iDale

The 1941 Patent

The Wonderbra is, for good reason, hailed by many men and women as the eighth “wonder” of the world.

I’m not going to get all science on you, but the real secret to dramatic cleavage (which is roughly half a century old) is some simple precision engineering: three-part cup construction, precision-angled back and under-wire cups, removable pads called cookies, “gate back” back design for support, and rigid straps.

Thanks to these technological advances we’re able to celebrate this sort of thing…

Her breasts and career were given a push!

The original Wonderbra Girl campaign catapulted the career of Eva Hertzigova into the international stratosphere and all the subsequent local Wonderbra girls have been honored to be associated with the brand – you could be too, just read on…

How it Works

So if you know someone who has what it takes to be the next Wonderbra Girl (or perhaps you have it yourself), then go to www.wonderbra.co.za and register. Once registered, you’ll receive a username and password and will be able to apply for the SEARCH, become a SCOUT and VOTE for your favourite girl.

Become a Scout

Men, understand this: Find the girl = win R11000!

Do you know the next Wonderbra Girl???

All you need to do is:

1. Register as a Wonderbra Scout on www.wonderbra.co.za
2. Receive your unique Scout Number and fill it in on your scout cards (you’ll get those too)
3. Find some girls and get them to register using your Scout Number on their application forms

Check out the Girls

Just visit www.wonderbra.co.za, register and take a look!

iDale Competition

We’re having our very own Wonderbra competition with over R7000 worth of prizes up for grabs! Click here and look out for the launch!

Yesterday evening I could not bring myself to skip the launch of Xbox Kinect and Xbox Live in SA. Although I’m not a huge gamer, I’m naturally lured to the latest technology in every industry – this was no exception. Besides, I know that the Xbox marketing guru’s are excellent at organising a fantastic event!

The grand entrance...

I arrived late in the afternoon and jumped right in. The venue was extremely big and there were at least a dozen Kinect zones setup with HD screens for people to try out all the new games.

Don’t be ashamed if you’re not sure what Xbox Kinect is – that’s why I’m here!

Racing: now with no remotes.

Basically it’s a stunning piece of technology that plugs into your Xbox, and using a couple of cameras and sensors it lets you play a range of new games using your own body and hands as the remote. Yes – no remote!

You would have known that if you read my blog post & video (The Future of Gaming – Project Natal) way back when it was still a secret Microsot project with a kak name.

The second and long overdue milestone was the launch of Xbox Live – which lets you connect your console to the internet and play games with your mates. You can also have MSN video chats and view a range of content. The South African servers went live last night which means there will be loads of randy virgins gamers ordering takeout for the next 6 months until the novelty wears off.

The venue was setup like a dream!

There were a couple of speeches from the honchos at Microsoft and I was pleased to hear that they will be donating some cash to cancer research in line with Movember – they even gave out mustaches to those that never brought their own.

Special mention needs to go to Microsoft SA CEO, Mteto Nyati, who got a little overwhelmed by all the action and announced:

Microsoft is celebrating the death of the gooey. The graphic user interface. And you can play Xbox live games on the new Window 7 phone.

I think he meant the death of the controller. But maybe there is something I don’t know about in the pipelines? Anyone?

Nick Dearlove, Neil Morrison, Devon Stanton & yours truly

It’s always a pleasure to bump into the guys from Locally Whipped magazine. We simply couldn’t resist snapping a few pics with The Marketing Man from Megarom. He’s the man responsible for the one game I actually play, Call of Duty – which got the most cheers and high fives when shown on stage.

Call of Duty: Black Ops stole the show a tad

Everyone who attended was given a 3 month gold membership to Xbox live. So I’ll try it out and let you know what all the fuss is about. As for that Kinect thing – I’m just not sure it will ever fully replace hardware. I mean look at this hot racing seat and steering wheel from Logitec!

Right, so I’ve started creating a picture frame collage on one of the walls in my pad and as you can imagine it’s required me to brush up on my handy man skills. So I figured I would share my knowledge with you in a little DIY post..

All the hanging gear you'll ever need

First up you’re going to need to stop past your hardware store and pick up some goods. Every home needs a HILTI – it’s going to guarantee that you don’t screw up your walls, bash your thumbs and also save you loads of time. So stock up on all the accessories and parts that go with it too.

I also got myself some of these little brass things with jagged edges as they help get the frames closer to the wall. They also eliminate the need for crappy strings which always mess with you and the placement of your frames.

Brass teeth = frame exactly where you want it on the wall!

So, I removed the strings from all the frames that had them and just attached the brass teeth in the centre at the top of each frame – there is a little room for error here, so don’t get all Vorsprung Durch Technik on yourself. Just get a small screw driver and away you go.

Next I measured where I wanted the frames on the wall and placed one of the HILTI nails into the HILTI unit…

Like so.

Place the nail tip exactly where you want it to go in the wall and then push the HILTI firmly up against the wall. Now hammer away at the metal top and feel the nail go into the wall…

bang bang bang!

Next you need to screw one of the HILTI attachments (go back up to see those bad boys) on to the nail you’ve just hammered into the wall.Then the really simple last step…

Less than an hour of work.

Hang, line up and enjoy!

A couple of weeks ago I received an email informing me that I had cracked the nod to a luncheon celebrating 30 years of Meerlust Rubicon. As you should know by now, I’m quite the Meerlust fan and enjoy their Pinot Noir regularly with a good braai.

Nestled tightly between the Diamond Centre & highway

But this was something different. Something I’ve never had the privilege of attending in the past. The problem though was that I thought I would be surround by glass-swirling-sniffing connoisseurs with their noses in the air as they spoke in some secret society lingo while I just downed the good ol’ sweet nectar for pleasure apposed to science. But I was taken by surprise, especially when I spotted a fellow Mo Bro and started chatting to a couple of people from Pick ‘n Pay, the media, Makro and the legendary Solly Kramer (the man himself).

The event was pretty simple and laid back. We basically sat at a long table setup in one of the galleries, each with a range of Rubicon wines and a notepad.

A range of Rubicon from 1980 - sip and comment!

Chris Williams, the winemaker and all round nice guy, then took us on a blind journey through each of the different glasses in front of us. He spoke about acidity, humidity, weather, age, viruses, tobacco, smokiness and of course alcohol levels – a real education!

Spotted another Mo Bro on good form! Go Jeff!

My personal fascination was the fact that each Rubicon tasted completely different, but all of them had a very distinct spicy undertone – you can even taste it in contrasting cups that are 30 years apart…

Rubicon Showdown: 1980 vs 2010

Do you see how the older wine on the left has a brown tinge to it, while the younger wine from 2010 is rich in colour - still fresh!

The remains of the sweet nectar

After we tasted all the wines, we were treated to an excellent lunch. Pure coincidence that they made my favorite meal:

Lunch with a little Chardonnay will you

As someone from “outside the industry” I stimulated several great conversations about wine marketing, the new generation of wine drinkers and how wine makers plan to take on the growing beer, spirit & champagne producers (if they plan to at all).

Neil Pendock, one of the countries leading independent drinks commentators summed it up on his blog post here with the following quote from Solly Kramer:

“SA wine must catch a wake-up and move their marketing departments to Jo’burg. Look at this bottle of Meerlust Pinot Noir 2009. The wine is great but the label is 1920s. When they launched Rubicon in the early 1980s, their black label was out of the box. Now Chocolate Box makes all the running – pure marketing sells wine.”

In between I had to get a pic with the Meerlust men…

Hannes Myburgh, Eddie Turner, Chris Williams & yours truly

I had a great time with great people at a great venue – but the stars of the day had to be the bottles of Meerlust Rubicon from 1980 (the year I was born in too BTW), truly legendary stuff!

Star of the day: Meerlust Rubicon turns 30!

Visit Meerlust and compliment your next bottle of wine with a mouthwatering rosemary balsamic steak marinade!

Think Star Wars theme music...

The new Bombardier Global 8000 business jet is quit simply the most desirable object on my list-to-have:

No, this is not the new Facebook for iPad.

Business aviation does not get better with an unparalleled combination of cabin comfort and unprecedented range capabilities such as LA-Sydney, Hong Kong-New York, and Mumbai-New York.

Mile high bliss

Just look at the comfortable cabins you’ll recline in while traveling at speeds just below the sound barrier.

At $65m you'll certainly have your own chef in the sky

What’s more it that next-generation GE engines developed for this aircraft set the new standard for efficiency, with the lowest fuel burn and lowest emissions in its class. So it’s the best for emissions out of a bad bunch of planes.

Makes for bearable goodbyes

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and watch the intro on their web site: iamglobal.bombardier.com

Even though rain can turn a dream weekend into a nightmare, sometimes… just sometimes, it pays dividends…

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo & violet...

Thank goodness for this sign that the rain was ending because on Friday night I was invited (by Edith Venter nochal!) to the launch of Full Circle – the latest album from one of my favorite local artists, Loyiso.

Scarlet Ribbon - a fantastic function venue

The venue was spectacular and the who’s who of music & entertainment were there showing face and support for the famous Bala brother, who performed a killer set of both old and new songs. Amongst the tracks was the popular “Tonight’s the Night”, “Wrong for you” and his new hit single “This World of Mine” – which is incredible! I was humming that shit the whole weekend after they comp’d me a copy of the Full Circle album.

Loyiso's launch was strongly supported by Cross Trainer - Big up!

Loyiso is a spectacular performer because he’s comfortable with the crowd, engages well and last but not least has amazing skills in both songwriting and singing – what a voice! And what an all-round nice guy!

Check out The Loyiso YouTube Channel and follow @LoyisoMusic on twitter.

On Saturday morning I went to work, but only to meet all our staff from both JHB and CT offices for our year-end retreat that I organised. We went to a really snazzy venue just north of Pretoria… just look at it…

Click to see the beauty that is Kievits Kroon

And their food… WOW! Part of the spread…

And what a spread it was!

It’s always great for a company to have staff together in a relaxed environment without the pressures of work. There was a genuine camaraderie amongst us while we participated in a very unique “team building” activity called Crime Scene Investigation. The chaps who pulled it off are form a company called Elephants in Main Street – what a crowd!

My forensic reconstruction skills, halfway through...

As you can see, I was responsible for reconstructing a murderer’s facial profile based on some forensic evidence my team and I found during the activity. The end result looked way better than this – I promise!

In the evening, we had an outdoor dinner and I was introduced to a new fine wine called The Chocolate Block – Succulent fruit flavours, well balanced and soft tannins – mmm!

What a fantastic wine!

After I got home on Sunday, the girlfriend and I kept up our short term tradition of finding new picture frames for our picture frame collage wall. We were back at the Rosebank market and found a great guy who sold us four new frames to add to our wall…

It grows! Every week...

It’s really starting to look good and I think after another 8-10 frames it will be complete. Nothing like hanging a few frames and getting into bed with some strawberries to end off another great weekend!

Well well well, what do we have here…

Oooh... a locket!

This pretty little lady-locket is designed by Emily Rothchild. And as lockets would have it, you’d expect to place a single picture of your BFF in there.

But NO, NOT this locket! Because this locket…

Bang! Bet you weren't expecting that!?

…this locket lets you carry around thousands of BFF pics and you can share them on the go!

Fancy hey? (via)

Did you ever see these other USB memory sticks??

• Bomb USB memory stick
• Warhead USB memory stick
• Ninja Star USB memory stick
• Panda USB memory Stick
• Gruesome USB Chain Saw memory stick

While soaking in the bath this morning, checking some early bird tweets, I got a reminder on my iPhone for todays Discovery Health day at the office. It’s a fantastic initiative because you get an update on some of your health vitals and you earn those Vitality points to save an extra 10c off your carrots at Pick ‘n Pay.

Fruit kebabs - what we should be eating

As usual, breakfast was served before the agonising prick and drawing of the blood procedure…

For the love of science!

Now the problem with today was that I prepared two delicious steaks last night and never bothered to balance it out with some fruit, vegetables or red wine! And worse, this morning a colleague, who’s an avid hunter, brought in some of his freshly prepared game biltong… who could I possibly resist!?

My cholesterol wasn't up to her standards!

As a result of the excessive red meat intake, my cholesterol was on the limit. But overall I’m in good shape with the following stats:

• Blood Pressure: 110/70
• Cholesterol: 5.0
• Blood Glucose: 5.2
• Weight: 77
• Height: 1.79
• BMI: 24
• Waist: 86cm (34 inches)

HIV Test

I’m a firm believer (perhaps out of paranoia) that everyone should be tested for HIV frequently, regardless of whether you’re a active pimp or in a committed 10 year marriage.

It’s just nice to know your status.

HIV test kit

It really is a simple and painless procedure that’s performed using a couple of small items pictured above:

1. Clean your finger
2. Prick your finger
3. Draw blood with the dropper
4. Drop blood in the little device
5. Add some diluting liquid
6. Nurture your finger with cotton wool
7. Begin having unnecessary paranoid thoughts
8. Get your status

One of the few times a negative result is positive!

Going back to point 7 above… it’s actually insane. I mean you know your status and you know you’ve been behaving, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking “What if that little cut on my hand came into contact with HIV infected blood on an escalator?!” or “Maybe, juuust maybe that time I made my cuticle bleed I touched something somewhere that wasn’t 100% kosher?!”

As you can see, the blue line emerged alongside the “C”, which means I’m clear and HIV negative.

Are you? Do YOU know YOUR status (now that you know mine)?

From 26 – 28 November 2010 it’s the first Food Wine Design Fair on the roof-top of the Hyde Park Shopping Centre – celebrating and showcasing what top South Africans are producing in these three fields.

Food. Wine. Design. These are the things that excite me!

I’m told that the 5000 square metre roof-surface (that has views over the east and north of Joburg), will be transformed with tents, theatre lighting, a massive dining area and landscaping to compliment!

How is this event different?

For starters it’s the first event to combine food, wine and design – all lifestyle areas that converge on high quality production and craftsmanship. Second, each producer has been hand-picked and the number of participants has been limited to focus on the best and most unique. In the third instance, by creating the venue on the roof of the Hyde Park Shopping centre we can all do some night-time shopping with an atmosphere that no convention centre could ever achieve.

Event Highlight!

Jorgensen’s Distillery, run by Roger and Dawn Jorgensen, will be launching South Africa’s first absinthe!

Our Field of Dreams Absinthe which is set for release in mid November 2010, is distilled in small batches from home grown organic herbs, especially wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) together with anise, fennel and angelica in the finest traditions of the French masters – to an 1871 recipe. The colouring herbs used to create the vibrant green hue and complete the complex flavour profile feature hyssop, melissa and roman wormwood.

Sadly Roger & Dawns Field of Dreams Absinthe doesn’t make you hallucinate, see green fairies, paint like Degar, write like Hemingway or be as wild as Oscar Wilde – but who know what it will unleash?!

Enter our Jorgensen’s Distillery Giveaway Now!

A couple of weeks back I put my closet through a little “Spring clean“. In the process I got myself several fine shirts and soon after found myself some fabric cufflinks to compliment the new threads.

BUT, something wasn’t quite right! You see, I obviously have some weird body proportion issue in that my arms are too long or too short – either way my shirts needed an adjustment and there was only one man for the job…

Bugs - Hides on the top level of this centre in Rivonia

Rivonia Tailors, owned by “Bugs“, is a fine establishment nestled on the first floor in the Rivonia Mews Shopping Centre (I think that’s what it’s called)…

This place screams "tailor"

Here’s my story…

I payed them a visit with four shirts that needed to be brought in a bit. I can honestly say that for the first time in a long time I was shocked at the price! It was ridiculously affordable! R50 per shirt!

Bugs and his team at Rivonia Tailors managed to turn my shirts into perfect bespoke garments in just three days and now I’m looking suaver than a “GQ Best Dressed Man” winner!

Rivonia Tailors officially has the idale stamp of approval and I strongly recommend you pay them a visit for any tailoring needs regardless of whether you need a custom mankini, and adjustment to a ball gown or the shortening of an old jean pant: 011 807 3958

If you wear shirts, check out these Carbon fiber collar-stays.