Disclaimer: The title for this post was democratically and unanimously decided by a vote of three in favour of … I am not going to elaborate on the origin of the phrase, but suffice it to say that this was to be our anthem for the road trip and was abused to the point of cliché-dom.

After we couldn’t make the last Cape Town Geek Dinner, CharlVN and I agreed to road trip for the following get-together in Cape Town … which happened to be the 27 Dinner. After a careful lack of planning we found ourselves two weeks from the event with a lot to do: cars to be fixed, accommodation to be finalised, bank accounts to be filled with enough backup cash to piss it up well … tick-tock.

The Prelude (how to blow 10K on one vehicle for one roadtrip for one event):

1. Fix up/service car (list too long for the purposes of this post), works expertly executed by the good people at Pioneer Automotive Services – thanks Rob you’re a star dude … if you or your car is ever in need of some mechanical repairs, phone Pioneer at 0448742637
2. New tyres (old ones were really shot) courtesy of Palm Tyres – George … 0448744734
3. New car toones thinger courtesy of Bass Waves … yum … thanks Pieter – 0448841311
4. Harass some clients for money (mafia slap style)
5. …and we’re good to go.

The trip South:

Was unfortunately poorly documented by our photographer the Charl dude, but it started at 8:30, lasted until about 12:30 interrupted only by the sweet smell of Wimpy coffee and the consumption of a Wimpy double cheese burger in Heidelberg.

Again … kudos to everyone who did work on the car – our drive down was an absolute breeze.

We are arrived:

So, as stated earlier, we arrived in Cape Town at around 12:30. I had to greet some folks that I haven’t seen in ages and then we made our way to the Shuttleworth Foundation for a quick hello/good-bye to Jason Hudson – our friend there who recently came through to do the upgrade to our Freedom Toaster along with our other newest bestest friend Brett Simpson (more on him later though). Jason told us of a Lego competition he’d be adjudicating on Saturday and we said: “SOLD .. to the lady in the silly hat” … more on that too soon.

So from there we had to rush VN to a meeting and I set off to Parliament and a meeting with the president about the state of affairs in SA … unfortunately his office wouldn’t let me see him on such short notice, so I headed off to meet the wikidnickers instead … long time online friend of mine – this was to be the first time we meet in person … trouble would ensue, but we knew that before we made the trip, so we were prepared. After our brief meeting (during which we almost got the nickers fired ) we hooked up with VN again and made the trek to Observatory where we would be stationed for the rest of our stay.

The Mandatory Friday Piss-up:

So off we went then to a scruffy joint that went by several dodgy names: “58 on lower main, the pitz, the outpatients club, shifty eight on lower main, shitty eight on lower main” to name a number of them.

There be me and VN cracking our first frosty after the journey then, indulging in much crazytalk with teh wikidnickers. We didn’t stay long here however. We had to take nickers to a place outside her comfort zone (Observatory) .. we agreed on neutral territory (I hails from teh Northern Suburbs of Cape Town see) and Table View was agreed upon.

We arrived in Table View then, harassed an ATM for some cash, ROFL’d as some idiot wrecked his car in teh parking lot reversing out of his parking bay … nutz.

We had one drink at a pub with a British theme which did the warm beer and lousy food heritage proud … yuk – oh yes .. the service suxed too. Off then to a little spot called Castello’s for much Jagger-Bombs and some foodstuffs where me and teh nickers headbutted which caused a sign to eviscerate what was left of the VN’s drink and we were bribed with …. yeah, got it in one …. more booze … yaaaaaay.

We had to take VN home as he suffered a serious case of car-lag and nickers and I continued our quest for annebreation … first back at the scruffy joint and then on to The Shack. Great fun was had by all.

The Build-up:

So there we was … all hung-overed peoples … ‘cept me of course … nOObs. After many failed attempts at resurrection, I finally got all involved travel-worthy again and off we went … Canal Walk here we comes. A quick brekkie at The Dros (horrible Espetada .. yuk – we should have done sushi at the Cape Town Fish Market as I suggested) and off to shop and then the to see the Lego do in the MTN Science Centre. VN had another meeting to attend and we had to rush to get shit, shave and shampoo-ing before the big affair.

Off then to the BIG DO:

Finally we arrived at the 27 Dinner. This part of our roadtrip is again poorly documented due to our photographer suffering two lazy eyes and a lazy leg by now. We listened to Dave Duarte making good speech as usual and then all hell broke loose … I met up with so many people I cannot possibly recall who all I saw there – I grabbed business cards as we went … here be the highlights of the meeting for me, my apologies to anyone I miss – please leave snotty remark in retaliation (listed in no particular order):

1. Brett Simpson (site not live yet) – our newest bestest friend that is in the process of commercialising the Freedom Toasters. You are destined for greatness dude. Respek.
2. Maximillian Kaizen – the hunter of genius and beautiful as always … also a Tequila® enthusiast … kudos.
3. Rafiq was there .. and got me name wrong … bad Rafiq.
4. Chris Rawlinson – a pleasure to hook up with you as always … now send me my t-shirt or there be troubles.
5. Jason and co. from zoopy – they promised some promotional clothing and they sure look like the type who keeps their promises (nudge nudge wink wink)
6. We bumped into friend Stii who also raodtripped with wife Belinda in tow – also be on the lookout for an update … Stii and I will be selling you lot stii-shirts soon
7. Simon the fring blogger … who happens to be our neighbour from Plettenberg Bay – good to meet you dude.
8. Graham Knox … finally … I almost embarrased myself and asked for his signature – a living legend and don’t let his physical size fool you – he is larger than life.
9. Brandon Golding from OIS who also happened to have a camera there and promised to have piccies up on Facebook soon.
10. Fred Roed who blogs for ideate and offered to make his t-shirt designs available as stii-shirts … we like his blogging style too.
11. Jo Duxbury from freelancecentral.co.za
12. Kerry-Anne Gilowey from Cape Town Daily Photo
13. Marc Zandhuis from capetownmagazine.com
14. Randolf Jorberg from fliks it-solutions who happens to own an iPhone … sick

Marc, Randolf and I went out for beers afterwards to Rafiqi Rafiqi (or similar) and it was an absolute pleasure to converse with you guys about things that we’re all obviously passionate about. It was sheer bliss to debate issues with people who have informed opinions on the respective subjects … an absolute pleasure guys.

Well things went a little sour from there. The details are not important, but suffice it to say that we really needed to get home in a hurry and that doing 160km/h through Du Toit’s Kloof Tunnel is the most fun anyone in an advanced state of annebreation can have by themselves … all this to the sweet sound of Corvus Corax.

The road trip was a success, the 27Dinner was well worth the trip and you can bet your buttocks we’ll be attending sometime soon again. There is talk of a Starcamp (to replace Barcamp) sometime soon … watch this space – we’ll post details as soon as Duarte lets us have more info.

I will forever remember the words as echoed by a number of my newest interwebs buddies when someone grabbed a camera and snapped us…

That’s it … all over by the shouting. The George Freedom Toaster was moved to its new roost at the Red House inside the Freedom Café. Watch the myXchange website for updates – we’ll have a map up soon enough. We’re also looky forward to the grand opening of the George Red House Freedom Café (name to be shortened for fucking sure – negotiations are at a stalemate presently … nudge nudge wink wink Mr Dixxon) – this is to be where the kewl geeks hang out from now on and teh nOObs get skewled LOL.

…enough of that already. I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Brett from Breadbin and Jason from the Shuttleworth Foundation who drove here from Cape Town for the weekend to update/service the Freedom Toaster and equip it with (amongst other things) the latest Ubuntu release – Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon … come fetch. Grand old chaps they are and during the course of a couple of brewskies and a boerie roll or two, they also told us of the great things they have planned for Open Source and the Freedom Toasters, but I won’t give away too much … all will be revealed at the opportune moment; suffice it to say that we can’t wait … exciting times indeed. Shortly before they drove off into the mid-day haze, Brett did promise that we’d see him at the 27 Dinner this coming weekend … more reason to be excited about road trippin’ yaay.

So, we really were issued t-shirts … and no … they’re not stupid – they’re black for fux sakes – that never goes out of fashion. It would really be OK for you to be jealous of me when you sees me sporting it on Monday .. HEY, hands off jealous nOOb … /me drop kicks nOOb … PWNT!!!