GeekDinner

There’s two weeks to go before the next GeekDinner, Obstreperous Olive.

We’re having this one at the Pasta Factory on Park Road (just off Kloof, there by Greens and Ricks and Fat Cactus), and it can hold about 70 people. We’ve already got 28 people on the waiting list, so you’d better hurry if you want a shot at the main list. Conversely, if you are on the list and can’t make it, please do remove yourself so that the others know that there’s space for them.

We’ve got some good talks lined up, and the wine is sponsored by Delheim. See the wiki for more details, and to sign up, and we’ll see you there!

Late notice, but the next GeekDinner, Naughty Naartjie is coming up on Tuesday 26th May at Neighborhood in Long Street. Be there 6:30 for 7pm.

Please sign up on the wiki if you want to come, and remove your name if you can’t. This is a small venue and can only hold 60 people at the maximum.

If you haven’t already, mark your willingness to eat meat with a “Moo” on the wiki.

See you there!

As we in Cape Town are well aware, we have the only city in South Africa really worth living in. However, there are some towns in close proximity to us that, whether because they’re so close to us, or because of their natural assets, are also pretty awesome. I lived in Stellenbosch for two years, and it really is a beautiful place. We have a fair contingent of regular GeekDinner attendees who come from there, and this month we’re going to try a bit of an experiment, and go visit them for once.

We’re having the first Stellenbosch GeekDinner in an “off” month – that is, putting it between the Cape Town dinner we had last week, and the one we’ll be having in March. We’ve got what looks like quite an awesome venue at the Lovane Boutique Wine Estate, just outside the ‘bosch, and we’re going to be having the dinner on the 23rd.

All the details are on the wiki, but here they are in summary:

Date: Monday, 23 February
Place: Lovane Boutique Wine Estate.
Time: 18:30 for 19:00.

We’re really hoping that the Cape Town GeekDiners will be interested in trying something different and going out to Stellenbosch – sign up on the wiki if you’re keen.

(Also, if you’d like to give a talk, please mention it on the wiki – we’re always looking for speakers.)

See you there!

Welcome to 2009! Only 347 sleeps until Christmas! I hope that everybody has made lots of New Years Resolutions that they will utterly fail to stick to, leading to an inevitable spiral of self-recrimination and depression, culminating in total loss of faith in oneself and expensive therapy for months.

Moving on, I have good news: after this month, the Cape Town GeekDinner will have been held every two months for two solid years! We held the first one at Barbarellas in Constantia, in March of 2007,
and we’ve been going ever since. To celebrate, we’re going to have a GeekDinner, and we’re going to have it on the 29th of January, at Yum in Vredehoek, starting at 6:30 for 7.

After some heated discussions involving lentils, and Cape Town’s alleged reputation for laziness, we decided to call the dinner “Lucky Litchi” – you can see all the other details on the wiki page, as
usual.

Please go sign up if you want to come, and remove your name if you can’t; the venue can only hold 50 people, so please make sure the list accurately reflects whether you can come or not. We’re also, as
ever, looking for speakers, so if you’ve got something you want to talk about, add it to the wiki!

Hope to see you there!

Today is November 21, which, in 1996, was declared “World Television Day” by the United Nations. Apparently there were no wars or famines or anything in 1996, because the UN General Assembly found plenty of time to argue about whether or not this should be done – Germany complained that there was already a World Telecommunication Day, and a World Development Information Day, and that a TV day was biased in favour of rich people.

I would be opposed to World Television Day for different reasons: TV is a passive medium, where you sit and watch whatever gets fed to you, with no interaction or control. And this, of course, is why I like things like GeekDinners: they are organised by their attendees, who are also the people that give talks, and listen to the talks, and suggest talks, and pick venues. It’s a new, interactive world.

So, yeah, my point is that there’s just under one week until the GeekDinner next Thursday, and I’m just reminding you about it. If you’re on the list, but can’t make it, please remove yourself. If you didn’t make the main list (which is now full, as usual), put yourself on the waiting list, and remember that in the last few days (and hours!) before the dinner, the list moves rapidly, and you are almost certain to make the main list if you want to come.

The details are, as ever, on the wiki.

See you there!

Announcing the tenth Cape Town GeekDinner. Funnily enough, even though September is the ninth month, the name is Latin for “seventh month” – the Romans named the actual seventh month after Julius Caesar. On the subject of names, we’ve decided to call this one “Jubilant Jujube”, which can refer both to those little chewy sweets, and to the Chinese date tree.

Here are the details:
Date: Monday, 29th September,
Time: 18:00 for 18:30,
Place: Asoka, on Kloof Street

See the wiki for more info.

Wednesday 28 May 2008 at Mel’s Kitchen in Rondebosch, 18:30.

See the wiki for details.

Another GeekDinner has come and gone, and we want to thank everybody who came and made it the success that it was. We had a huge turnout, and we’re getting loads of new people coming – this is great, and it’s thanks to the community that makes these things happen.

Secondly, we’d like to thank Sloppy Sam’s for hosting us, and putting up with the rather special demands that GeekDinner imposes on a venue. Huge thanks also go out to Stormhoek for providing us with some excellent wine – it’s always nice to have you at a party!

Finally, of course, we want to thank all the speakers who volunteered their time and energy to speak to us about what they’re passionate about. Thanks to you all, and we hope to see you at the next dinner.

Many of the folks behind GeekDinner are also taking part in organising StarCamp, which happens this weekend (8th and 9th December). It’s kinda like GeekDinner over two days, without the restaurant, although hopefully with some food. Hopefully free food, if we can organise it. The StarCamp organisers (which could include you, if you want to help out) want it to be the event for those interested in technology, new media, and social networking in Cape Town.

Over the past few months, we’ve had help from a number of quarters. On the first day I mentioned it to them, Amobia and ProsperIS said they’d help out. And, more recently, the QuirkStars offered to sponsor the event T-shirts. They’re holding a competition to elicit some designs from the community – do you want the glory of winning? Unfortunately, the competition closes at mid-day tomorrow (Tuesday, 4th December), so you’ll have to work quickly.

We’re up to 78 Geek Diners for Eccentric Eggplant, the fifth Cape Town GeekDinner, to be held at Ferryman’s Tavern at the V&A Waterfront on Wednesday (ie, the 28th November 2007).

According to the sign-up page, only 2 more people are allowed, but there are always a couple of last-minute cancellations when people remember that it’s their anniversary and their spouse will kill them if they’re off geeking instead of taking them to a nice dinner.

(Extra points: Take the spouse to the GeekDinner. Don’t get killed, and get to geek out at the same time.)

This will be our first attempt at Slideshow Karaoke – where we volunteer two victims (Jonathan Hitchcock and Bryn Divey in this case) to give a talk on a subject they may know nothing about with slides prepared by others (Russell Cloran and Jeremy Thurgood in this case) and given to the speakers at the same time the speaker is giving the talk to the audience. If it works, I think we should have a few slideshow karaoke sessions at StarCamp…