Skrillex now most highly paid, decorated Solitaire player

In a report by competitive solitaire ranking organisation Card Sharks International (CSI), part-time button pusher and mouse-clicker, Apple-product whore and full-time solitaire aficionado Skrillex has trumped other part-time phase/volume knob spinners and soundboard dial turners to win the prestigious title of International Man of Solitaire.

"When it came to picking a champion, someone who utterly defined the lifelong commitment to the game of Solitaire, there really was no other choice," said head of the awards selection committee Dubs Teip. "I mean, his Solitaire skills are off the charts. He jets around the world, practicing and competing almost every night in front of crowds of thousands of screaming fans, even going so far to play the game until the wee hours of the morning, in clubs and festivals filled with hundreds of distracting bright lights, laser displays and loud music, winning game after game after game, even in face of endless high-pace wub wub sounds mixed with recordings of breaking appliances."

Skrillex will now join the ranks of some of the greatest and much-loved Solitaire players in history, such as Deadmau5, Aviici and the Friar's DJ.

"I'm proud," said the Friar's DJ, who took time out of his busy schedule asking if there were any first-years in the club to speak to reporters. "He's finally rolling in the big leagues. Oh, and ten minutes until the Russian Bear special ends, make some fucking nooooooiiise!"

Tiep agreed wholeheartedly.

"The fact that he consistently lights up that MacBook screen with badly pixellated victory fireworks even when he's pretending to actively make music that isn't all premixed and prerecorded is just an incredible testament to his skill as a card sharp."

While many might consider Solitaire a silly waste of time to dabble with because you're desperately lonely, bored, and don't know how to play Minesweeper or have a laptop that can't run a real game, CSI says otherwise.

"It's a bold and world-reknowned game going back thousands of years," said Tiep. "It requires skill and determination. There might be prerecording, shuffling, crossfading and auto-equalising apps for music, but Solitaire is something that you have to do yourself."

Fans of the game should be sure to attend this month's current league Championships, which are being hosted in nightclubs and at trance festivals across the country. Entry is between R10 and R50.

Musicians charge entrance at gig, outrage audience

Performers' decision angers local community. Pic: Karol Glab

Musicians performing at a local bar in Grahamstown have shocked and offended fans by charging an entrance fee to their gig, says local resident Dontwa Napay.

“It was utterly unacceptable. Why should we have to pay to listen to their music? I mean, it’s not like it’s their major source of income or that they put many hours of practice into their performances, or that they need to cash to buy new strings or maintain their instruments. They should just do it for the love of music, and not for money,” he said.

Inta Netpyrat, a third-year IS student, agreed.  “Music is free online anyway, and these musicians obviously all have multi-million-dollar recording contracts, private islands and yachts covered in scantily-clad nubile groupies. I don’t see why I should pay them, she said.

Other residents have since aired similar views. 

“It’s outrageous,” said third-year psychology student, Froyd Jung. “I mean, they wanted us to pay a whole ten bucks,” he said, disgust filling his features as he bought a round of drinks for R86, before flipping the unmusical bartender a R5 tip. “Flip, I mean, that’s almost as much as a boere’ roll on the way home. And besides, there were only 6 acts spanning 5 hours. Hell, they should be paying us for coming,” he said..

Maria Steinberg, another student, agreed. “If they’re really good, I’ll tell them that they’re awesome, and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll buy them a beer. But not, like, a whole quart or anything,” she said. “That would just be silly.”

Local bar owner and events organiser, Giveya Nokash said that it was understandable that residents are so up in arms against the sudden move.

“When the bands come and play, we help them out by giving them advertising and a space to perform. Sure, the acoustics are retarded and sound like you’re playing in a public toilet, and yes, we deduct money from their pay to cover advertising costs, and no, we don’t give them a cut of the drinks they help us to sell or of the business they bring in, but in all seriousness they should be grateful and thankful, knowing the fact that they have our gratitude,” he said, before adding that this gratitude was in no way redeemable for cash.

Another venue owner, Timothy Tightfist, said that he felt the musicians’ action was highly selfish and uncalled for. “The current system of payment we have in place – that is, a free drink at the bar after 40min, or R100 split between the exploite… er, I mean, band members – is a fair one. These bloody musicians are no different from those bloody miners, just asking for more money for no damn reason. Just because they dig in a deep hole all day, under hundreds of feet of crushing rock that could come crashing down at any second. It makes me sick,” he said.

The musicians could not be reached for comment, as they had all starved to death in an unheated shack