Man sentenced to 40 years in G'town student digs

A large helping of justice was served this morning, after Judge Hugh Harsofukt sentenced 32-year-old serial killer and notorious armed robber James Steele to a life sentence in a 4-man Grahamstown student digs.

According to report by the court published last week, the singular awfulness of most student digs which house the students of Rhodes University make them ideal for the punishment and incarceration of hardened criminals who are beyond rehabilitation.

"Recent studies of these so-called 'student digs' show that usually they have more bars and locks and also worse living conditions than most maximum-security prisons," said police constable and author of the study Eric Fuller. "If we just lock the house from the outside, they'll never get out, and we'll save thousands in taxpayers' rands."

Fuller added that the fact that they had to pay exorbitant rent to live in such cramped squalor would "really suck, man."

However, the decision has not been without its share of controversy, with leading Human Rights Watch groups, organisations and activists condemning the move outright as "immoral, inhumane and draconian."

"With their water shortages and lack of quality, blackouts, dirty floors, communal bathrooms, cramped living space, sink full of unwashed dishes and that digsmate's puppy yelping and yapping all night in the other room when you're trying to get some goddamn sleep, only someone morally bankrupt and totally sadistic would hand down such a severe punishment," said head of Rights for Prisoners John Hendricks. "Even getting kicked in the balls for all eternity would be more lenient."

He went on to add that the likelihood of the inmates' milk being slowly and sneakily swigged away to nothingness was just "totally lank uncool bro".

"Besides," Hendricks added, "there's a 95% chance that the prisoner's mates will break in and set him free after taking all the laptops and stuff."

In spite of the activists' harsh criticisms, Judge Harsofukt has remained steadfastly unmoved and stands by his decision.

"The only way to teach such a heinous and despicable character that his aborrent actions have dire consequences is to force him to live in such inhuman conditions," he said. "If that means that his socks get stolen every time he does a load of washing, his communal dinner is too-salty spaghetti bolognaise every two days, and he has to suffer the montly ballache of dealing with awful landladies and the municipality water bill, so be it."

However, he did say that he would never include university residences in the sentencing procedures, citing the guy next door to your room who keeps loudly banging his girlfriend every night next door and tuesday's Braised Club Steak as "too vicious a punishment for anyone regardless of their atrocities."

"What kind of sick, twisted bastard do you think I am?"

Game of Thrones fans strike back at Twitter users

Following this week's inconsiderate-arsehole-driven Twitter ruin-life spoiler fest of barrages of Tweets after the latest and shocking episode of acclaimed fantasy series Game of Thrones, millions of people not subscribed to HBO reacted in utter outrage, threatening to "rip your goddamn fingers off if you tell me what happens one more fucking time."

"It's getting ridiculous," said long-time fan of the series and now also fan of slow, agonising torture, maybe by waterboarding but with something more interesting, like maybe a bucket of pepper spray fluid, yeah, that'll really get them, Hazan Tread-Tibhouks. "Every fucking Sunday night I accidentally go on Twitter to post my latest inane thought and 'BOOM' there's someone dropping Tweets being all 'OH MY GOD THE RED WEDDING I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY KILLED CAITLYN AND JOHN AND OH MY GOD I HATE THE WORLD' or 'FUCK FINALLY I THOUGHT KING JOFFREY WOULD NEVER DIE GOOD BASTARD BURN IN HELL'. I'm honestly considering either suicide or mass murder. It's come to that."

However, thousands of arseholes Twitter users who posted such messages defended their actions, saying that "they just really couldn't help it" and that "everyone needs to know how we feel about seeing Caitlyn Stark being brought back to life through weird Lord of Light voodoo."

"Let's just be serious," said Twitter user and Game of Thrones ruiner Spuy Laralert. "I post pictures of my food and retweet Jeremy Clarkson's latest pseudo-philosophical emptiness. Now you give me this, something real and huge and emotional and you expect me NOT to tweet? Impossible." He added that people should perhaps be more supportive of his extreme emotional state, especially when he has just learned that Tyrion Lanistar shoots his own sitting-on-the-toilet father in the dick with a crossbow in this new episode, which you're still trying to find a spare hour in your limited free time to watch.

In light of the serious furore created on its digital platform, the CEO of Twitter John Birds said that they would try to enact changes to the site to accommodate both ends of the scale - both those who know that Sansa is kidnapped by Littlefinger and taken away to the Vale, and those who do not.

"We know that there are thousands of people who want to share their heartache and emotional distress with people who are also suffering because Jon Snow kills his red-headed bandit girlfriend and has to stand over her dying corpse while she breathes her last in the next episode that you haven't yet seen," said Birds, "and so we're trying to install a system where you enter the prefix www.haventwatchedthelatestepisode. before twitter.com."

Birds said that this new site will automatically detect tweets containing any and all key words that could ruin your beloved Game of Thrones experience, any utterly remove any spoilers, like when Hodor dies to save Bran from Bandit Raiders before they cross over the Wall.

"It's going to be awkward for any user who shares a name or whatever with any G.O.T character, because all their stuff will be erased, but this is why we have the normal site, www.twitter.com, where you and thousands of other sobbing or cheering 'Thrones lovers can gloat over their lovely little spoilers like Gollum over his little ring, - an example being how Danaryus Targarian has to kill one of her own dragons after it eats the villagers' sheep, but she can't do it and it escapes to the wilds."

Despite these huge changes to the social networking platform, Game of Thrones fans say that they are now embarking on a revenge quest "every bit as epic as when Arya kills The Hound to avenge the murder of her baker friend".

"We're going to spoil everything for these people. Jesus dies in the second book. Snape kills Dumbledore. Han Solo shot first. Jeffrey Winger leavers the study group. The Crème Brulee at Woolworths seems nice at first, but leave you with a disappointingly empty feeling once you've finished it," said Tread-Tibhouks. "Yeah, how does that feel?"

Meanwhile, people who have actually read the books said they found the whole thing puerile.

"It really is quite silly," said fan of paper Peter Than-Ewe. "I cried over the Red Wedding years before anyone else. Now you understand my grief. Also, I find it amusing to sit there and watch my friends watch the episode, knowing what is coming and how it will kill their souls. It's like watching a child reaching for a pot filled with boiling water," he added, before realizing that this basically made him a Game of Thrones Hipster.

Fans of the fantasy-revenge epic should probably stop reading here, because Arya dies before the end of the last book which will only go on TV in three seasons' time.

Kid doesn't develop superpowers after eating radioactive waste

6-year-old comic book fan and Intensive Care Unit patient Timmy Henders came out of a coma on Friday night just long enough to tell reporters how very disappointed he was to not have developed any badass superpowers after chugging back a 3-litre bottle of highly dangerous nuclear reactor waste.

"It's just really disappointing," he said on an intercom behind a 3-metre thick wall of lead shielding. "No spider sense, no super hearing, no x-ray vision. Not even any immunity to advanced radiation poisoning," he said, gesturing to his horridly disfigured and sore-riddled body, arms, legs and face.

The sad incident comes in the wake of many similar disappointments, most recently the case of 11-year-old Jake Smith, who did not become a millionaire genius vigilante with cool black cape and utility belt after both his parents were violently murdered in a mugging gone wrong right front of him in a dark alleyway outside the exit of an opera house.

"I'm terrified of bats, and now this happens," he said in a glum voice. "Technically, I should already be kicking badguy butt every night. I thought i'd at least be taking the first steps to becoming the hero the city deserves, even if it's not the one it needs right now."

However, according to child development psychologist Ed Harding, all is not lost.

"If Jake - and to a lesser extend the probably-going-to-die-in-the-next-few-weeks Timmy - plays his cards right, maybe pick up the guitar and a brooding, misunderstood attitude of apathetic moodiness, he could score the best superpower of all: scoring totally hot babes. The dead parents thing is just a sure ticket."

Harding estimates that, should he work his situation and circumstances just right, he could score "at least a low 8, minimum, bro."

He went on to add that there were also some other benefits to this seemingly sorry situation.

"The whole 'dead parents' thing will get guitar-weilding Jake into at least the 4th round of South African Idols," he said, "even if his voice is lacklustre and utterly unspecial." He added that teaching music to AIDS orphans, having dead grandparents as well, or having an image that is utterly incongruous with his voice and song choice could only add to this.

Meanwhile, development experts are even more adamant and vocal that no one - child or adult - should use comic book methods of getting superpowers, whether it be through radioactive waste, genetically altered arachnids, or chemical toxin exposure.

"The only way to be all powerful in this world and to roam the land with impunity like a god amongst ants is through that one and only tried and tested way," said Superpower expert and part-time graphic novel reader Stanley Marvel, "which is becoming as absurdly rich as humanly possible."

SA games devs to release new 'South Africanised' World of Warcraft

Fans of Blizzard Entertainment's popular frustrating-grind-fest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft have cause to celebrate today after leading game designers and developers are Ray Cism games announced the development of an all-new completely "South Africanised" expansion pack, "Adventures in Zumaland".

Inspired by the fascinating and always-twisting plot lines, politics and socioeconomic climate of everyday South Africa, the game introduces some controversial and never-before-seen game elements that have fans jumping to pre-order the already best-selling title.

"We first go the idea when playing the old game - you have to pick a race and create a character, like elf, dwarf, barbarian, and so on, and your choice of your race affects how strong you are, what skills you can learn and what quests will be available to you," said cheif game designer Roger Jackson. "My first thought was, 'whoa, kind of like real life in South Africa!"

According to Jackson, when players hit the 'New Game' icon, they are randomly assigned a race, which dramatically affects how the game plays out.

"Kind of like being born in real life," he said.

Players who get randomly assigned 'White' as a race (which the development team have now dubbed "Easy Mode") will have access to premium early-game content, the opportunity to go to a good Magician's Guild or Swordmaster's Academy, and have access to starting bonus gold and experience, as well as access to top-tier quest equipment, such as Vaideron's +5 Perfect Flaming Halberd of Heavenly Wrath.

Conversely, should they draw 'Black', the game will shift itself accordingly.

"The starting bonuses won't be great," said Jackson. "Chances are you'll only be able to learn basic skills and use lower-standard weaponary and armour, like Phineas's Imperfect +2 Broken Rake of Sweeping The Garden, but we thinking that the game will more than make up for it by delivering a truly visceral, true-to-life gaming experience with its stunning realism."

He did, however, add that this wasn't a set rule.

"Not all White characters will have such access to bonuses, just as not all Black characters will have to struggle endlessly," he said. "Chances are, most of them will be somewhere in the middle of those extremes, where you're not poor enough for scholarships to the top schools, while not rich enough to buy top-tier swords and platemail."

He also added that there would be in-game mechanics to balance the playing field.

"We realise that these pre-game conditions make for severe disparities between different character types," he said, "which is why we have implemented code for our Equal Quest Employment and Empowerment Policy. With EQEE, for example, you can only accept the quest to slay the Valyrian Demon King Shar'galhduur in the Northern Dragonwastes if you're fully compliant and have submitted all relevent documentation for full level-4 accreditation."

Adventures in Zumaland will hit stores across the country in October.

Parents bitterly disappointed with baby's first "words"

Following the first verbal utterance of their 18-month-old son James's first "words", Carolyn and Jake Erikson could not help but express their utter and unmitigated disappointment to reporters late yesterday evening.

"Is that it?" asked the exasperated and sleep-deprived father. "A year and a half spent changing your soiled nappies, feeding you you, and having to wake up at godless hours to tend to your screaming, and just generally being a slave monkey to you and that's the best you've got, that's all you're giving us?"

"What the hell does 'da-da' even mean?" added the teary mother, who has since decided that giving birth to the human equivalent of a police siren that periodically craps itself every few hours was not the best decision she had made in her young life. "There are literally a thousand things that that could mean, and god help you if it means 'daddy', you little shit. I'm the one who carried you and the one who went in to excruciating labour for ten hours."

When asked for comment, young baby James declined to give a formal statement, opting instead to burble incoherently for twenty minutes (showing his promise as a future politician) before soiling himself, wailing uncontrollably for half an hour and eventually passing out in his own faeces like a brain-dead chimpanzee, except that the chimp could probably say a telephrasic sentence verging on real English.

James's parents are now naively hopeful that the young boy will "eventually say something vaguely resembing proper, grammatical English, like, 'hello, father, my nappy needs changing,' or maybe 'mother, I am famished, could you please feed me?'", perhaps within the next six months to one year.

However, child development experts remain adamant that the parents should enjoy this phase of relative eloquence while it lasts.

"Before you know it, he'll be 16, hormonal, and back to single-syllable utterances," said child psychologist Neigh Chavers-Nuurcha. "Imagine an adolescent, eye-rolling, monosyllabic baby, just with a higher cellphone bill and acne."