Sharing with a Kazakhstani

For my final two weeks in London I'll be sharing my room with a Kazakhstani and fellow designer, whose name I can't yet pronounce. We call him "Borat" anyway, much to his discontent.

I'm looking forward to sharing stories - for example, he couldn't believe that we have penguins on our beaches. As a matter of interest and without Googling, guess how many beaches are in and around Cape Town?

He also asked if South Africa is a rich country. When I asked why, he mentioned our afronaut (and the man behind Ubuntu), who incidentally launched from Baikonur - a city in Kazakhstan administered by Russia. For the record, NationMaster.com ranks us at 22nd for GDP and 73rd for GDP per capita. Although, Statistics South Africa released new GDP figures on Tuesday, showing that growth in the economy is likely to hit 5.1% for the year, exceeding economists' most optimistic expectations and even Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's 4.3% forecast.

And in my response, if you've ever wondered yourself, "jagshemash" and "chenque" aren't real words. ;)
I was also under the impression that Kazakhstan is the 5th largest country in the world by area - not that big, but pretty close. 9th even.

Every day I wake up and it's Sunday
Whatever's in my head won't go away
The radio is playing all the usual
And what's a wonderwall anyway

This is some seriously whacked out and cleverly mixed-up shit. Mashup artists Team9 and Party Ben teamed up to produce an 11-track bootleg CD of mashups (see "bastard pop") from Green Day's "American Idiot" album, entitled "Dean Gray - American Edit". After only 10 days online, the project received a Cease and Desist order from GrayZone - Warner's representative. The response? Get your protest on for Dean Gray Tuesday (do you see what they did?) on 13 December.

If you can't wait until the 13th to download the album, you can grab it here (192kbps MP3) while it lasts.

I've gotta say I never expected to hear Green Day, Oasis ("Wonderwall"), Travis ("Writing To Reach You"... awesome!) and Eminem mashed together into Track 3, "Boulevard Of Broken Songs" and it's bizarrely interesting. Check out Party Ben's other downloads while you're at it - very cool.