Amazon Kindle Now Available Internationally!
This may well finally be the best thing since sliced bread.
I kiddest thou not.
Amazon Kindle
For once, YES, South Africa, this means you!
Want to know what’s even better?
You can order them right here
So for those of you who have not yet joined us in the 21st Century, here is a little run down on what this little beauty of a gadget actually does…
It’s a small electronic device that allows you to download (wirelessly) any number of books, magazines etc, IN SECONDS, for you to read. Anywhere. The device on it’s own can store up to 1500 books (how many do you have in your house?), and with an added memory card, it can store up to 4000.
The thing that I really like about it, is that it is *not* like looking at a computer screen. The reading area is specifically designed to simulate the feeling of reading from a real book. There is none of that eye-strain business that we all get from gazing at our computer screens for too long.
Imagine taking a whole bunch of best sellers with you on holiday! In your handbag!!
Yes, even in conditions like the glare and bright reflections from being at the beach – you can still read your Kindle
Before you all go on at me, about how this will never be like holding a real book in your hands, let me tell you that these days, holding a real book in your hands is almost irresponsible. Think of the number of trees that will be saved by people switching to electronic books.
Imagine being able to download all of your university textbooks onto this lightweight device, instead of lugging them around in that very un-elegant, un-sexy backpack.
The Amazon Kindle
A new bestseller will set you back just $9.99! (that’s roughly ZAR 76.30!!) When last did you pay UNDER R80 for a new best seller?
A feature that may be of interest to South Africans in particular, is that Amazon, will retain proof of all your purchases. That means that if your Kindle gets lost or stolen, you don’t lose all the books you downloaded, so when you get a new one, you can get all your books back for free. (Everybody say hey-yo!!)
This is a device that 1) is helping to get people reading again 2) is saving a potentially incomprehensible number of trees and 3) is really good value for money… is there anything left to think about? Not in my mind.
I watched an Oprah show, a little while ago, where she talked about how this gadget had made her life so much easier, and in deed better. She told a story how her and Stedman were sitting on plane taxi-ing to their take off point, when she suddently decided she wanted the Washington Post (I can’t remember the exact title, but it was a newspaper), she simply went click, and had the entire latest edition in seconds.
I remember wondering when, if ever, we in South Africa would get access to that kind of convenient technology.
This little geeks wishes have been answered that’s for sure, and I know what I’m going to ask for in my Christmas stocking this year!
Amazon describes the ins and outs of the Kindle
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback
Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered wirelessly in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
3G Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle; no annual contracts, no monthly fees, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
International Coverage: Enjoy 3G wireless coverage at home or abroad in over 100 countries
Paper-Like Display: Reads like real paper without glare, even in bright sunlight
Carry Your Library: Holds up to 1,500 books
Long Battery Life: Read for days without recharging
Read-to-Me: With the experimental Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable
Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy
Large Selection: Over 350,000 books, including 104 of 112 New York Times® Best Sellers, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs
Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items. U.S. customers will be charged a fee of $1.99 for international downloads.
You can order your Amazon Kindle
GO! Click! Be at one with the Kindle
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Movie Review: Defiance, Starring Daniel Craig
Summary: Not your average World War 2 flick!
Yes, this movie starts Daniel Craig. No we do not get to see him in various states of undress.
Quite the contrary actually, since most of the movie is spent in snowy forests of Western Belarus/Eastern Poland during World War II.
But we do get to hear him speak Russian. With a pretty good accent actually.
Of course, I’m totally qualified to judge his accent, given that the extent of my Russian is ‘Da’ and ‘Nyet’.
Actually come to think of it, they could have been speaking Polish, or an Eastern Polish/Western Belorussian/Russian derivative, and honestly, I wouldn’t have a clue, but hey, it sounded pretty convincing to me.
So, the movie is called Defiance
However, this story chooses to focus on a more positive aspect, if you will, of the same story. It tells the story of the three Bielski brothers who initially start by hiding out in the forest, after their family are killed by Nazi collaborators.
The three brothers played by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot all grown up, awww), inadvertantly start to harbour other fugitives and eventually they number over a thousand refugees.
The brothers differ in their approach to leading this group, Daniel Craigs character wanting to do what is necessary in order to survive, and Liev Schreibers character wanting to go all out for armed revenge on the Nazi collaborators. The story then splits into their differing perspectives, following Liev Schreibers character joining up with the Russian Partisans (fighting the Nazi’s) and with Daniel Craigs job as leading the group of refugees.
Without spoiling the plot or the story as a whole, it is the most riveting WWII flick I have seen in a long time. I generally try to avoid war movies, having grown up in a household where one parent lived through Nazi occupied Holland with many stories as to their extent of their evil, and frankly, when I want to be entertained I generally try to find something a bit more lighthearted.
What I can say for this movie, is that I was pleased that while there were a few very violent scenes, there were no scenes involving gas chambers or concentration camps, and in fact I believe that this was pivotal to the story, as the story was one of Defiance, of not going quietly into the night, of survival at all costs.
So, in closing, take this one out from your local video shop, put the kids to bed, and prepare to be on the edge of your seat.
Watching this movie will also make you crave Vodka.
read moreSesame Noodles with Chicken and Vegetables
Prep those chopsticks folks because this one is super yummy!
Firstly, you’ll need to go and get this recipe, from ThePioneerWoman.com because the woman is a genius. Her cooking has changed my life. I’m not exaggerating here, just make sure you come right back and try out this extension to her recipe that I’ve painstakingly put together for you.
What you will need for my portion of the recipe is:
1 pack of chicken fillets (approx 400-500g will do fine)
3-4 Big carrots, peeled and sliced length ways
Half a cucumber sliced into strips
1 cabbage (sliced in strips)
A Wok (preferably, but a regular non-stick frying pan will suffice)
Noodles (this is where it’s easier than you think – the ones from Asian supermarkets are best, but if you’re not able to find any, then any regular thin-ish spaghetti will work just fine – even two minute noodles would work if you’re REALLY pressed, but don’t tell any real chefs I told you that because a) I will deny it and b) other internet foodies will laugh at me
3 Spring Onions (chopped)
Other ingredients you will require for cooking the chicken are:
- 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil (your choice whether you use olive, canola, vegetable or sunflower)
- 2 Tablespoons of Soy sauce (I use low sodium but any kind works great!)
Step 1: Cook noodles as per cooking instructions – in a pot on the stove top - this usually involves boiling them in water for the required number of minutes. It’s not brain surgery, read the instructions and you can’t go wrong. If you think I’m going to use words like ‘al dente’ here, then please proceed to the next website, do not pass go, do not take $200. Set them aside once cooked (still in the water – do not strain them yet)
Step 2: Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in your wok and saute (fancy word for flash/stir fry) adding the soy sauce, and cooking until done. Please don’t go giving yourselves salmonella poisoning or anything, make sure that chicken is cooked!
Step 3: Stir-fry your carrots/cucumber/cabbage for a few minutes using the juices left over from having cooked the chicken. Do not over-season your dish, remember that all the big flavours are still going to be added!
Step 4: Now it’s time to prepare that sesame noodle sauce as per the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. You will need the following ingredients on hand – I’m posting them here in case you want to prep your shopping list, but please visit her site for instructions on making the sauce (it’s super easy, and delicious, and no cooking required!). Make sure you have – on hand:
- Soy Sauce
- Crushed Garlic
- White Sugar
- Rice Vinegar
- Sesame Oil
- Chili Oil
- Canola Oil
- Hot Water
Step 5: Combine your chicken, noodles and veg in your wok (off the heat) and pour the sauce that you’ve just made over and stir to combine.
Step 6: Dish up and enjoy! Feel free to go back for seconds, if your family don’t beat you to it!
I’ll be making this dish for lunch today, which makes it the second time this week. It’s been a big hit with the family!
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Tourist for a Day: Overberg and Surrounds
The gorgeous weather of late, couple with the fact that the school holidays are on, have made the past week, the ideal time to set about exploring and enjoying the areas that are within a days drive of home.
The Whale Festival was on in Hermanus, which is about 90 mins drive from Cape Town, over the past weekend, and so it was with Whales in mind that our family set out on a day trip in that general direction.
We decided to take the coastal route from Gordons Bay, but had to stop and capture the fantastic view, and hope that the strong wind was not going to blow us off the road! Still, for this view, it was totally worth chancing it right?
Looking back toward Cape Town, you can just make out the distant figure of the back of Table Mountain in the distance, across False Bay.
The coastal route is really quite spectacular, and each bend brings with it new sights, and more incredible mountains, and frothy seascapes that are an absolute pleasure to behold.
Another advantage of this route are the fact that it is NOT a toll road, there are a few stopping off points from which you can safely take in the view on foot (beware the wind), and there is also relatively little traffic, although of course our trip was undertaken midweek, and one imagines that on a Friday afternoon, it may be another story entirely.
The first sign of houses after Gordons Bay, is at Rooi Els, followed by the beautiful, picturesque Pringle Bay. Two seaside havens which are mostly holiday homes and weekend getaways for the well-heeled.
After Pringle Bay is a stretch of road leading to Bettys’ Bay, where the scenery changes yet again…
Betty’s Bay is the next holiday hideaway, before you reach a larger settlement at Kleinmond (including the absolutely stunning Arabella Golf Resort). Just after Kleinmond the R44 meets the R43 which is the main route to Hermanus from Cape Town.
This is what it looks like when you look inland (to the left) as opposed to out to sea.
You can see the route on this map below, marked out in red (start at Gordons Bay and head south). The blue bubbles on the map, are the locations where I shot the photographs for this piece.
We finally reached Hermanus, only to see that the wind was blowing a gale, and the Whale Crier was silent indicating that no Whales had been sighted. The Wiki link will tell you about the Whale Crier, who is believed to be the only one of his kind in the world. He is employed by the town, to blow on a horn made of kelp, and different sounds indicate to the townsfolk where the whales have been sighted.
But sadly, we did not get to see any Whales on this occasion. Perhaps they were tired after putting on such a great show during the Whale festival. No matter, we’ll definitely get some whale shots onto NessWorld in due course.
The wind was really quite something, so we decided to visit the child friendly haven known as the Wimpy instead, where we were able to build up our caffeine stores by having a mega-coffee (the husband opted for their bottomless Coca-cola option), and the kids were more than happy with the familiar food, and of course the obligatory balloons on offer afterward.
We pressed on eastwards, toward the picturesque and charming town of Stanford, and will definitely be returning there for a weekend getaway soon, the town deserves a whole article to itself, which is why it’s only getting a mention now.
We took the R326 north-east toward Riviersonderend. What an unexpected pleasure THAT route turned out to be!
Look here! (Remember it’s Spring in the Southern Hemisphere right now – at last!)
Those are Waterbuck I believe, and we also spotted some rather camera shy Wildebeest, Zebra and Springboks. We’ll definitely explore this area some more when we go back to Stanford.
Reaching the top of a small mountain pass, we were once again faced with a change of scenery, and we began our descent into a valley filled to the brim with rolling green and yellow fields, and where purple mountains stood in the distance. Reaching our turning point we were about to turn to head homewards, when we met some woolly friends…
The kids loved the fact that we were soon enveloped by sheep!
Spring time is shearing time, and this lot were off to get shorn, like their rather skinny looking counterparts that we past in the coming fields as we turned for home into the fading afternoon light.
Thank you for traveling with us!
Our next installment of Tourist for a Day will be coming soon, but even sooner than that, get ready for the most delicious Sesame Noodle dish with chicken and vegetables! It’s fore-head-smackingly – YUMMY!
read moreMovie Review: Side Effects, Starring Katherine Heigl
The cover of this, makes it look like your run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. At least, that’s the excuse my dear sweet husband gave me, when half way through this rented DVD sort of looked at one another, and said, “WHAT is this!?”
He’d been in charge of rustling up the evenings entertainment, and my plea for a chick flick had not gone unheard. Or at least that’s what I thought.
The story starts out with Heigl shrieking at the top of her lungs, causing both my husband and I to leap out of our seats to adjust the volume, lest it wake the toddler. The very same toddler, who is suspected in the disappearance of the remote control, which necessitated the ‘leap’ in the first place.
A few minutes into the movie, we became aware of the fact that this was not going to be your average romantic comedy.
In fact we were very concerned that the apparent lack of quality of cinematography, and the fact that the line-up was completely devoid of familiar faces (except for Heigl herself) that this was going to be one of those moments that we discover that Heigl may have been involved in some kind of shady backyard movie, and at any moment people were going to leap out of their clothes with very little encouragement, and for no apparent reason.
Thankfully, this was not the case, and it turned out that what we were watching, was a kind of tongue in cheek pseudo-documentary about pharmaceutical reps (You know, the tall leggy types that sell prescription drugs to the medical establishment?) and whether or not they have consciences, develop consciences etc etc.
Without giving too much away, the movie was watchable enough to make it to the end, and discover the message behind the movie, and why it was filmed in such a manner.
The entire movie, cost only $190 000 (I’m guessing Heigl worked for free) to make, as opposed to the $15 000 000 000 (yes that’s fifteen billion dollars) that the pharmaceutical industry spends on the marketing of their products.
So, interesting look into the life of a pharmaceutical representatives life, and what drives them? Yes.
Savagely funny romantic comedy? No.
Tourist for a Day: Cape Town
The current economy has many people around the world tightening their belts, thinking more about saving, and consequently spending less on family holidays.
In fact, it’s leading to a rediscovery of the sights and sounds of familiar places and if we can derive enjoyment from simple pleasures, within a days drive of home, then why not? It has less impact on the environment, boosts local business, and helps us all to live in the moment, and simply enjoy life, right now.
It is in this frame of mind, that my family undertook a short trip some of my favourite parts of Cape Town, looking at it through the eyes of a tourist.
Many Capetonian locals pride themselves on having many a secret haunt that is somehow ‘better’ or ‘less crowded’ than those frequented tourists, but it occurred to me, that we sometimes focus so hard on avoiding those places popular with tourists that we miss out on all the good stuff!
Our first stop was the new stadium, currently being built in Greenpoint, for the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup.
The visitor centre (housed in an portion of the old Greenpoint stadium), offers a video presentation (which we did not stay for as it would have meant an hours wait for the next one) about the process of building the stadium, and of the history of the land that the stadium is being built on.
Unfortunately, though understandably, there were no tours being offered which allow you to visit the inside of the stadium in his current state of construction. It is however, looking quite magnificent, and the final finished piece should be quite spectacular.
I was really impressed by how we were welcomed by the staff, and ushered in, and the sense of pride with which we were greeted and told about what was on offer.
As a former sceptic, I’m now happy to say that I think that this world cup, may just show the world what South Africans are capable of. (Don’t you dare prove me wrong South Africa!!)
We were unable to even get close enough to the stadium to get a decent photograph, so we decided to drive up Signal Hill to see what it looked like from up there.
It is quite incredible just how much things have changed, in the cityscape that greeted us from on top of Signal Hill.
It was lovely to see the excitement on the faces of the American tourists that were there en mass, correctly picking out Robben Island (pictured) where our own Nelson Mandela spent most of his incarceration, and getting into the rhythm provided by some local ethnic drummers who were performing, and getting them involved in the drumming.
Ahhh. Cape Town. Despite your many problems, you still take my breath away. There are few greater sights in all the world.
There of course many spectacular sites the world over, and many that I desperately miss, and can’t wait to see again, but for a simple day trip? To have this on my doorstep is a most welcome and awe inspiring delight.
Which brings me to this…
The drive back down Signal Hill is almost better than the one on the way up, given that you get to see this wondrous view of Table Mountain, followed by the descent into Kloof Nek, and onwards to Camps Bay beyond.
Driving over and into Camps Bay like this, one never knows what to expect, you could easily have bright sunshine in the city bowl, only to be faced with a massive cold front rolling in to the Atlantic Seaboard, but we were lucky, and nothing but bright clear sky greeted us, along with an almost Fiji-an like blue sea.
We followed the road around and down to Hout Bay, where we headed straight for the tourist mecca that is Mariners Wharf, for the obligatory fish and chips, and dive bombing sea gulls.
A piece of Hout Bay Beach, next to Mariners Wharf, and Mariners Wharf itself – not nearly as busy as I would have expcted, considering that it is currently Spring Break!
It was tasty, delicious, peaceful, and all around awesome, and the perfect way to wrap up our ‘Tourist for Day’ adventure.
The next installment of “Tourist for a Day” will be out later this week: Location: To be advised!
All photographs are copyrighted, by NessWorld Online Magazine, all rights reserved.
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Book Review: Mr Nice & Mrs Marks By Judy Marks
the autobiography.Autobiographies are not generally high up on my list of must reads, unless they are by people whom I admire, and whom I feel have made some kind of contribution to the world, or at least people I feel I can learn something from.
Mr Nice & Mrs Marks: Adventures with Howard
Amazon gives the description below:
Thanks to the technical brilliance of his networking skills, it was estimated that he was trafficking as much as a tenth of all the marijuana smoked in the world. But this is only half the story, for intimately involved throughout was Marks’s wife Judy.
From living the high life hobnobbing with movie stars and nightclub scene-sters to mixing with the IRA and CIA, and finally the long, increasingly desperate years on the run, this memoir is about the exhilaration of the criminal life and the hell of not knowing what’s happening when your husband stops telling you the truth.
Now, for the first time, Judy tells her own side of the tale.”
About the Author
Judy Marks met Howard Marks in 1972 at a dinner party in Brighton when she was 16 and he was 27. They eventually married in 1980.
here.
