Hey Kobogisters!!!

Here’s a short, but juicy write-up of the good I did with building my  online brand in 2014. I hope you soak up this post like a hungry Spongebob Squarepants – there may be  some “aha” – moments and warnings you don’t want to avoid.

Sharpening my inner voice. In the beginning of this year, my style was mellow. I experimented a lot behind the scenes. I was clearly listening to my lizard brain and didn’t ship  a lot of my (visual) work, because I thought it wasn’t good enough. I was avoiding going all the way to the edge, hiding in a boring-ass SAFE corner and playing things semi-safe. Boo !

When I finally came to my senses in october or so, with the help of a terrific encourager (you know yourself. Hope you see this and dash me money) I swallowed some “What the hell” – pills and jumped right into my ocean of epicness. My writing became more authentic and in some parts offensive, because I was fully sharing my mind without doing any
CENSORING. And that meant over-the-top strange language, hefty opinions. Booya! In other words; kobogist was born!

Lesson. Safety first – this slogan doesn’t deserve to be in the online space. You’re not going to experience a harmful digital car crash so there’s no point of using your seat belts. Go full throttle and don’t worry about crashing – the worst that can happen to you is that people ignore you online. Bah. You can handle that, right ? (I said to myself)

Connecting with some awesome movers-and-shakers. I have talked to some pretty kick-ass digital crusaders and terrific people this year,  both offline and in the REAL world.  In fact, I made it a deliberate effort to connect with online influences every week. I always talk about making connections, because your network is the security of your future.

Lesson: biko don’t play Rambo and try to take the world all by yourself. You’re going to fail so hard it’s not even funny. Mingle with the mavericks. You will gain so much attention and value by connecting with like-minded creators, it will advance your (and their) career so fast Angels will fall jealously from the cloud. Help each other and rocket-fly your influence.

What 2015 will bring;

Oh 2015! I’m going to grill it’s green ass Lol...The stories you can tell and the ones told about you at the end of the day is what life is about, and I’ve made it my goal to create as many stories as I can.

Starting with January I’m going to post more frequently (God help me). I will include a lot of cartoons and even little cartoon stories about living and working on your own terms, infusing some edgy brand/marketing visuals into the mix.

This blog is going to be a hybrid between stunning graphics and edgy edu-taining content. I’ll build a kick-ass online gallery and move my site one step closer to the global entertainment brand I’ve always envisioned.

I wish you a glorious shiny new start into 2015. We’re going to rock the new year so hard the titans are going to drop their yellowed pants. Thank you kobogisters! Kisses.

CHRISTMAS BALL PARTY

Since I'm a sucker for kids I decided to share pictures of the kids at my church with you. They had a ball party last weekend, these pictures are extract from the red carpet. Future fashionisters indeed.
Dress code: Boys- 3peice suit and a red tie. Girls- Ball dress with a touch of red. (kids are the only ones that make me feel the world is'nt such a bad place) Enjoy!

Mr and Miss Photogenic went to these two lovelies. 

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

Change is widely spoken of, often challenging to initiate and sustain but more often than not the outcome is pleasurable. The Problem is we often see it as some abstract thing, or some sort of philosophy outside our reach.
A friend asked me a while ago why I bother myself about the "dirty" politicking of Nigeria. . . .my reply " because i believe that my seemingly little involvement will culminate in the big change we want to see". I don't believe in waiting for change, I believe in being or bringing the change I desire. If we all were to wait for the change, by who then will that change come? We all will just continue wallowing under the pressure of the present.

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States and is the first African-American to hold that office. He is considered an icon of change,representing the liberation of African-American; but it will interest you to know that the first African- American to run for that Office was Attorney Frank Beckwith in 1960, and from then on many other African- Americans ran for the coveted office until 48years later(2008) when Obama was elected the first African- American President of the United States. I bet when he(Frank) considered contesting for the office of the president at a time were racism was at its peak, he must have seemed crazy or unrealistic. As unrealistic as it was he succeeded. Not because he won but because he and other african Americans who contested after him created the integral success which became complete when Barrack got into office.  All those who ran for office before him were little pockets of change,each making an impact of its own till that glorious day when Obama was sworn in. On that day, Obama wasn't standing on his own victory alone, he's victory stood on the loss of every African American who ever ran for that office. Change never comes in one big swoop, change is dynamic, a little here, a little there,making up the big whole you eventually see. They say Little drops of water....bla bla (you know the rest) lol.

                      

Let's come home to Nigeria. Like it or not, we all desire to see Nigeria change- we want to have roads tarred to our doorsteps, we want to have power 24/7 so we don't have to carry chargers and power banks around, we want to be safe and secure in our neighbourhood. Live in houses without massive burglary proofs and padlocks like it is in yanki. Abi? 

in summary, we want a Nigeria our kids would be proud of. But we can't achieve that when we are indifferent to our environment and to the instruments of change within our reach. Call politics dirty all you want, the fact remains that your choice to stay away or at best make a bad choice will ultimately come back to hunt you. And if you have decided to stay on the sidelines of contributing to change, you can at least support those who have chosen to create change. The more good people WE get into the "bad" politics, the better the politics will be. A pastor gets into politics and we castigate him calling him being "equally yoked"- how else do we want change to come. Gani Fahweni a popularly acclaimed upright man ran for office many times, the only votes he got were those from he's family members. If we want to see change then we must participate in creating it. We must become aware of our environment; know that who becomes the ward councillor, the local Government Chairman, the State Governor and the President is our business because their decisions though far away affects our every day lives.

As the year comes to an end with another political period on hand, make up your mind not only to see change but to participate in it and most importantly to be the change you want to see. Do the simplest of things- be patriotic, vote, encourage others to vote, do a critical analysis of candidates, make choices devoid of sentiments( objectively). If we can do these then, perhaps we may just be at the threshold of that glorious day. 

Ok, I know it gets really difficult to think of a different Nigeria, a better one. It's difficult for me too. Many times I've had experiences that made me wish I could pack my bags and just leave. Biko let's try. Even if the change doesn't come in our time, it will, some day. let's do it for posterity. Abeg use your church mind.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek"- Barack Obama

               

12 things you didn't know about the movie "HOME ALONE"

I saw 'home alone' (I do not need to introduce the movie now, do I?) about a week ago. I stumbled on it (lie) I deliberately watched it ('Home Alone' has succeeded in establishing itself as a Christmas tradition) It's fascinating that I was seeing that movie for the n'th time and it still cracked me up so bad like I just saw it for the first time. So I decided to write something about the all time block buster. Did a little research of course and here's what I got from my sources;


1.) Home alone was done in the year 1990. Yup! 24years ago. (before I Was born)

2.) The picture Kevin finds of Buzz's girlfriend was actually a picture of a boy made up to look like a girl because the director thought it would be too cruel to make fun of a girl like that.

3.) There is a legend that Elvis Presley (who died in 1977) made a cameo in the movie. Many of those who believe that Elvis is still alive maintain that, the heavily bearded man standing in the background of the scene where Mrs. MacCallister is shouting at the desk clerk (just before she meets John Candy) is Elvis. (I know you don't know who Elvis Presley is....lol. You can read about him)

4.) The issue of Playboy that Kevin finds in Buzz's room is from July 1989 with Erika Eleniak as Miss July.

5.) The "evil furnace" in the basement was done by two guys with fishing line and flashlights.

6.) Robert De Niro turned down the role of Harry.

7.) Angels with Filthy Souls is a fictional gangster film and was made specifically for the film.

8.) The Talkboy was originally conceived as a non-working prop for Home Alone, used by Macaulay Culkin's character. In 1993 it was made into a retail version, brought on by a massive letter-writing campaign by young fans of the film.

9.) John Candy filmed his part in only 1 day, albeit an extremely long 23-hour day. The story about having once forgotten his son at a funeral home was entirely improvised. His part is obviously inspired by the character he played in Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

10.) In the scene where Harry bites Kevin's finger, Joe Pesci actually bit Macaulay Culkin, leaving a scar on his finger.

11.) Daniel Stern agreed to have the tarantula put on his face for exactly one take. He had to mime screaming because the noise would have scared the spider, and the scream was dubbed in later.

12.) The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer.

                                      Merry Christmas ya filthy animal! LOL....