I cannot get enough of Kindle and it has been my device of the year, two years running. I bought a total of 5 so far, one for my wife, and by mistake because the first one I bought was the incorrect model.

They get cheaper and better and it is by far the best reading device ever invented and allows you to order and read the latest books in 60 seconds, but more than that, to keep up to date with international news by getting international newspapers delivered to you wirelessly every day, as they are published.
 

Fortune magazine has decided that its business person of the year for 2010 is the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings. South Africans are generally not familiar with Netflix, a share which I own, and is up considerably this year but in short the company now delivers movies to you at home and is now doing so largely online.

There has been a lot of fuss in America about energy drinks recently, particularly a brand known as “Four Loko”, where the energy drinks combine alcohol and caffeine. Apparently, combining alcohol and caffeine is unsafe because caffeine, which is a stimulant, masks the effect of alcohol which increases your risk of getting too drunk. Federal Agencies have now banned such drinks in America.

I think much of the world was surprised to see that the Catholic Church had finally moved on, with the issue of condoms. One would recall that the Pope only approximately two years ago indicated that condoms did not assist with reducing HIV infections. It now appears, from excerpts of his new book which is to be published, that that position has been reversed.

Interestingly enough, however, the Church does not make allowances for the use of condoms as a contraceptive device and has instead given as an example a case where condoms could be used, being the case of a male prostitute having sex with a client. I must say, and I am a Catholic, that the logic defies me and I cannot understand the logic from a religious point of view for it to be acceptable for male prostitutes to be having sex with homosexual clients, to be using condoms with the Church’s blessing, but that heterosexual partners, even married couples, could not do so to avoid, for example, having more children than they can afford to look after.
 

I have come to realise that my 5 year old daughter has more of a chance of accurately predicting what the Rand will do next, if I blindfold her, and let her flip a coin marked “up” on the one side and “down” on the other side, than the average economist. It must be wonderfully reassuring to be able to find work, making predictions, and no matter how wrong you are, you never lose your job!

That is essentially what economists do and the only thing that they seem to be very good at, is never getting the predictions right! If they say the Rand is going to go to R10,00, you almost know it is on its way to R6,00 and an awful lot of people must have lost a fortune exchanging currency, particularly the Rand, over the last 10 years based on what economists predict will happen next.
 

It is at times of the year like this that you realise that newspapers, like cigarettes are delivery devices. Cigarettes deliver nicotine and newspapers deliver advertising and when the profitable item that they are delivering, advertising, reduces because it is holiday time, the size of the newspaper shrinks, there are very few articles, much more PR blurb that is simply reprinted and very little, if any at all, investigative journalism. I guess that is just the business model and one has to accept it, but it is sad that at this time of year when you have the most time to read, there is certainly very little to read in newspapers and magazines.

I enjoy wearing things around my wrist, especially when playing golf, but I have been amazed by the success of the latest device, the PowerBalance bangle which you wear on your arm and which apparently then gives you better balance and strength via holograms.

Interestingly enough, and I doubt there is any way of proving that having a hologram on your wrist will give you better balance and strength, it has achieved worldwide endorsements from pro sports players, golfers, Formula 1 drivers and there are huge numbers of successful business people and others in South Africa who are now wearing them.

What I do find even more fascinating is that the bangles retail for $20 in America or R140,00 and are freely available on Amazon at that price, if not lower, but in South Africa they cost R500,00. One hopes that with the South African version, although it is presumably manufactured in the same place, you get extra strength and balance!
 

Johannesburg really is at its very best, at this time of the year. There is so much less traffic, everything seems to be operating smoothly and of course with the regular rain, everything is fresh, green and beautiful and 90% of the time you will have wonderful blue skies. It is probably the best time of the year not to go away!

This is the day of the year when I close my offices, and so do many other businesses. It is certainly a day that the staff members love, but as a business owner, it is probably the most expensive month of the year because we not only don’t make any money, but you get to pay out twice as much as usual in terms of bonuses and other staff-related expenses, not to mention all the leave that one is essentially paying for or providing in terms of the law.

In our line of work it is also the final day for a few clients who are hoping and praying that their payments will come in time, in terms of their Road Accident Fund or personal injury settlements, because it obviously will not help them if payments are made in four days’ time when our offices are already closed for the year!
 

I was quite excited to read that Cell C’s focus is on data and that they are using a technology HSPA+ which will allow them to cover 97% of South Africa by the end of 2011. The top package allows you download speeds of 21.6 mbps and that is good news for those off the beaten track, because it can sometimes be surprisingly difficult, less than 20km away from Sandton, to get good Internet and data coverage.

The latest and interesting website that Google has launched is www.boutiques.com. Basically every boutique available online has been put together on the site and you can shop either according to the stars or celebrities who impress you or by brands and you can really be pretty specific about what sort of shoes or item you are looking for. No doubt, using Google’s search technology, it is really going to analyse your preferences and give you exactly what you want. Sadly it is focuses entirely on women and there is nothing for men at all!

I must have bought every version of Dragon Naturally Speaking since about the 6th version, and ultimately I always give up voice dictation and stick to my Dictaphone and secretaries. My latest effort is with Dragon Version 11 and so far, I got off to a very slow start, once again, with training the system.

It frustrates me no end that this is one aspect of computing that really has not improved considerably over the last decade and that even after hours of dictation, the style of dictation is not usually suitable unless you are writing a long article style document or a general memo for staff. It is way too difficult to attend to difficult contracts this way, for example, with small, short paragraphs and sub-paragraphs where every 5 or 6 words you are forced to go back and correct something, whereas you will never have that problem with a good secretary.
 

I was quite impressed to see some of the figures quoted in Forbes as to what death has meant to the estates of some celebrities. For example, last year over the past year Michael Jackson’s estate earned $275 million – which is as advised, beating the combined earnings of the still living Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Madonna!

Amongst those who are still earning extremely well include John Lennon who earned $17 million last year, my favourite author when I was young, J R R Tolkien, who died in 1973 and who still earned $50 million last year and Dr Seuss, who I have written about before in my blog, who earned $11 million in the past year for his estate.
 

I enjoyed a column in the Financial Mail about how South Africans are paying 2,3 times the price that a Nespresso system sells for in London. I found this to be particularly true of digital equipment as well as clothes.

The same women’s shoes, for example, that are being given away on sale in London, because they cannot be sold, can retail for three times the price in a shopping mall in South Africa and T-shirts which literally cost R70,00 in America, get resold in South Africa for R200,00. Of course there are taxes, profits and expenses involved in getting goods to South Africa but please don’t forget that R70,00 is a retail price, and one would assume that the local distributors could get a wholesale price in any event further increasing their profits. The simple answer is in my opinion that there is not enough competition in South Africa and that is why the prices we pay, ranging from cars to T-shirts, are so inflated.
 

Little fuss was made about the recent vote in California, on the issue of legalising marijuana, and how although the proposal received a 46% vote in its favour, it did not get to 50% plus 1 majority needed.

Many people forget how California, together with 14 other states in America, allows what they call “medical marijuana” to be used.

In short, all you have to do is get a doctor to advise that as a result of the headaches you suffer, or a back spasm, or a pain in the tooth (you get the idea) or whatever alleged issues you need dagga for, as long as the doctor writes a script for you, you are quite entitled to go and buy it in shops or grow your own! It is sad that in our country the Constitutional Court, by a narrow majority deprived Gareth Prince, a Rastafarian of becoming an attorney because he said he smoked marijuana (which I certainly don’t think I good for your brain), whereas in America you literally get thousands of doctors, every day, in 13 different States, one of which, namely California, has a population not that far behind South Africa, writing out medical scripts for marijuana!
 

I was tremendously ill recently and it was a fantastic reminder that apart from your family, health is all you really have. All the money and success in the world will not help you one bit, when you feel like you are half dying, and it is just a good reminder to be thankful for what you have, and try your very best to live a clean and healthy life and stay as healthy as you can.

I have enjoyed watching the 30th edition of the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City.  Lee Westwood is the no 1 player in the world and with the next best in the field being Ernie Els, and ranked 3rd, one might expect an easy win.  A game that involves luck, skill and athleticism over 4 days is not that easy however which is why bookies priced him up at 4/1 initially.

A 5 shot lead on the final day though should see him go on to win.

I read a very interesting article in the New York Times recently, on a topic we are going to hear a lot more about, and that is that if you read the slips of paper that come with your new cell phones you will find disclaimers that, for example, that Apple says that you must hold your iPhone at least 5/8th of an inch away from your head whereas Research in Motion, the manufacturers of BlackBerries, indicate that a BlackBerry must be held at least 1 inch or 2,52cm from your head!

It is quite interesting that while the cell phone companies deny that there are any cancer risks from using a cell phone, their own disclaimers are telling you not to hold a cell phone too close to your head.
 

It was great to see that the interest rates were cut another 0,5%. It is frightening though to read that the debt levels of consumers have dropped only 2%, despite all of the rates decreases - a total of 6,5% now since 2008 and it shows that far too many people, who are living for too long on borrowed money.