Almost forgot to blog this evening after a bit of a weird day.
So quickly let me educate us all on racoons:
There’s absolutely no need to know this information in Africa (unless you are heading for a pub quiz), but then you never know when you might be heading for a pub quiz, so here it is.
Tomorrow (if I remember): Know Your Lemurs.
I’m not even joking.
Not had very many of them recently, and not the biggest fan of international football, but both South Africa and England are on their way to North America for next year’s World Cup.
England’s progression was a bit of a foregone conclusion, but Bafana Bafana needed to put last week’s rubbish performance behind them and win, and hope that Nigeria did the business over Benin.
All the things happened, all the stars aligned, and so it was a good night for the football.
I’ve been rearranging spring cleaning my office, and it’s taking a while to get done. Mainly because other tasks keep getting in the way.
But I had no excuse this afternoon, when I was tidying out a cupboard and found a couple of old hard drives. And then started looking through the tens of thousands of photos on them.
I took this in January 2019. Apparently.
Probably somewhere Agulhas… the dirt road through to Prinskraal from the R319?
Maybe?
No streetview along there, so I can’t confirm.
But what a shot! /s
And wow. 3 hours of tidying time wasted, just like that.
When your pub quiz round goes awry because people – allegedly intelligent, educated people – don’t know what an anagram is.
Honestly, I have no words.
And if I did, they would be all jumbled up.
.
If you’re going to struggle you’re supposed to struggle on getting the answers correct. Not not knowing what a fairly straightforward word in the question means.
How can you not know what an anagram is?
and…?
And I’m pretty impressed. They’ve entered into the fray in SA with a mountain to climb in terms of getting market share in online shopping delivered to your door, given that Takealot have been around for a long while here with virtually no opposition.
But Amazon have started small and sensible: a limited product range, but each one with the guarantee that it will get to you cheaply and quickly. And it works. I ordered a soundbar and paid a whole R2 (less than a penny) to get it delivered that evening. I ordered a mousemat (because my mouse doesn’t like how shiny my new desk is) and it cost nothing to get it delivered the following day.
Compare this with Takealot, whose confusing price structure for deliveries actually makes it difficult to compare, but a next day delivery would likely be R50 or R75. Or you could pick it up at one of their depots for R35.
Same day? Virtually unheard of, but almost always in three figures. (Yes, unless you have their monthly subscription service, but I’m doing apples and apples here.)
And it’s sad to say that Takealot have been lounging on their monopoly. Their prices – always allegedly discounted – only ever match with the normal prices everywhere else. I’ll certainly be using Amazon whenever possible for those online purchases. And yes, using local businesses for stuff too, but only if they are willing and able to offer decent prices and service.
You do wonder though – how quick could an Amazon delivery actually be? Like, if you needed something small, but really – really – urgently?
Mere seconds, it turns out (this service is not available in SA) (yet).
Such a good video, if you have the time to watch. Some delicious, subtle, dry humour, some incredible engineering and some amazing attention to detail and high quality workmanship.
It’s the future. Now.