Let me jump straight into it:

Starting off with the good, the world of Pandora is truly something amazing. What blew my mind me so much is how insanely intricate everything was. From bugs to animals and to tree’s, the world is perfectly detailed and works in sync. There is a heirachical food chain as well as a wide array of plants and animals that fit perfectly with each other. I honestly don’t think there was a single leaf that felt out of place in that movie.

My second favourable aspect of Avatar was the acting. Unlike certain directors (*cough* George Lucas *cough*) who seem to make good actors sound wooden and dull the cast of Avatar was flawless. Sam Worthington as lead character Jake Sully was a particularly good casting and I honestly believed that every person in that movie was perfect for their roles. Sigourney Weaver was also great and even though Giovanni Ribisi had such a small role, his portrayal as a troubled corporate boss with a directive to complete was great.

Obviously the 3D effects were pretty amazing as well, especially in light of how amazingly detailed the world of Pandora is. Now lets move on to what I didn’t like.

The first and biggest problem with Avatar for me was the fact that the story was so poor. If you haven’t seen the movie then I’ll save you some time and money: go dig out your old Star Wars (the first trilogy) boxset, take some acid to add the visual effects and you’ve basically got the Avatar experience for a fraction of the cost and in the comfort of your own home. Quite simply, it’s a “unlikely hero goes on to save the day despite going against his own people and being a total screw-up in his past” story. The plot was a mashup between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings just with better visual effects and 3D. While the story was as old as time, the issue here is that you ended up with a dull, plodding movie.

In a two and a half hour movie, you need to do a lot to keep people’s attention and at least an hour of the movie was self-indulgent effects for the sake of it. Again, the highly predictable storyline meant that there was never any tension of pacing. You always know the hero will survive and succeed “against the odds by way of sheer tenacity and determination” and as such, you’re never left worrying about his success. For that matter, the whole reason for the human’s to be on Pandora is to mine “Unobtanium”. Surely, with 15 years of development, James Cameron could have come up with a better name for a mineral than “Unobtanium”? Anyway, I might have a short attention span but I found myself quite bored through long stretches of the movie and never once caring about whether the main characters lived or died.

On a final note, I think 3D must be the biggest gimmick of all time. Sure it’s nice to have things swishing around infront of your face and “being there” but the simple fact is that it doesn’t add to the story and just seems like a lazy device to add an extra, unnecessary layer of graphics to an already overloaded world. 3D is going to make film makers lazier as they can rely on a graphical boost rather than working their plot harder.

I can’t help but wonder whether I hadn’t seen Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds” the day before I would have seen Avatar in a better light. “Basterds” is about the same length, has ridiculously long dialogue’s but retains the most important part of a movie: pacing and tension. Avatar fails on both counts due to the fact that it’s slow but more importantly never builds tension and as such never allows you to really connect with the characters.

If I had to judge Avatar purely on storyline I’d give it a three out of ten at the most. However, taking everything else into account I’d give it a six or even a seven out of ten. I’d recommend everyone to go see it as it really is a marvel of movie making but if they’d just tweaked the storyline to be vaguely difficult to predict, I’d imagine this would have been the movie of the decade.

Every year, the Vodacom and MTN summer advertising campaigns launch and fight for domination of consumer spending. This year, MTN is fighting back on its loss of revenue by pushing their latest marketing genius, the “Ayoba” campaign. From what I’m told, “Ayoba” doesn’t have a direct translation but basically means “cool”, “hip” or “just generally great”.

The radio campaign (which is played so often it makes you sick to listen to the radio) basically entails a fairly fabulous man answering calls on the “MTN Ayobaness hotline” to which people phone in with stupid queries of whether their totally ridiculous requirement is Ayoba or not. The simple fact of the matter is that while these adverts are absolutely horrible, lack any entertainment and frankly are lies. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of phoning an MTN call-center you’d have an experience similar to the following:

First of all you get bounced around through an IVR system where you’ll have to put your cellphone number in while also choosing from around three menu’s that have nothing to do with your actual query. Eventually, you’ll get an operator after a while.

Caller: I need help with my cellphone/datacard isn’t working
MTN: Sorry, you’re in the wrong department. I’ll transfer you to the right one (this will add another 30 seconds onto your call. Round about now your cellphone is heated to a temperature similar to the face of the sun.)
IVR: This call is being recorded for quality purposes (really?)
MTN 2: *bzzz* *garble* *hummm*
Caller: Sorry, I can’t hear you. What did you say?
MTN 2: What is your cellphone number for our records?
Caller: I’ve already put my number in though? Anyway, can you help me with my cellphone/datacard?
MTN 2: No sorry, you’ll have to call your service provider.

Now considering you’ve waited for around twenty minutes all to be told your service provider is the only one who can help you is enough to make you take the leap to another cell provider.

Here’s the thing, MTN is spending gazillions on what I’d call an absolutely shocking and annoying advertising campaign while at the same time their service levels continue to drop. Between expensive call and SMS rates, dropped calls and poor call centers MTN isn’t exactly Ayoba.

Do us all a favour, drop the campaign and make sure Vodacom’s Mo the Meerkat remains the worst cell advert in South African history.

Swine Flu, you’ve heard about it on every single news report in every country in the world. Social Media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs are going mad with over 10000 “tweets” about the disease every hour. We’re told by the World Health Organisation that there is no cure for Swine Flu and an outbreak is imminent. According to the news, people are dying left, right and centre. For many it’s only a matter of time before a rag-tag bunch of survivors are left killing swine infested zombies.

Sci-fi humour aside, I’m skeptical on this whole swine flu “epidemic” and I feel a bit of investigation is required.

First of all, I want to take a look at the issue of the World Health Organisation’s different pandemic levels. We’re currently at level five, one level away from a full on pandemic. While this seems fairly fear inducing I think people need to have these levels explained. Phases one to three mean that there is mostly animal infection with minimal human cases. Phase four means that there is significant human outbreak on a “community level”. When you put it into perspective it doesn’t seem so scary right?

Unfortunately we are no longer on phase four but rather on the paranoia inducing phase 5. Phase 5 is characterised by “human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region”. Technically Mexico and America are in the same WHO region so by default we’re in phase 6. Right now you’re coming to your sense but there’s some paranoid niggling in the back of your mind and that is “what about the cases in Hong Kong, Israel, the United Kingdom and even back home in South Africa?” On a local level, the unfortunate lady that went to Mexico is very much still alive. The media will lead you to believe that Swine Flu will eat your insides and make you cough up your intestines but this is patently untrue. Swine flu makes you sick like normal flu and does not kill you within minutes of contracting the disease. Even in Mexico, the centre of the pandemic, there have only been 16 deaths from swine flu. Now there have been over 450 cases of swine flu but only 16 dead? Unfortunately the news you watch every night tends to make out like there are 450 people dead from swine flu in Mexico when in reality this is not the case. Watching the news will make anyone go crazy.

Two years ago when bird flu was announced the hype was that when these sick, zombie birds returned to Europe in their normal migratory patterns the whole of Europe would be wiped out by a sickness that we would never see before. Here’s the reality: Europe is still very much where it was last time I looked and the people of Europe are still very much alive despite the attempts of flu infested birds.

If we’re talking statistics the very same World Health Organisation that is spouting different pandemic levels released a study about the amount of people that died from AIDS in the world is close on 2 million in 2007. Considering that these are deaths from AIDS rather than AIDS related complications, the numbers are lower than the total deaths and are potentially staggering. Surely 16 people dying is hardly an epidemic?

If we’re playing the numbers game lets look at deaths from car accidents. In a study done in the US from 1999 to 2003 there were on average 36,676 deaths per year from car accidents meaning 1 in 7700 people died while in the car. Now correct me if I’m wrong but do we consider either AIDS or driving to be pandemics? They certainly kill more people than Swine Flu has.

According to many news reports swine flu is so scary because there is no cure and we’re all going to die once it spreads. The news is correct here but has conveniently bent the truth to up their ratings. While there is no direct cure for the swine flu H1N1 virus it is affected by current medicine such as Tamiflu. The reality is that we know so little about this virus that Tamiflu seems to be a reasonable solution to the worldwide 4000 odd cases of swine flu.

So all in all people need to calm down; don’t speak to Mexican’s and just act as you normally would. Remember, people freaking out and watching the news leads to more advertisers and more money in the recession. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be disturbed by this potential epidemic but don’t buy into the hype.

Lets take a look at the 5FM top 40 chart: Number three is the first single off the new Lily Allen album titled “The Fear”. Now it’s a fairly telling fact that despite this song being released over four months ago it’s still on the charts. Considering the average album has 10 songs it seems totally ridiculous that they’re still playing the first single that was released last year! Why they cannot inject some variety into a playlist is beyond me. People will listen to your station if you play different music and even more so if you mix it up a bit.

Here’s the problem with modern day radio: it’s the most banal place for music ever. I get a better selection of music when I phone a call centre! I often find myself listening to talk radio, something that in South Africa is more tailored towards an age bracket of 60 plus. Not to say that I don’t find it interesting but you can only hear about incontinence so many times in a day.

So here’s what I recommend to local radio stations:

Playing only new music does not necessarily make you cooler or more in-touch with modern day music. I guess if you mixed it up a bit not only would you promote decent but older music to a new generation but you would also attract an older audience that might not necessarily listen to your station. So basically you’ve got a wider range of music which in turn attracts a wider audience, something advertisers seem to like. Yes, it’s important for you to play the newest music to keep up a certain image but it’s not important for you to put that new song up against a firing wall and kill it by overplaying it.

I think this theory will lead to a great music station. No one “cool” necessarily want to hear music from the 80’s but some 90’s and early 2000’s would be a good place to start. Think of it as normal VH1 programming. It’s a bit of the old with a lot of the new and that for me would make me want to actually listen to the radio rather than having to switch between my six pre-set stations to find the best of the worst.

Before you read this post I highly recommend you watch this new Microsoft advert as it will put this post into context.

After constantly losing market share to the Apple boys at Cupertino, Microsoft has finally decided that now is the time to strike back. Why now though? Quite simply the only differentiating factor that Microsoft has over Apple is that of price. In every other category (design, innovation, operating system) Apple wipes the floor with any generic Microsoft laptop. That was all good and well before the recession reared its ugly head and we lost all our money and it’s time for Microsoft to shoot back on the price.

The story behind this advert is that ordinary people were given $1000 by Microsoft posing as a marketing research company to find a 17-inch laptop. If a computer could be found for under $1000 then any extra cash was the buyers along with the new laptop. First of all there are 17-inch laptops and there are 17-inch laptops. If I told you to go buy a hatchback car then your standard Golf is technically in a similar category as a Bentley GT. It’s not all about price but I guess that’s what this advert is about.

Anyway, Lauren (a total random who just happens to conveniently be a Screen Actors Guild member) starts the ad by talking briefly about how she’s off to find a 17-inch laptop for under $1000. Initially she walks into the Apple Store and through the magic of editing it seems as though she immediately walks out. She then talks about how for $1000 all she can get is a 13-inch screen with a small keyboard. She then gets in her funky VW New Beetle and starts talking about how buying a Mac will break her budget and she’s “just not cool enough to be a Mac”. Right now your unconscious is thinking “well if someone like Lauren isn’t cool enough to be a Mac then I guess I can also not be cool enough”.

She then drives off into an non-descript PC store and magically starts to find the PC that she wants. She agonises over two different 17-inch laptops and finally decides on an HP. The price of the laptop is shown multiple times and Lauren exclaims how she’s going to be paying for the laptop “cash”. All round congrats to Lauren and that ends the advert.

I love this advert and after the last batch of Seinfeld-Gates adverts anything from Microsoft would be considered amazing. I just think the way they tap into the money saving psyche of the average American. The average American being battered into believing that cheaper is the only way to go during this terrible recession. Lauren’s not exactly what you consider cool but she’s best described as “a little bit country” and representative of everyone. Microsoft has finally realised that they cannot compete on cool, not by a long stretch. After seeing this advert I looked at my Macbook in disdain thinking I paid double for the pleasure of being cool.

Here’s the dirty secret though, Lauren didn’t pay less for her PC because she didn’t compare her PC directly to a Mac. After a little bit of digging Lauren’s $699 PC actually has an AMD Turion X2 processor, something I seem to think is fairly entry level. Fortunately it does come with 4 Gigs of Ram so it will actually be able to run Windows Vista but Ram is cheap as chips these days and hardly a differentiation. Had they compared hardware directly the pricing would have been a lot closer even if Apple is still more expensive.

Either way, great advert and good on Microsoft on standing up to Apple by acknowledging that they aren’t as cool but cool isn’t going to pay the bills.

With the SA Blog Awards in very much full swing I’d like to take minute to stand on my soapbox and preach for a moment or two. My Podcast, The Digital Edge, has been nominated in the Blog Awards and I need your help to win. Spare a thought for the children and what they will have to go through if The Digital Edge doesn’t win.

I’m asking you to make the right choice in these awards and vote for a plucky little Podcast that is trying (effectively) to change the South African Podcast landscape. We as a nation are tired of having to listen to the radio, only to be bombarded by terrible content by DJ’s that are hired purely to make an idiot of themselves. We as a nation are desperate for on-demand content. We as a nation are just itching for the chance to download quality content and to be able to listen to that content in our cars, on our gym bike and in the bedrooms of our country.

The Digital Edge stands for all these desires and promises to create a brighter future for on-demand content; not just for our generation but for our children and their children. Break the shackles of the ruling content providers, traditional radio stations, and vote for the best option out there.

While East Coast Radio and Highveld Stereo are forced on you, we give you the option to listen to our sultry voices when YOU want and how YOU want. These radio stations simply re-purpose their drivel content in order to force yet more advertising down your throat. The Digital Edge is the only Podcast with a purpose and a mandate of education, not greed. We constantly strive to improve our quality while all other competitors in this process are merely stagnating tired, old content.

Make the right choice in the Blog Awards this year and vote for the Podcast that deserves it. If you want a future of decent audio and video content then the choice is simple. However, if you do not feel that we deserve it then please vote anyway as it’s your right to vote is something that has been fought bravely for. Many a youth has died under the vicious rule of Poison Ivy Matsepe Casaburi and it’s up to you to honour their valiant efforts.

Remember, voting ends in just under a week and it’s up to you to make the difference and remove traditional media from power. No one really wants to hear Just Plain Darren’s voice more than he is already given the platform to so think of your vote as a humanitarian effort as well as a vote for change.

You can listen to our radio advert here and if you like what we’re saying then please vote for a better Podcast future: http://zoopy.com/q/q81

Yes we can make a difference in the landscape of on-demand content but only with your vote.

PS: Click the little badge on top, scroll to the bottom of the page, enter your email address and click the validation link once the email comes through.

PPS: This is a joke but please vote for us anyway

I did a very informal count of these billboards from the offramp onto Rivonia Road all the way up to Grayston Drive. By my estimation this is roughly a three to four kilometer drive and in both directions I counted five billboards. Now that’s more than one billboard per kilometer! As a random aside there is actually a billboard near to where I get on the highway on the other side of Johannesburg. What this means is that I have to travel past at least three billboards of boobs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not complaining about airbrushed boobs but from a marketing point of view I find this a particularly odd practice.

Picture this and tell me if it seems realistic: You get off the highway thinking “Hmm, I want to hit a strip club and the big ones are in Rivonia”. You haven’t made your mind up and the billboards jostling for your attention help you decide between either Teazers or The Grand. Now I reckon no one has logic like that. If you’re going to go to a strip club I imagine it’s a fairly pre-meditated activity and you’re not just going to randomly drive down Rivonia Road and decide there. No, you’re going to know exactly where you want to go and regardless of the billboards, your mind is already made up.

So here’s the marketing conumdrum: why spend tens of thousands of rands every month advertising on your doorstep? Is Rivonia such a sleazy place that people come randomly looking for Strip Clubs only to be swayed by your overly sexual advertising? I think not.

Now if I were either Teazers or The Grand I’d stop the “One upmanship” that they have going on and spend my money on billboards elesewhere. You know, to do something crazy like entice new customers or customers from different areas. Maybe put an advert outside Rhema Church or something like that and spend your money wisely.

I know it’s in most likelyhood laundered money but bring some new clientelle in rather than attempting to lure the smut peddalars of Rivonia.

So I’ve watched a few episodes of this years Idols and I must say I am totally dissapointed. Let me cut straight to the point and talk about the terrible aspects of this show.

While Seth Rotherham of 2OceansVibe is on about the judges I reckon after four seasons of them blithering on about how superior they are I might just be numb to their attitude and this frankly doesn’t bother me that much.

My issues though can be divided into three main segments:

1) The actual set: I know this is probably a cheap shot but what the hell happened to the set? It just seems so much smaller than in previous years. The main Sunday event is in a bigger auditorium but the last few episodes and the results show are in what can only be described as an “intimate” (read: recession friendly) venue. Where is the pomp and style of previous Idols competitions? If you can’t be distracted from crap singing by shiny lights then what can you be distracted by?

2) The actual contestants: I’m going to agree with Seth here and slate the judges because they must be deaf and/or be getting paid a fortune to blather on about how this years group of singers are the best they’ve ever had. The singers this year are totally rubbish! I mean they’re not bad but just have a certain air of “karaoke” to them rather than any real talent. The whole instrument thing just confims my beliefs about it being similar to karaoke. Seriously, you could have more talent on an open night at a bar somewhere. The fact that the people who could clearly sing (read the black females) are getting voted out is somewhat disturbing as well. These contestants are young, inexperienced and not particularly talented. For the past three weeks I’ve watched as the talented performers get voted out while those that clearly get the entire congregation of their church to vote stay on. The public should not be the only people allowed to vote, it’s just illogical to give idiots so much power.

3) Liezel: Wow Liezel the presenter needs some help. I mean what the hell do they dress her in? Why do they make her hair look so ridiculous? Why do you give someone so tall high heels all the time? I’m not sure if they tried to make Liezel the running joke of the show by making her look like some ridiculous Amazonian woman from space but they’ve certainly achieved this goal. I also think she needs to enunciate her words a little better but I suppose it’s easy for me to say these things while sitting behind a computer not in front of a camera. She’d be a lot easier to stomach were it not for the terrible puns, the bad outfits and the shocking hair. Simply put the stylist and the writers should be shot.

If I’m not mistaken this is the fifth series of South African Idols and it kind of reminds me of a terminally ill patient that just wants to be laid to rest peacefully. Mnet, if you want Idols to have any dignity then please euthanise the show and make the world a happier place not only for viewers but also for the actual brand itself.

The first being the Donn Edwards case where he was sued for making comments about the “Quality Vacation Club” and how they run their business. Now everything has been sorted out and the issue settled out of court in a very mature manner. This does set a scary precedent for South African bloggers being prosecuted for their words.

The next and frankly more worrisome event is the issue of an Eldorado Park resident being prosecuted for Crimen Injuria for writing rude comments about his friends wife on Facebook. Just to clarify what Crimen Injuria is: it’s a uniquely South African law that is (Wikipedia): defined to be the act of “unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impairing the dignity of another.” Although difficult to precisely define, the crime is used in the prosecution of certain instances of road rage, stalking^, racially offensive language , emotional or psychological abuse and sexual offences against children. I think it’s a ridiculous South Africanism but my opinion isn’t really important in the law of the country.

What does scare me here is that everything is now fair game online. Things said online usually involve a lot less thought than if they were to be printed in a traditional newspaper. Something that might be taken as satire or a joke can easily be misconstrued and more importantly, those with the deepest pockets can create their own agenda.

Another issue is that there is no real policing here. How can the Police govern the Internet and frankly don’t they have better things to do? I’m confused as to why Crimen Injuria is even allowed to be used online.

I personally toned down an article I wrote about the new ANC website purely for this reason and it makes me wonder: where does the issue of free speech come in here and how can we make sure that it isn’t stifled? There’s a thin line between Crimen Injuria and Free Speech and someone needs to make sure the line is very clear.

Today saw the launch of “MyANC.org”, a website aimed at promoting their agendas online. I get the impression that the marketing geniuses at the ANC saw what happened with Obama and thought: “Obama’s blackish and so is Jacob Zuma. This will totally work for us!”

Let’s look into the past 15 years of ANC “democratic” rule:

1) AIDS-Denial: For the past 15 years the general ANC agenda has been that HIV does not actually cause AIDS. Considering everyone else in the entire world thinks we’re idiots as a result it’s been great work on behalf of the ANC. A string of health ministers including Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma and then Manto Tshabalala-Msimang have essentially spent the last 15 years in an alcoholic stupor supporting the idea that beetroot solves the issue of AIDS. Add to the fact that the ANC president told the world that a shower could protect you from AIDS.

2) On the topic of people like Dlamini-Zuma and Tshabalala-Msimang the ANC has a hallow history of promoting the most incompetent and conveniently ignoring people that should have been fired. Most of our ministers are corpulent, slow witted and generally incompetent. In the real world when you make mistakes in your job you get fired or not promoted but with the ANC you get promoted for wasting as much money as possible and for ruining the name of our country as thoroughly as you can.

3) Another great milestone of the past 15 year ANC rule is that of vastly falling standards of education. Not only has our well spoken but flawed Minister of Education given us a style of teaching that most of the world is moving away from but she’s put little emphasis on training teachers and improving metrics such as the matric pass rate. No education means no jobs, which leads to poverty and ultimately crime.

4) By denying the Zimbabwe crisis and supporting the likes of Robert Mugabe the South African government has isolated us from the general international community and has led to major issues in our economy. Not only has it made us look ridiculous but it has also led to the Xenophobic violence that occurred in early 2008.

5) The current leadership of the ANC is highly flawed in my opinion. Let’s be honest, a possibly fraud committing individual who has a primary school level of education is debatably capable of running an entire country. Charm does not equal capability! Add to the list the likes of Julius Malema that is, a highly troubled young man, then you’ve got a major leadership issue. In the past 15 years we’ve seen incompetence ten-fold. Let’s be realistic: if you were a freedom fighter in the struggle against the oppressive apartheid government does that make you even a mediocre politician? I think (and have been shown for the past 15 years) not.

6) That brings us to the issue of crime! Considering how the ANC has (not necessarily) created (but done little to stop) a country with the highest crime rate in the world… there might be a problem!

Let’s move on to the website though:

On the front page there’s a message from ANC President Jacob Zuma where he mentions that: “Our constitution, inspired by the vision of the Freedom Charter unites a nation of many languages and significant cultural, religious and socio economic diversity. We have to work together to weave the threads that will see us celebrating a nation which is non racial, non-sexist and democratic – a nation that is dedicated to pushing back the frontiers of poverty.” Frankly I call bullshit on this and these are not any of the priorities of the ANC and haven’t been for the past 15 years.

On the website it talks about the ANC’s priorities including “Creating Employment, Eradicating Poverty, Education, Health, Crime and Rural Development.” Each of these segments have explanations of how the ANC is going to go about solving these issues. Now riddle me this: if the ANC hasn’t been able to solve or even alleviate not one of these issues then why on earth would voting them in again allow them to solve these issues?

The ANC has missed the point of the entire website though. The aim is to create something social and they’ve failed here as well. You can get updates via SMS about the ANC but you have to pay R1.50 per sms, something most of the ANC constituency cannot even afford! I foresee the first person that makes a negative comment about the ANC being moderated before anyone can actually see anything. Rather than engaging with people about what they want from their government and probably taking criticism the ANC has missed the point entirely. The concept of being able to download ANC wallpaper is a trend from 1994, ironically the year of the first election.

I’m actually happy though, this is going to polarise more people against the ANC and create even more negative sentiment to a bunch of people that deserve only our contempt for the past 15 years.