may be tough enough to handle a few more days of this. I'm not migrating, for now. Nigh'night. Suddenly thinking about all those displaced people and their tents and how some people are so relieved to be able to get a safe night's rest.

t said...

No shame quitting honourably: inverter ran out of juice and I ran out of the place.

t said...

Still no power. I'm hiding out a little longer. Good opportunity to get that sleep and exercise to counteract the effects of my sleepless habit and the stressful travels in crampedbuses+majortraffic+badroads+poorair. A lot of catching up to do when I get back - will it be tomorrow? Friday?
I was supposed to go watch Felabration tonight, can't do.

t said...

NEPA refugees unite. Heading back tonight or tomorrow whether or not there's power. Bwaaah, crying, my home.

t said...

Power returned yesterday probably 7:30pm or so. I was back by 10pm. Like I said was going to get back light or no light, was at an all-day talk-shop that ended around 9pm...
forgot i'd left a large yet-to-ripen pawpaw in the 'fridge' so there was a big mess in there; the pawpaw was now a bright yellow-orange ball with a lot of white fuzz on it and the mould attached itself, darker, greyer, in a thin layer about the fridge too.
Anyhow, I'm so glad to be back.
Now I have to fix the health / exercise matter. Truth is, on my own, I may not build an exercise habit. But I can try to stop pulling all-nighters, start sleeping a bit more, and the key to that may be getting better internet so I don't have to rely on the free nights (advertised as midnight to 6am, but they keep cheating so you're only SURE between 1:30 and 4:30 am, and 50-50 between 12:30 and 1:30am / 5-6am)

By the way, power just went out again. I'm really starting that campaign. No, we can't continue like animals with no clocks, no schedules, electricity sneaking in and out of our lives like good luck...the kid upstairs let out a long complaint against the power outage at the instant it happened, something like oooh, NEPA is gone again (in Yoruba), and she can barely pronounce her name. Because kids learn to say "up NEPA" about the same time they learn "Daddy"

Have a beautiful week.

t said...

PS it seems I was gifted a couple of kegs of water while I was away, found at my door. If that's true - if they were really intended for me, omg, my landlady is an angel. So lovely. So kind.

mlg said...

Oh man, feeling your pain here. Where is this change is so easy to say, right? No NEPA for a week just sucks.