She accused BGT and its judges of “exploitation, humiliation, degradation and barbarism”.  So why take part?  Have you never watched the show before?

It gets worse…

The former nurse claims that her performance suffered as a result of cervical spine neuritis, which can cause head and shoulder pain and which affects her ability to hear her own singing voice in noisy environments such as the audition arena.

The pre-trial review, which will decide if a full hearing will go ahead, was told that she was seeking £300,000 for injured feelings, compensation of £1m and loss of earnings of £1.25m. She said if she was awarded any money it would go to charity.

Now in the defense of BGT…

During her appearance on the show, where she attempted to sing the power ballad You Raise Me Up, Piers Morgan and Cowell hit their rejection buzzers even before she completed the first line. The third judge, Amanda Holden, managed to hold on until she reached the chorus.

So, does she stand a chance?

Czikai has previously lodged a complaint with the media regulator Ofcom that she was unfairly treated on the programme. The complaint was rejected.

I hope not, but perhaps she will.  If I have learned anything with my involvement in civil matters then it is that the law is there for the rich, not the right.  It makes no sense, but if you were a 6-foot something balding  Jewish man in Hout Bay you might understand!

You can read the full article here.

Mark Zuckerberg,CEO of facebook, announced that facebook has just clocked over the 500 million users.  Wow!

Now the nature of facebook is viral.  Success stories like Farmville (Zynga) have capitalised on the fb platform and look set to top $100m (yes, US, not Zim!) this year.  Putting that into perspective, Facebook seems on track for $1b!

Anyway, so facebook is there.  So are a gazillion facebook apps.  So many not worth the bandwidth they use to load, but there are some great ones.  But what about a smart way to use the hoards of personal information made public on facebook?

Facebook is social.  Dating is social. How many dating sites have you seen?  Meet your perfect partner – just click here!  And if you do find a profile that looks promising, it is either fictional or she lives in another hemisphere!

Don’t get me wrong – I am happily married and do not need a dating site.  But when these guys took facebook and made a dating application it made sense on a lot of levels:

1.  The profiles exist – Yes there are phantoms on facebook, but generally you can see if the person exists and who their friends are.

2.  Location – you can look for dates in your area.  This saves a lot of doomed-from-the-start distance relationships

3.  If you have a bad experience, you can tell a lot of people about it – so they have to keep their credibility.

4.  Facebook is viral – so you can send favourites!

Social is social and it is the best use of facebook I have seen in a long time.  It is a dating site, and I do get paid for your click, but check it out here.  Some fun facebook links here.

If you are tired of whats on TV, you have a few options.  Go out to a movie – lets face it there is nothing wrong with that!  Then there is stay at home and watch a movie.  Another  fine plan.  Dinner and a movie without leaving the house – there are worse things I tell you!

Now if you have a DVD collection like mine, you will find that a large number of the DVDs are no longer popular.  As my sons grow older they tend to watch more “grown up” movies (can’t call them adult movies now can I?).  Movies like Toy story, Pooh bear, and a lot of other classics get put to the back of the shelf.

The other side of this coin is that they also don’t watch the movies as many times as they used to.  To say some of these classics had a “good run” on our home theater would be an understatement.  Several of them have had multiple continuous viewings where when the credits start to roll a joyous “Again! Again!” would emerge along with the “play” button getting hit for another run through.

The net effect of this is that I am purchasing more DVDs more often.

The problems with traditional DVD rentals

When my kids enjoy a movie they can squeeze in a quick 10 or so viewings in a matter of a few days.  This tends to make returning movies a challenge.  Factoring in the cost of the late return fines makes this a deceptively expensive way to watch movies.

Other problems include going to fetch the movies and who gets to vote on what we get.  Lets face it – I am the only one in my family with a 100% acceptable taste in movies.  Every one else is close, but not quite there.

What if both of these factors could be dealt with in one solution?

Enter Push Play

Push Play is a new DVD rental operation in South Africa.  They have a system that is different and unique.  Not that movies in the post is all that new, but the whole package is something I think is rather sweet.

How it works

You sign up for a monthly subscription.  There is no contract so you can terminate at any time.  You go online and create a “wishlist” and your wishlist starts arriving at your doorstep.

Your subscription “buys” you a number of “stock-in-trade” DVDs.  Let me explain.  A DVD takes 1-2 days to get to you (delivered to your door at no cost).   You keep the DVD as long as you like (there are no late return fees).  As soon as you return the movie the next one on your wishlist is dispatched.  You can watch as many movies as you like – the sooner you return them, the sooner you get another one.

So why are there different “numbers of DVD” packages?

Well this comes down to the “stock-in-trade” I was talking about earlier.  If you take six DVDs then you can return one each day and you will always have movies in the house.  If you only take 3 then you will have “old movie” nights relying on your own collection.  Naturally not everyone needs a different DVD each night.  If you do, then perhaps you need to get a life   Try Taekwondo

I hope this sort of explains how the system works.  Oh yes, one last point worth mentioning is that the DVDs are delivered to your door, but that you drop them off at a designated collection point.  If there is not a point near you, you can suggest making one – what about your work?  A mall or even your townhouse complex!.  The total cost of transport is for Push Play and not for your account.

Take a look at their list of DVD’s and decide for yourself!

Cheers

Dave

Chickens

Who laid the first egg?

If the chicken came first, from what did it hatch?

If the egg came first, who laid it?

No-one ever seems to ask “Who laid the first chicken?”

An amazing website, digg.  You can trade on digg – did you know?  You loose hours of time, but you find some real gems.  Actually, thats all just mumbo jumbo, but I was trading time for trash on digg and came across the solution to one of the great questions of the universe.  Needless to say, it has put me at ease and now I can relax and eat eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch without wondering which actually came first…

Now, when you read the article – and you had better – you will see the amount of resources and skills that go into this sort of  SFW (So Flipping What) solution.  I have always been of the opinion that the egg came first because it was laid by a passing chicken from another planet – but this now seems unlikely.

So they need egg-heads, a supercomputer and probably more money than would be needed to feed a small village to figure out something that is, well, SFW.

Now, do you think the chicken came first?  Still think it was the egg?  Or like me do you actually not give a damn?

Cheers

D

Incase you are unsure, I am a wordpress fan!  I have a blog or 2 over on blogger, but they will probably move over here before to long

Plugins you need for your wordpress blog

Checkout this list of plugins for WordPress and another one here.  Blog4cash is one of my other blogs – feel free to sign up for the rss feed, or email subscription for weekly updates on how to promote your blog, monetization of your blog, and so on.  Here on WordPress.com you do not need to install plugins – but you do have a lot of widgets at your disposal!

Dave Higgs – Online and Personal

The theme I am using here is a free theme available by default (called notepad) on wordpress.com.  Other themes and plugins are available on wordpress.org

I will start playing with some of the widgets here and let you know how they go on  Blog4cash – this is where you will get better blogging info.  This blog is about me.  Just me – online and personal.

Well that’s it for now,

Cheers

D

I had heard predictions as early as lat last year that we were going to have floods during (or before) the world cup.  Well today is the final and the skies have opened

Permit Phase Training

Today I need to go to one of the local Scout Halls for a training course and am hoping the weather will not settle in and cut us off – I don’t really want to spend that much time in the hall   The course looks like we are only going to have experienced Scouts on the course, which means the skills will be massively shortened ito length and a number of the theory sessions will also be shorter.

It is very likely that this will be my last course as head of the local training team, so I do hope it doesnot endup in being airlifted out the hall!  LOL, no chance of this hall flooding out – its on top of the valley.  Well if it does flood we will be in SERIOUS trouble.

Anyway, thanks for reading,

Dave

I am a 40-something male living in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

I am married and have 2 boys.

My interests and hobbies include Boy Scouts, Taekwondo, Computers, Internet, Hiking and outdoors, Country music, crystal glasses, wine, good food, and the company of good friends.