What articles do not tell you about starting your own business

There are many articles online as well as books about starting a business. In particular with articles, I have found that they often assume you have plenty of money available to pay salaries, advertising, premises, stock and other related items. None of them really cover what you should do when you are starting right from the bottom with super limited amounts of money to try and make a little bit of extra income to get through the month.

What these articles conveniently do not mention either is how expensive advertising is, especially print media and how difficult to see if the advertising actually might have limited use or just be a waste of that super rare cash. The articles often throw around words like "startups" and small businesses, but they really imply having millions in funds and multiple employees, but no mention of when you have to start from home and are starting up small.

The articles also assume having access to a huge market that just happens to want your services from day one. There is also no mention how long it can take to get a customer, how to have competitive pricing that does not leave you poor, etc.

A very casual gamer view of what is wrong with Guild Wars 2

English: Picture of Guild Wars 2 Français : Image de Guild Wars 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I got hold of Guild Wars 2. Notably I have very little time for playing games and never seriously got into solo farming in the first Guild Wars game due to slow connection and the whole grind for not getting much. I have played Guild Wars for roughly four years, but it got rather stale for me. These days I have far less time and patience.

Yesterday, I finally got my first character to level 8. In the new personal story system (I like the idea), I so far had two cases of encountering a character in the instances that I cannot possibly beat even when I try repeatedly. I do not have the patience to try this kind of thing ten times with the same outcome. For me that seriously starts putting me off a game and even getting close to uninstall if the situation cannot be solved. The previous game also had some rather annoying and partially stupid quests which were easy for the hardcore gamers that live these games.

What does not help in the instances is that the character gets adjusted to the difficulty of the area which is normally fine when you are a high level character in a starter area. In this case it makes the situation impossible to overcome. End result: My interest for Guild Wars 2 already had two knocks and I have not even bothered trying to create other characters because I know that I will encounter more quests like that.

What is wrong with South African corporates?

A friend of mine recently had an anxiety attack due to extreme stress levels. Someone else that we both know who is working at the same company is super stressed. My friend's predecessor died from a heart attack at work due to stress.

A lot of this comes from managers having huge expectations and pushing people to do even more urgent work and then still complaining when there are delays. What does not help is other people and departments delegating work just because they do not want to or learn. My friend was angry because of the sales people not supporting their customers when they have questions about the products that they sold and pushing that onto support. Notably support should be dealing with things like errors and not general questions.

To make matters worse, there are a lot of queries coming in that get delegated to support that should never get there. Also people not reading properly does not help. What is even worse is that the company website does not get fixed up properly to streamline this process and to reduce the huge workload and stress on the people at the bottom. None of the managers wants to take responsibility to do this since that means less support queries answered and they have to admit that there is a problem which stops their promotion and bonuses. Obviously getting more support staff is not an option because that means paying more salaries, wasting time in training people and less bonuses.

My friend is now seriously concerned about his health due to this anxiety attack. Several people from other companies that I was talking to were talking about similar issues. The common pattern is that management is disruptive and just makes matters worse and does not really manage the situation since managers do not really want to know about problems or the details. If something then goes wrong, the people below the managers involved get blamed and written warnings and most likely even more work, but the cause of the problem never gets addressed.

In the end there is high staff turnover and wasted time on training and no real progress made to solving the cause of the high staff turnover and related losses with that. People seem to love blaming others and not wanting to take responsibility themselves, but they want "responsible" positions like being a manager for the status and salary. This is notably not applicable to all companies here, but it seems to be a rather common trend from what I have heard and seen.

Security upgrade due to repeat burglary

On Friday, I had yet again a burglary where someone was after my cash box. Just like the last one, it was after I had lots of clients and I was at my main work during the day when it happened. This time there is proof that the point of entry was the kitchen window. Someone took along equipment which will be returned, but my new camera is badly scratched. If it still works or not is another matter. My thanks in this matter goes out to ADT and the police in Goodwood (Cape Town area) for being so quick on the matter, as well as someone at a liquor shop who noticed something odd about a poor customer who lives in the bush with rather expensive equipment on him that does not belong in a bottle store.

Due to this happening not the first time, I will now install burglar bars and a safe plus possibly a camera for movement detection with uploading before the camera can be disabled.

Getting used to a new camera

Recently I finally got myself a new camera with 12x optical zoom and slightly more than 14 megapixel. The camera is: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS

At the moment I am still trying to figure out what is the best way to get blur free photo indoors when triggered by a timer and putting an object in front before the photo gets taken. Doing outdoors photos has turned out to be very nice for animal photos where I could not get very close with my previous camera with its 3.3x zoom. The new camera has many new features that I have not really used much including colour selection which makes some rather interesting effects.

Cleaning up the kitchen

Kitchen cleaning is usually quite a procedure especially when it has not been done for a while. I have had some stains that bothered me for a long time and the common cleaning liquids did not work so well. Due to removing an engine oil stain with Clean Green, I ended up using that on the kitchen floor and kitchen counter as well as oven. The microwave also needed some urgent cleaning inside. Due to the wonderful results that the cleaning liquid gave me, I ended up treating the bathroom as well with that, especially the toilet which I had done with other cleaning liquids a few days before.

A evening in a doll suit and Catwoman costume at a fancy dress costume party

Halle Berry as Catwoman in the 2004 film. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last Saturday, I was invited by one of my clients to come along to a fancy dress costume party. The theme was superheroes and most of my costumes were out. I also did not want to wear the usual ones that I have worn too often, plus I wanted to try a new doll suit that I got recently. I decided to wear the doll suit and a very open Catwoman costume over it. Most people do not want to wear that costume because they are ashamed to show their body.

Putting the doll suit on took far longer than I expected due to body hair, lots of folds to work out and no lubrication. I also had to make sure the arms are positioned properly, otherwise the zip tears open. The breast padding underneath the suit also had to be on the correct spot and think enough, but not too thick due to zip reasons. Sweating was a requirement to actually put on the doll suit.

Once that suit was in place, I started putting on the Catwoman costume. The gloves, doll suit hood and Catwoman mask would only happen once I arrive at the venue. At the venue, I asked another guest who arrived to finish zipping up my doll suit at the back. Up to that point in time, I could sweat enough to lubricate the arms enough to slide them properly into place that they fitted tightly. With the hood and mask in place, I walked in to greet the other people. The woman who zipped me up actually said that I looked like a woman which was the whole idea.

During the party I was sweating quite a bit while the hood was on. My suit had a detachable hood and detachable gloves. The sweat ended up running out of the nose and mouth due to heat. During the day, the temperature was hot as well. Once I had the hood and gloves off, then the sweating stopped.

A lot of people asked me about the suit and wanted to feel the skin. Around midnight I drove home. The effect of the alcohol hit me once I was home and I nearly dozed off on the floor. After three hours in bed, I finally recovered enough to get the suit zip open to peel off the doll suit. My toes were hurting due to the pressure of the suit.

Overall, I really enjoyed being Catwoman for the evening with the matching body, even if the body was a doll. One person actually thought that I was an inflatable doll when he walked in because I was not moving at the time.

Karneval in Kapstadt

Vor ungefähr zwei Wochen war der neue Deutsche Karneval in Kapstadt bei Roodehek Terrace. Es war hauptsächlich eine Spendensammlung für ein Kinderheim. Der Eintrittspreis war etwas sehr hoch, aber dafür war das Buffet sehr schön sowie der Komiker und die Musik. Es waren leider etwas wenig leute dort wegen Eintrittspreis. Was nicht so gut war, war die sache das da nur ein Mann war der die besten Kostüme für Männer und Frauen beschliessen musste und er war auch nich Schwul. So wie er sprach, ging es mehr darum über welchen Mann er Attraktief findet was nicht so gut war. Allgemein war alles zusammen nicht schlecht für das erste mal. Zwei Mitglieder vom Matieka Karneval in Stellenbosch waren auch offiziel anwesend.

German Club Cape Town / Deutscher Klub Kapstadt

[English] I have finally found the location for the German Club in Cape Town:
The street name is Roodehek Terrace
In Google Maps, search for: Roodehek Terrace, Cape Town, Western Cape
Streets around there are:
Scott, Buitenkant, Hope and Roodehek.

[German] Der Deutsche Klub in Kapstadt is in der Straße: Roodehek Terrace
In Google Maps zu finden mit: Roodehek Terrace, Cape Town, Western Cape
Straßen rundherum sind: Scott, Buitenkant, Hope und Roodehek.

Lots of financial issues and bad luck lately

My car (silver Mazda 323 series,  Hatchback) is a 1998 model. Recently I had to replace the radiator which was still original.

One week later some weird starting problem came along which looked like the brushes and solenoid in the start because those have been last replaced somewhere around 2006/2007. During the starter fixing, the relays of the hooter also had to be swapped out. I knew about this problem, but it was a lower priority since I hardly use the hooter.

After the starter fixing, the starting was better but still not good so I went the next day to get the battery checked as advised by the auto-electrical company that fixed my starter. It turned out that the battery was dying and it was dated 2007 and we currently have 2012. Normally these batteries last three or four years at most.

All of this of course costs money and I was busy with financing a new PC when these unexpected car issues came along. My washing machine also decided to die which is either an electronic or mechanical issues. Either way it is not worthwhile getting someone to fix it. I also had to collect something at customs which is usually 40% of the item price.

This was all in January which ended with blocked toilet pipe from the neighbouring building and wonderful smell (stink) all over. Now if February I got another thing to pay, plus dentist bill from December and my usual debit orders plus more Municipality due to extra water usage. Last night my PC decided to blue screen and give me issues plus one partition got formatted incorrectly which caused 2TB data loss.

Bachelor party doll suit idea

Image via Wikipedia

Warning: This post is a bit of an adult theme.

I often hear about various bachelor parties where people sometimes dress up the future groom for some fun. What sometimes happens, but I hear less about it is that some people get a stripper to perform as well.

Instead of a stripper, I was thinking of one of these latex love doll suits that someone can wear to do a similar show to a stripper or even combine the two. The only problem with these doll suits are expensive and made based on exact measurements which means that not just simply anyone can wear them. Cutting up a normal inflatable suit does not really work so well.

Supreme Commander 2 strategies against normal difficulty computer

This last weekend I was trying some different Surpreme Commander 2 skirmish games in 1vs1 maps against normal difficulty opponents and DLC units enabled and no restrictions.

Noticeably the different AI opponents tend to have different preferences from my findings.

What commonly happens at the start is that the AI is going to send up to three vehicles and then some more. It helps to have at least two cannons ready early on to survive. Some AI players send airplanes, so having at least one anti-air is good if there are planes. Some AI players do not seem to use planes at all. This also seems to depend on the map as well.

My most effective strategy to stay alive against huge waves of attacking units was lots of cannons. To get them, I had to hold out until I could research mass converters. The important step here was to have the energy ready which meant lagging behind due to building lots of power generators at a safe remote location right from the very start. This obviously slowed down everything else because the power generators are so cheap and research stations are expensive. Once the first three mass converters are running, then production really started going which also meant more research, more cannons, shields, artillery, more planes and more ships if water map. This strategy should also work in cooperative multiplayer with a player team against a computer player team.