Myspace Layouts - Myspace Editor
Greeting and salutations good soldiers of MySpace... I live in a place called Gauteng in the southern part of Africa. I moved from the exex-capital city of Pretoria (now baffling known as Tshwane) away from the comforts and luxuries of home to the now ex-capital Johannesburg about 4 years ago to pursue a BSc degree at The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). In the years i've stayed here i've lived in Melville, Randpark Ridge, Radiokop, Linden and am now living with my sister in a lovely flat in Robindale...Granadillas
I wrote the final exams of my final year in the early part of November 2006 having majored in microbiology and experimental physiology. I've received my final marks for physiology as well as micro and 'tis with a heavy heart that this reporter confirms his fears regarding having stuffed up one of my final papers ultimately causing me to miss the honours cut by a mere couple of percent. I suppose the competition was intense (they receive in excess of 200 applications with only 10 positions available). The sad truth is a BSc isn't worth all that much without it as I've already sent loads of CVs out for a career in micro only getting interviews for the most mundane positions (with the type of work being intuitive to a redundant rodent for example)
Hexagons
A large part of me is made up of my alterego, Ryan Styles. Ryan Styles is a vinyl slut who stops at nothing to find all sorts of dirty, chunky, tech'd up, get down stuttering house grooves and came to being about 5 years ago (deary me, how time flies). I don't dedicate the necessary time to nailing top residencies and have been a bit slack in music purchasing of late, albeit understandable given the rest on my plate. I have played at some of Johannesburg's top parties though and am proud to have played at the likes of: Sweet Sessions, KISS, The Deeper Sounds of Coco Loco tour, On The House (An extremely successful underground production I'm involved in), Carfax, Groovebar, Sunnyside Up, etc. The last year has found me gobbled up by turntablism and scratching has added an extra dimension to Styles' sets. The most commonly found producers in my box are: Switch/Solid Groove (is this guy for real? I mean, every single time he just delivers beats that stop you in your tracks and headfuck you when its business time), Lee Mortimer (also absolutely on top of his game), Jesse Rose, Trevor Loveys, Mike Monday, Akufen, Inland Knights, Style of Eye, Swag, Jacob London, John Tejada, Steve Bug, Troydon, Greenskeepers, lots of Classic records, lots of Spectral/Ghostly records, Herve, Audio Bully's, John Dahlback, Sound Republic, and a whole lot of etc's. Early inspirations come from Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Leftfield, Fatboy Slim, ETC. I'm in the process of wading through the great vastness that is music production. Reason wired into Cubase is my currently employed strategy and this mischievous duo are steadily developing into a very definate black hole which feasts merrily on my time.
Orangutans
I work as a spinning instructor (also known as indoor cycling) for Virgin Active. I currently do a minimum of 10 classes a week in several of the Northern gyms. It's been good to me as it pays well, pays you to keep fit, free gym membership and takes a minimal amount of my time.
Metacarpals
SCUBA diving is one of my favorite hobbies (if you can even call it that) and is something I feel particularly passionate about. I'm a member of Sharklife (sharklife.co.za), a group fighting to curb the senseless mass extermination of these unbelievable creatures. I've been lucky this year and seen 3 zambezi sharks (3rd most dangerous in the world), 60 black tip reef sharks, 40 hammerheads & 50 ragged-tooth sharks. Some might deem this insanity, but they pay no attention to you underwater provided you're not bleeding and interacting with them in such close proximity is a genuinely awe-inspiring experience.
Wasabi
Anyways, that's about enough of that. There's much which makes up me. I love the printed word and am always in the middle of a book; I like challenges; I've climbed the highest mountain in Africa; I cherish my sense of humour and the very front of the roller coaster is the best place to be (I wish I could travel by roller coaster); my first sky dive (from 10000 feet aka 3300m aka 3.3km in the sky) was the most thrilling experience of my life followed closely by my first encounter with a great white shark; I've met many marvelous mates along life's meander - here's to tomorrow.