Car Auction

ABSA was holding a no reserve, repossesion auction in Milnerton, and sensing the opportunity for a bargain, I decided to attend. The variety was quite interesting in itself, from cars that were damaged beyond repair to cars that were almost brand new. I did go to the inspection on Wednesday, which was useful in identifying the cars that I could possibly bid for, but the ultimate test drive was not possible.

The auction itself was an interesting experience, and I noticed that some buyers ended up spending more than the car's reported trade value. But there were a lot of deals to be had, and quite a few cars were sold below half the reported trade value. Ultimately, I realised that my budget was a bit too small for the purpose of buying a car at an auction esp. as I was bidding against car dealers, but for more expensive cars, and an adequate budget, auctions could be a great place to pick up bargains.

African Film Festival at the Centre for African Studies

This week is aparently Africa Week, and in celebration, the Centre for African Studies is having 3 days of short films this week, mostly short documentaries (about 30 minutes in length). Today's lineup was all South African with "Little Miss Tiny", "My Son the Bride" and "The Spirit of the Uhadi".

The first film was about beauty pagents for kids, very wierd, and more in the style of something from Special Assignment/Carte Blanche etc. The second story was part tragic, part uplifting and quite humorous focussing on gay relationships in townships. However, I think both of these were quite amateurish in nature, and needed a lot more polish.

The last film was a documentary on Thandiswa Mazwai's quest to learn more about traditional Xhosa music and culture. For this, she went back to rural Transkei to learn from Madosini, one of the most well known artists in this genre. I had never heardof Madosini, but then she puts it best herself - she is more well known outside South Africa than inside, and a quick Google search reveals quite a bit of that ...

Heavy Metal, Shock Rock, Goth Metal etc

Two weeks ago, I came across an album by a Finnish band called Barathrum while looking for Seether's new album at the Cavendish Look and Listen. The album was called Okkult, and what really drew attention was their song titles like "Virgin Blood Spiller", "Bride of Lucifer" and "Whores of Hades". According to Wikipedia, they are a great band, but I can't find any of their songs online, and paying R180 is a bit steep for a music CD.

But the search for the Okkult album led me to another Finnish heavy metal group, Nightwish, and I was truly blown away. I don't think that they are not strictly heavy metal, as they feature a lot of opera, but the songs are just great.

The Finns seem to have a great number of these bands. There is off course The Rasmus, who were great at the Coca Colab Massive Mix, but they are pretty tame and ordinary when compared to the winners of this year's Eurovision contest - Lordi. I watched one of their videos online, and thought it was quite good. I would like to hear some more of them actually.

The past two weeks has also revealed some other shock rock/heavy metal bands, most notably the American band GWAR. Wikipedia has quite a good review of them, and their names really stand out.

So my appeal - anyone have albums from these bands? I have some Rasmus and Nightwish, but not much else ....