That said, if you haven’t seen Vampire Diaries or seen what Ian Somerhalder looks like, take a look at this…

rocking the whole facial hair vibe

In the show, Damon is this uber hot badass vampire who is the brother of this geeky Dawson’s Creek type vampire. The geeky one is kinda arb and annoying, you end up wishing someone would accidentally on purpose splash some holy water on him, or steal his ’sunlight protector’ ring (yes, new age vampires have such things, who knew!) or just stake him in the heart or something, but Damon is pretty cool.

awesomeness

It’s like Gossip Girl with more blood and fangs, basically. And a super hot bad boy vampire. What’s not to like?

A &*%$ hectic film

When everyone (including seasoned horror critics reviewing the film) tells you not to watch something, and reviews include descriptions like ‘rape of the soul’, you know it’s a) going to be hectic and b) something you have to watch, despite the warnings. A Serbian Film is one such movie.

Directed by Srdjan Spasojevic, this avant garde horror makes all the Saw and Hostel type of American torture porn flicks look like Disney – it really is that insane. Some are less affected than others, but the fact remains – this movie takes the genre to a completely OTT level. If you are in any way squeamish, or you can’t handle the hardcore stuff, do not even try and watch this. Even with a pretty good plot, with plenty of warped twists, good acting, beautiful camera work and an ominously awesome soundtrack, you cannot get away from the fact that A Serbian Film is a dark, violent and deeply disturbing movie. The director aimed to bring home a strong message about the Serbian climate, saying, “This is a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government… It’s about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don’t want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it’s about.”

Many critics argue that it’s more about shock value and overkill, while some agree that maybe it is about symbolism. After managing to sit through this fairly long movie (including the last hour, which is pretty much 60 minutes of gore, violence and sheer insanity), I honestly don’t know what to say. That something like this could come out of Serbia is quite something, that it has some of message, I don’t know… but what I can say is that much like Itchi the Killer has made me sit up and take notice of Japanese horror, A Serbian Film has made me realise just how little mainstream cinema really understands the genre.

If you can handle it, and you want to see one of the most disturbing movies on the planet (really, this will be the convo topic for weeks to come among my friends who’ve seen it), then go ahead and watch A Serbian Film. But do yourself a favour and read the reviews (at home!) before assuming you know what you’re in for… some parts are really not safe for ANYWHERE, let alone work.

You have been warned.

crackberry bold!

So I got a Blackberry today. The Bold 9700, latest and greatest model.

All I can say is that someone is going to need to take this thing away from me, because I am seriously hooked already… after just a few hours. From the slick design to the awesome features, the ease of use and overall fabulousness of this phone, it is just too friggin awesome for words.

To my friends and Twitter followers, I am apologising in advance. You have been warned.

cutting drama

It’s a bittersweet moment – the final Nip/Tuck 4 (yes, SABC3 are way behind) ended last night, and Law & Order SVU begins in its place. I have been watching Law & Order since I was about 10 or so, and no matter what anyone says I will always love it. Nip/Tuck however also has a special place in the television stakes, ranking right up there with Dexter in terms of warped awesomeness.

Even a horror buff like me gets squeamish, I battle to not cover my eyes during the lipo and surgery bits, but the constant pushing the boundaries and the way it’s filmed is just always mind boggling. It’s so hard to not get sucked into the bizarre plot, and of course it doesn’t hurt that Dr. Christian Troy is rather easy on the eye too. Then there is the soundtrack of retro classics, from Rolling Stones to The Animals – always hitting just the right note.

I love the twisted, dark and often just totally wtf nature of the show, and while I can’t lie that I’m not super stoked about Law & Order returning to its rightful place, I wish that they could just replace Starter Wife with something decent like Nip/Tuck 5, Dexter, Knight Rider, Bay Watch… heck, even Backstage would be an improvement on that garbage!

Will be sorry to see the good doctors of MacNamara/Troy go for now though, it’s been quite a good season indeed.

Cool but not ayoba?

The copy team decided to do our occasional lunch mission today, and after a hugely awesome experience at Hudson’s Burger Joint on Kloof last year sometime, we decided to go the gourmet burger route. As it turns out, we should have maybe gone to Cactus, which was not only much closer but also could have saved us from the rather not ayoba service we got to enjoy.

Having booked our table for six an hour or so before 1pm, we arrived a minute or two after to find our table outside not ready. This was quickly fixed and soon we could order cold drinks. Despite running low on ice (hey, we’re having a heatwave after all) things were all good. Then we placed our orders. One girl doesn’t do carbs at lunch, so she requested her burger without buns. Another girl has a chili allergy, so she requested hers without chili. Also, while previously Hudson’s used to include a choice or side salad or chips, they have now changed this so that the side order is separate and charged as such. I only knew this from scrutinizing the menu – four of the six of us assumed it was included, and only believed me that it wasn’t when the bill came.

When the food arrived, not only was the anti-carb girl’s bun on the burger, but the girl with the chili allergy discovered that her burger had chili on it. Her burger was taken away and replaced. Her allergy luckily wasn’t severe, and she noticed the chili after taking the onion rings off the top, but if she had not noticed and had a severe allergy, this may not have been such a happy ending.

At bill time we had the usual phaffing and frantic working out of prices – individual prices aren’t listed, which makes it a bit more of a mission, and being a team of copywriters maths isn’t out strong point, obviaas. Nevertheless, we managed to get it all sorted, or so we thought. Shortly after returning to the office, the guy who’d made the booking got a call from the manager, telling us the included tip was R20 short. I have not idea how this happened, it may well have been from us being useless at working stuff out but we had covered the bill. Having not exactly had even average service, we also had to point out to the manager that things had been a bit swak right from the moment we arrived. He was very cool about it, even apologised and told us not to worry.

The thing is, Hudson’s is cool, there is no doubt about that. They play awesome old skool rock, the decor is great, the vibe is cool and it’s on Kloof Street. The manager is really great too, friendly and always on the ball and the burgers are pretty good too. But when service is below standard, that makes all the cool things suddenly not cool enough. With FIFA just a few months away, restaurants are going to have to up their game considerably because tourists are not going to put up with shit like this.

Overall, while Hudson’s is not a bad place through and through, I just don’t know if I’m all that keen to go back again after this lunch fail. Having done a bit of research online later this afternoon, service issues are not a new thing there either.

My verdict? Royale has been around for longer and it’s a sure bet. Neighbourhood also do a good veggie burger, and while the burgers are pretty good at Hudson’s, that alone just isn’t enough to keep people coming back if you can’t back it up with good service.

I watched Blood Diamond last night, and find it hard to sum up what an effect this movie had on me. I’ve ranted about my views on Africa and the way this beautiful place is just so ravaged and messed up, and I knew about Sierra Leone and what went down there during the Civil War. None of that prepared me for the ‘reality’ of the situation though. Yes, it was just a movie… but it was a movie based on very real events, and a very real war and very real practices that are still going on in Africa, even if it ended in Sierra Leone.

The movie tells the tale of Solomon (Djimon Hounsou), a fisherman who is abducted when rebels raid his village. He is sent to work in the illegal rebel-controlled diamond mines, where he one day finds a huge pink diamond. Hiding it, he eventually manages to bury it, despite the war lord’s attempt to get it from him. When the mining operation is attacked my the military, Solomon is thrown in jail. This is where Danny Archer (played by Leo DiCaprio with a dodgy Saffer accent) happens to hear about the stone. He decides to help Solomon get the stone from its hiding place, but he has his own agenda. When an American journalist (gorgeous Jennifer Connelly) crosses their path and agrees to help them, they are confronted with all the horrors of conflict-torn Sierra Leone, complete with child soldiers on the rampage, one of whom is Solomon’s son Dia.

Bling Bang

The scenes are horrendous and heartbreaking, and Djimon Hounsou is spellbinding in his role of tormented Solomon. It made Hotel Rwanda look like a Disney movie, and some bits made me cover my eyes or just sit in horror with tears running down my face. What made it all so much harder to watch was the fact that all of this happened, not so much the pink stone itself, but the diamond fields and the amputations by rebels, the child army, the killing… TIA as Leo’s character tells the journalist. This is Africa.

Still, it left a bad taste in the mouth and a lump in the throat, long after I turned off the television. One of the few pleasurable parts was seeing my cousin’s name in the credits, super chuffed about that!

If you haven’t seen it, make a plan. It’s not a feel good movie really, but it is a good movie and a thinking movie with relevance. We don’t get many of those that aren’t mawkish and OTT, and this one has a strong local cast too which makes it even more worth a watch.

Bling bang indeed… makes one feel a little wary of shiny stones.

After being offline at home since Tuesday last week, and spending far too much time, airtime, energy and stress having to chase up this issue to get it sorted, finally this evening I am back online.

The problem started when I got home from work last Tuesday to try and get online, only to get an error 691 (unauthorised access) message stating that my logins were not permitted on the iBurst domain. After calling support, I was told that it was a network issue and having heard that there were widespread issues, I took their advice to try again the following day. Wednesday, I got home to find that I was still offline. This time, after waiting over 20 minutes to get through to support, I first had to go through the pain of re-connecting my network connection (which was done slowly because the poor girl I dealt with had no idea what she was doing and couldn’t keep up with me) only to then be told yet again that it was a network issue, and to try again later to see if it came back up.

Thursday came around, and by this point my patience was going. I tried to log a complaint on their website, which got me a nice error message stating that the website is bust (what a surprise). I emailed iBurst at their accounts, support AND info addresses and to this day have had no reply. I tried getting hold of @iBurst on Twitter, a number of times at that – still nothing. Eventually when I got home to find that I was STILL offline, I had to go through the long and frustrating process of calling support. I spoke to one of the few decent support people there (thank you Adrien for at least showing some sort of concern!) who then told me that actually it was not a network issue, someone my account had been messed up and all my bandwidth balances were set at zero. Considering it was only the fourth of the month and my internet had gone down on the second, not to mention the fact that my cap is currently at 5GB, this was rather interesting. A ticket was logged with their special support team, I was told that it would be resolved within 2-72 hours, and I was told that someone would get back to be the next day.

On Friday morning I was called by special support who told me to call back later that day. Friday afternoon when I called, they told me that my balances were set right again, and they refreshed the account on their side… but still nothing. They told me that uber support were still busy, and that I would be called soon. Nothing over the weekend of course, and it was only this evening that things have finally come right. But no one has bothered calling me to find out if this has been resolved, not support or ultra support or customer services.

This doesn’t really surprise me of course, you only need do go onto Hello Peter to find out what kind of ’service’ iBurst is most famous for, and being a company who doesn’t respond says it all. I am beyond irate with the fact that this could happen at all, let alone the fact that their customer relations department just doesn’t seem to care much about their customers at all.

Just to wrap up my wonderful experience, here are the biggest iBurst fails:

1. No internet for six days
2. Zero customer service whatsoever
3. No reply to my email or tweets
4. A grand total of one phone call from support
5. No clear explanation of why I was cut off for this long
6. Aside from one or two apologies from support staff, no feedback at all
7. Over R300 in cellphone airtime after having to call back almost every day
8. Delays in my freelance work from being offline almost a solid week
9. Internet cafe expenses for the week I was offline
10. Stress, frustration and anger at dealing with this issue all week

I am NOT going to spend more airtime trying to get hold of someone who can tell me how this happened, and I also think that they should give me this entire month at no charge – not least because of the money I have spent dealing with this fuck up, let alone the fact that I have lost work hours because iBurst has had yet another fail.

Of course this is iBurst we are talking about, and it will be pretty surprising if I get any sort of reply at all, let alone compensation for the week I was offline. At this point, I am just so relieved to be back online that a lot of fight has gone out of me… I will however be looking at changing my internet service provider fairly soon, because I just cannot risk another monumental stuff up like this again!

iBurst, if you really do want to keep your customers happy as you are trying so hard to make us believe, you may want to start with actual customer service rather than pats on the back at your increased social network presence.

I can’t speak for your other customers, but I for one have had it up to here!

* Please note that the views in this post are my own personal opinions. I accept no responsibility whatsoever for any reactions or views expressed in this post.

UPDATE: After about an hour or two online, I was cut off again. Half an hour on the phone, plenty of promises and apparently they will be calling back tonight. Meh!

I am a huge fan of African music, from local legends such as Gang of Instrumentals, Wonderboom, Springbok Nude Girls, Johnny Clegg, Prophets of the City and Lark to HHP, Ghana Hip Life and various other musos I find along the way. After hearing Capsolys on the TV a few months back, I was totally charmed – Afrika is such an awesome, awesome song and I think it’s even more awesome in light of all this African pride for 2010.

As a South African whose parents hail from Africa proper, in the beautiful and damaged country of Zimbabwe, and someone who has been around the continent to a limited extent, it’s very hard to describe what it means to be part of Africa. I’ve always felt an immense pride, in the staggering beauty and harsh contrasts, the fierce pride and strength of a nation, the things we have overcome, the diversity and complexity of our people, and most of all, the sheer stubbornness and unique sense of identity that has managed to somehow withstand decades of colonialism, oppression and extreme hardship. To me, being African is something I value, and I take a lot of pride in being in a third world place, where things are wonderfully, crazily and whole-heartedly chaotic and utterly familiar and comforting.

Capsolys, and especially Afrika, makes me feel all of this and so much more. I love the video, and I think this dude kicks some serious butt. American hip hop may be cool in many ways, but they don’t have anything on our guys when it comes to real African rhythm and feeling!

Kicking ass and taking numbers

Viggo plays Tom, an average guy in a small town. One day in his diner, he shoots and kills two robbers and becomes a huge hero overnight. The repercussions of his actions soon unleash a hornet’s nest however, and things soon become very pear shaped indeed. Eventually, Tom has to reveal to his family his true nature, and has to confront his past to protect the present life he has built.

This is not a happy movie, nor is it a funny one. The violence is graphic and unsettling, and there are some pretty awful scenes. Ed Harris as Irish mafia dude Fogherty is brilliant, with a hectic scar and all. I have to admit that I’ve a bit of a closet fan, and I think he’s pretty hot for an old dude – not so much here though. William Hurt plays the brother of Tom’s former self, and is also rather brilliant.

Ed Harris: menacing (but still something about him, scar and all!)

But of course it is Viggo who makes this movie. His character is flawed in many ways, and so undeniably human in his complexity and layers – good family man on one side, ruthless killer on the other. The way he ‘takes care’ of things would be quite awe-inspiring, if it weren’t so chilling. There are some scenes that had me covering my eyes, and many others that had me gaping in sheer omgness of it all.

Overall, it is a brilliant movie and I highly advise giving it a watch if you can handle the violence. But I won’t lie, this movie is disturbing and upsetting on many levels. Watch with caution, and be prepared to be shocked.

The movie focus on an elite group of FBI agents in the making, who are doing tests to become profilers. Christian Slater plays J.D, the team leader, and Val Kilmer is the FBI boss type who sends the team off to some godforsaken island for their final test. Soon after getting there, things start going pear shaped, and as they start being killed off one by one, they realise that they have a killer in their midst.

He dies first, not cool!

Things started to go pear shaped for me when they decided to kill Christian Slater off first. Of all the cast, I had at least hoped he would make it out alive, or at the very least survive long enough to keep him on the screen, but clearly the producers don’t share my long time appreciation for him. The next hottest guy at least had a bit more time. I dunno, the suspense was there and the intricate death traps and hard to figure out clues kept me guessing at least, but after a while it started getting a bit OTT.

At some point they start realising that the killer could only be one of them, and much suspicion and gun toting ensures. They lock up LL Cool J thinking it’s probably him, but then he proves himself and gets off the hook. More people die, the killer leaves more clues that they catch too late and eventually only three are left. This is where it really gets fun.

One of these peeps is the baddie (clue: it’s not LL)

Of course, there is much finger pointing and rolling around in hectic fights, etc etc. Having used my deductive powers of reasoning (this being that LL Cool J, bad as he may be, is always the hero, always!) I soon realised who the killer was. Except I was wrong. Nevertheless, there was at least enough of a twist for me to go, ‘Aah, ok – so that’s what happened’. LL got to do his thing and save the day, and all was well in the world again.

What is a homicidal maniac after super killer sharks?

All I can say is that I don’t know why ETV haven’t had an LL Cool J fest yet – bugger Steven Seagal and Van Damme, LL is the shiz! He always comes out the hero, he never dies and even better, sometimes he does killer soundtracks like Deepest Bluest.

But that aside, Mindhunters was kinda ok overall, all things considered.