Auf ein Wort zum Liebster-Award…

Liebster AwardDie Katrin Hilger hat mich bei so nem Blog-Frage-Antwort-Dingens nominiert, und da ich gerne auch auf Deutsch blogge, mache ich da jetzt einfach mal mit. Die Aufgabe: 10 Fragen und Antworten rund ums Thema Bloggen & Perspektiven. Nennt sich Liebster Award (oder so).

Continue reading “Auf ein Wort zum Liebster-Award…”

12/12/12

Today’s blog post is dedicated to my bro Turbodave who keeps on pushing me back to my blog and shares his Bday with Jamhuri Day.  Die besten Wünsche zum Geburtstag, lieber Dave! And a Happy Jamhuri Day to everyone!

Zur gemütlichen Ecke

Dave keeps on pushing me back to my blog(s) for a good reason, because my blogging mojo is still around and has maybe only been diverted to other microblogging sites like FB, G+, Twitter & Co.. Avid readers may even remember The Nonist’s “What everyone should know about blog depression” publication (PDF). I like to refer to this publication once in a while because blogging is an up and down affair. And with today’s competition from the microblogging side as well as the decreased attention span of many readers (I, for one, often save interesting stuff via Pocket because of tl;dr), it seriously needs to be asked if your readers still want to go through longer texts. Maybe not. Maybe if you are publishing interesting stuff. Maybe only if you are one of those SEO maniacs who construct their (equally boring) content around SEO structures. Continue reading “12/12/12”

Kikuyumoja Inc.

Someone asked me about this rather strange name “Kikuyumoja” today, and before I keep on explaining it over and over again, let me just blog this once and give out a few juicy details. I know, the first thing some of you out there do whenever you’re on a new blog is to click on the “about” link – which sometimes doesn’t reveal as much as you were prolly expecting. After all, blogs with a domain name (URL) are not as anonymous as all these blogger/wp/twoday services. Whatever. Here’s the story:

When I first went online in Oct 1996 with AOL, I was required to select my own so-called screenname. Back in those days when we were talking of Online Service Providers (OSP) instead of Internet Service Providers (ISP), AOL was one of the big players among Compuserve.
I hate AOL. Do they still exist? Anyways, what they did was forcing me into this screenname-selection-process and so I typed in my first name (“Juergen”).

Now, since there were about hundreds of other “Juergen1234” on AOL (I tend to imagine someone like Joe Dirt whenever I hear my name), I needed to type in something else. I then chose the first thing (name) that came to my mind: KAMAU.

Kamau Njoroge wa Ujerumani, to be precise. I know there’s this friend who goes by the name of Hamisi wa Tanzania. Hamisi probably is what Kamau is in Kenya or Müller, Meier, Schulze in Germany. My folks used to call me that way sometimes because I, a mzungu with a profound interest in anything Kenyan, apparently often behaved liked some Mr Kamau.

To me, life in Kenya is this terrific mixture of meeting ppl from different backgrounds. Be it those high-class people in politics you expect to see on the golf range or just ordinary chaps like you and me. And, before I digress even more, let me just mention how much I hate this system in many countries where you are virtually nothing unless you have a business card or some important title/credentials to show off. That’s so dumb and backwards. I don’t need that. People are so used to a certain frame and try to categorize you right after they’ve met you. They want what? Categorize me? Which part of me? I clearly needed a name that gives me the chance to hide in the masses or otherwise makes me unique. One where ppl wouldn’t ask further questions or maybe even divert this quest for credentials (~”how influential is he”) into a triggered curiosity to know more about me as a person, and not with whom I might have lunch.

In the end, it’s all about marketing yourself – right? How many ppl in Kenya are called Kamau? A million? There you have it…

The name “Kamau” was already given away to another user on AOL. Damn it. I had to think of something else. And the next word that came to my mind was “Kikuyu“. So I typed it in. Basi….woiii? Already someone with that screenname on AOL? wth?!?

…so I just added the third next word which was “moja“, thus making it

KIKUYUMOJA.

(The Agikuyu, ethnic group in Kenya; moja = 1 in Kiswahili => Kikuyu1, K1, etc.)

What a dumb name.

My Kenyan friends would surely ask me nasty questions. And the Germans? They would pronounce it like [Kiikuujuumohhhjaaaaah] – a long moooojaaaaahh. Like in this Rastafarian JAAAAH. Yeah….great.

I stuck to that name though, after I left AOL in December 1996 because I got used to it and then after some time I even registered my first domain name on it. And now, almost ten years after that, this story still makes me think: WTF?! :-))

That’s it! That’s how I got my name. Simple as that! Kikuyumoja.
It could be anything else. Luomoja? Juergenimoja? Mzungumoja? Wait, Mzungumoja – wacha, that’s you, Hash :-) Ama?