MarcForrest.com

Category: Personal

  • Wii Fit Review

    Yesterday I picked up my copy of the latest Nintendo Release called Wii Fit, from Makro. Coming in at a pricey R999, it also includes the Wii Fit Board.

    I have been going to gym at least 3 times a week for the last year, and really enjoy it. Having a personal trainer also helps things along, knowing you have to go, otherwise you wasting money. The results have been average, but my eating hasn’t and of course beer doesn’t help either.

    So I put the Wii Fit disc in, and within 2 seconds, it was up and running. Simple. The first step is to get your body weight, and set yourself a goal. From there you are presented with 4 different excerice types. Aerobic, Muscle, Yoga & Balance. All 4 of them are awesome, and you have to accumulate time doing exercises to open new sections of the disc.

    The balance board is amazing how it tracks your slightest movements, and keeping balance and posture is very important. Every day you do a body test to see how you are progressing, and you keep track of it on a graph. You have a trainer assigned to your profile, who helps you along with the exercises, and shows you how to do them properly.

    All in all Wii Fit, is an awesome piece of software. So far, I haven’t found any flaws, except the stiff muscles I am going to be assured of having tomorrow ;)

  • End of an era…

    Today marks my last ever day working at storm telecom. I have been here for almost 9 years, which is almost 1 3rd of my life. A long time.

    Last year storm was approached by a competitor, Vox Telecom, to buy us out. Initially it was thought to be for the skills and technology within the company, but we soon discovered it wasn’t to be. I’m not really going to get into the nitty gritty of it, but I really felt I wouldn’t be able to work in a company like that. Sad but true, as they could potentially be a fantastic company.

    It really is a sad day, but on the 5th of May a new chapter starts in my life. And I am REALLY excited about it. I don’t want to say to much until I start, but what I can say is the new company is probably one of the most sought after companies to work for in Durban, and if not in South Africa. They have a fantastic work etiquette where the employee always comes first, but work is of the utmost importance.

    I have a feeling my days of being on twitter all day, and being able to blog as I wish, are going to be fast coming to an end, but in hindsight, I think I am going to be learning loads, and working hard. Keep an eye here to see how its all going. Exciting times ahead…

  • Pro 20 Cricket goes blogging

    I have been asked to do a couple of live blogging sessions from 2 of the Pro20 cricket games starting today, and am really excited about it.

    I love cricket, and really enjoy watching Pro20, because it is quick, the amount of 6’s and 4’s are unbelivable, and its over in 3 hours.

    I will be at the Dolphins vs Eagles on the 28th March and the Dolphins vs Warriors on 6th of April.

    Check out www.standardbankpro20.co.za, and follow the live twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/pro20

  • Kalahari.net follow up

    WOW, blogging does really work :) In the last 2 hours since my last post, I have had no less than 7 unique hits from Mweb/24.com IP addresses.

    About half an hour after posting about my unfortunate experience with Kalahari.net, I received a call from the category Manager – JP Van Der Merwe, apologising personally that they messed up. Explained what happened, gave me the correct link, and then said they would refund me the money, and give me a R100 voucher. The voucher was issued almost immediately, and he gave me a call back after to confirm I had received it.

    Thanks JP, you have restored some of my faith in Kalahari. Will place my order for the correct product and see how it all goes from there.

  • Kakahari.not

    2 weeks ago, Stefanno alerted the twitterati to a Notebook backpack on Kalahari.net, for a great price of R216.95. Having been looking around for a while for a notebook backpack about it, I jumped at the offer and ordered 2, the other for a colleague.

    targus-notebook-backpac20feb08.jpg

    Last week, when I went to check on my order status, I noticed that the product name and picture had been changed to a Carry case.

    notepac-carry-bag27feb08.jpg

    Obviously this is not what I wanted. So I called up their support desk, and spoke to a Funiswa, who was really unhelpful, after I explained the whole story. She said I should mail their support desk, which I did. No reply, or even acknolwdgement email. Next day, No reply. Soon after this, I receive a confirmation that the order was dispatched. I replied back to the order dispatched email, with my original email. No Reply. Knowing full well that the order was to be delivered this morning, I called them again, eventually getting through to a guy by the name of Ashley. Luckily Ashley was a lot more helpful, and I forwarded him the email. After the bags were delivered, they were indeed the wrong ones. I mailed Ashley to tell him that they were the wrong ones. He has since arranged for them to be collected and a refund to be passed. How long that takes who knows.

    What grates me the most about this is that the just changed the picture and name, but the description was still the same. They could have at least offered me a similar backpack case, at a similar price. I wouldn’t even mind paying a bit more, but they simply said, we will come fetch it, and refund you.

    I have used Kalahari plenty of times before, as I think they are one of the better e-tailers in South Africa, but this time, they have left a sour taste in my mouth, and highly doubt that I will be using them again in the future.

     UPDATE: All’s well that ends well