TVD - The Vampire Craze

Recently I met this little girl (@Riona_Singh)and she insisted I watch a TV series that is quite popular at the moment. The Vampire Diaries.

Now with the sudden popularity of vampires in modern culture I was totally put off by this especially since I'm not a fan of those sparkly vampires. Give me an Anne Rice novel or movie any day!




When I started watching the first season I was pleasantly surprised with the darkness and almost believable story line. The vampires of Mystic Falls made sense!

One thing I noticed about the series is that it has it's own look and feel. If you're flipping through channels and come across it on your screen you immediately know you're watching TVD.







Personally I think it has a brown look to it. Everything is brown. Even all three of the lead characters are brown haired!

Damon and Stefan Salvatore are played by Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley respectively. Damon is the bad boy vampire and Stefan is trying to prove that vampires can be good. But apparently both are supposed to be the good guys.





Elana Gilbert/Katherine Pierce is played by Nina Dobrev. The character of Elana is a doppelganger of Katherine the vampire the brothers were in love with about a 150 years ago. Surprisingly she's more of a heroine than a damsel in distress.

TVD is a good series to follow. The story isn't far fetched and the character development is brilliant. All in all this tv series doesn't suck as much as some movies currently on about vampires.

Who is your favourite TVD character? Would you want to be turned? Is drinking blood better than eating your favourite pizza?

For more info check out vampire-diaries.net

Coldplay Roadtrip 2011

Article first published as Coldplay Roadtrip 2011 on Technorati.

Coldplay Roadtrip

Dare I say… that the Coldplay… concert was better than U2. I wasn’t the only one of this opinion after speaking to people after the concert on the train back and on Twitter the next day.

Four of us from Durban made a roadtrip to Johannesburg, straight to Park Station where we boarded the train to Soweto and FNB Stadium. It was a long 6 hour drive but rest stops and the thought of seeing Coldplay live!

Getting a parking at Park Station was crazy. The security staff was turning away cars. My friend said just drive through you will get a parking. We did and we got.

The train ride was easy and not busy at all. I guess most people took earlier trains. As we got nearer to FNB Stadium we could see the traffic building up on the roads. The Johannesburg International Motor Show was also happening at the same time and that didn’t help the traffic congestion.



Walking to the stadium was an amazing experience. This was the first time I saw the Calabash up close. It was impressive! I still like the design of Moses Mabhida Stadium back home and think it’s the best.

People were still milling around outside getting drinks and food when the opening act the Parlotones started playing. This must be the largest crowd the Khan and his band have ever played to. I might be wrong but the stadium attendance that day was 66 000.

The great thing about watching an established and big band like Coldplay is that you can sing along to nearly every song they performed. And they enthralled the crowd with plenty of their popular songs.

The highlight of the show was when these huge colored balloons were released into the crowd. It reminded me of the Sony bouncy balls TV advert. What a scene it created! There were also plenty of fireworks and other pyrotechnics!

Close to the end of the show, Chris Martin who kept communicating with the crowd asked us if we wanted to be in their latest music video. Of course the crowd agreed immediately! So at the end of Paradise, for one minute, Chris and his band adorned huge elephant heads and performed. I’m looking forward to see how it came out in the video!

My favorite songs performed were Yellow, The Scientist, Viva La Vida and Fix You. The crowds were still singing the chorus to Viva La Vida when they were leaving the stadium heading back to the trains. It was an experience many will be talking about for a long time and many will regret missing out.

Best Bunny In Durban 2011

I know I have slacked on updating in a while.

I won a bunny eating competition a couple weeks ago.

Relax. It wasn't a real bunny aka rabbit. It's a Bunny Chow! A bunny chow is a half or quarter loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curry.

Any curry will do but the most common are mutton, chicken and beans for the vegetarians! All 3 are delicious. My favorite being mutton of course.

So there we were, four musketeers just finished celebrating the Boks win over the Welsh at Boktown in Suncoast Casino and hungry for a chow. Victor said there was the annual Bunny Chow Barometer competition happening at Blue Lagoon where they choose the best bunny chow in Durban!

So we decided to check it out. While the guys were getting the bunnies I heard Muthu Murugan's voice over the loudspeakers. He was looking for 3 men to come up to the stage. I was curious and went to see what was going on.

Nobody was volunteering and as soon as Muthu saw me he called me up. I had no idea what he wanted or what the competition entailed. Two other guys plucked up the courage and join me in front. After a few good jokes and a string of bad ones Muthu got down to business!

We had to finish a quarter bunny and down a half liter Coke. The first one to do so won a prize! The other two guys were quite skinny and didn't stand a chance against me! I wolfed down the bunny chow and downed my Coke like I had been starving for days on a deserted island!

What did I win? A cap, t-shirt and a Coca-Cola branded cooler bag! At least I got my 15 minutes of fame and the rights to brag that I'm the bunny eating champion of Durban!


Cafe India won the best bunny in Durban. I tasted it during the competition. I thought it tasted great but it lacked in spice as it was rather mild.

My favorite bunny chow take-away is Gateway Curries which is located inside Mistry's Furniture on the Umhlanga Ridge.

Manchester Destroys North London

This had to be the most exciting football weekend this season of the Barclays Premier League!

Both Manchester teams anihilated both North London teams. Manchester City beat a desparate Tottenham Hotspurs team 5-1 at White Hart Lane.

Four of City's goals came from Edin Dzenko, two of which were assisted by City's latest addition, Samir Nasri.


Manchester United massacred Arsenal later in the afternoon with a full time score of 8-2! Wenger had no chance with trying to win the match as he fronted a very weak team against United.

Many jokes were popping up on social networks like "I'd 8-2 to be Arsene Wenger now" or "United 8 Arsenal for supper" and "Wenger released a statement: 8-2 Brutus"!

The stars of Manchester United were the youngsters, Danny Welbeck, Ashley Young, Tom Cleverly . They were quick, agile and innovative and the goals came quickly. Wayne Rooney scored his first hat-trick of the season, two from set pieces. His new hair is really helping his game!

Looks like it's going to be a race to the title by the two teams from Manchester. All the others can do is just stand and watch. One question in their minds. Will it be City or United?

Trey Songz Concert Durban

Last night Trey Songz performed at the Wavehouse in Durban's Gateway Theater of Shopping. His first live show in South Africa.

Before this concert I didn't know anything about this artist. The only reason I went was because Avusa Media gave me complementary tickets.

Well it was a full house with mostly young girls. The opening act was a local group called Tear Gas which I never heard of before but apparently is very popular with the younger crowd that sang along to their songs. Clearly I'm getting too old for too quickly!

When the American RnB singer eventually came on stage after making the crowd wait for nearly 45 minutes my ear drums nearly burst as close to 5000 girls began screaming at the top of their lungs!

I must admit that he's a good performer, has a great stage presence and interacts well with the audience although only one song seemed familiar to me.

I'm more of a rock fan but I can't say that I didn't enjoy the Trey Songz concert. What type of music do you enjoy? Would you pay to go to a Trey Songz concert?

Ard Varks Up The Anthem

Last night was the announcement of the South African Springbok team going to New Zealand for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. There were no surprises in the line-up with Peter De Villiers choosing 18 players from the winning team from 2007!

South African social networks weren't discussing whether he made a good selection or not but they were abuzz with Ard Matthews messing up the South African National Anthem!

It seems he forgot the words to the anthem 3 lines in and he even giggled at one point! If you know you're going to sing the national anthem live on TV surely you need to learn the words first? Who hires these guys anyway? Do they not audition them first?

Matthews later apologized on Twitter and John Smit said that he accepted Ard's apology and likened it to playing a debut test!

Ard Matthews is a professional artist and has performed in front of large crowds before. The excuse that he had succumbed to nerves is unacceptable.

The organizers of these events should really screen performers that are going to sing the national anthem before they give them a microphone and put them in front of the nation.

Who do you think was worse? Ras Dumasani who murdered the anthem two years ago when SA faced France or Ard Matthews at last nights Springbok selections?

Harry's House

Whatever happened to Harry's House?

I grew up in the 80's and one of the most memorable things about growing up in that decade is the children's TV shows we watched when we were having our tea and peanut butter and jam sandwiches when we came home from school.

I know there are plenty of Facebook groups about 80's TV shows that list Thundercats, He-Man, Gummy Bears, The Polka Dot Door, Bravestar and many more but there is one TV show that I can't seem to find any information about no matter how hard I Google and that show is Harry's House!

I've tried other search engines like Yahoo, Excite and Alta Vista and all results are about some Harry Potter fanatics or Joni Mitchell's song of the same title.

Harry's House was a children's programme that featured a character in a dog costume with human hosts. It was very similar to The Polka Dot Door and Pumpkin Patch. I know the theme song started with "Harry's House, Harry's House, let's all go to Harry's House." That sounds really cheesy but that's as much as I can remember.

Do you remember this TV show? Was it a local production? How long did it run for?