From outside the box

Where’s (the) Wally?

2010-06-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

I haven’t yet posted a blog in June. For regular followers of my blog (and, again, I want to thank you both) this might be somewhat disappointing.

Or it might be a profound relief. Maybe you think I’m finally getting the therapy I need. Sadly, no. But then, sadly, yes.

I’ve always been confused by the process of novel writing. I know it takes work. I know this because I wrote one once. It remains unpublished, but I’m not overly concerned about this, because reading it with a fresh eye I can appreciate the complete pile of crap that it is. It’s reasonably well written, even if I do say so myself, but it doesn’t have much of a story to tell.

This year I have been proudly launching into a novel that I hope will be well received by publishers and readers alike. Over the past five months I have tried to persevere and have managed to knock out a respectable 7000 words or so. The story’s at the point where things are going to start happening.

Two weeks ago today my workmate, Bill, sent me the link to the Southern Cross Novel Writing Challenge (nicknamed SocNoc). I clicked and learned that the object is to knock out a 50,000 word novel in a month. There’s a similar challenge run worldwide in November, but Kiwis are enjoying the early summer then; we need a good cold month with a long weekend to take something like this on.

But Bill said: “I’ve signed up. I’m going to do it.”

Which was like saying: “I double dog dare you.”

And you can’t turn down a double-dog dare, right? So, I trawled my mind and dredged up an idea I’d had about 15 years ago, a sequel to my unpublished first novel. Except this time something actually happens. So I signed up for the challenge.

Now, to complete the 50,000 words in 30 days you have to average just under 1700 words a day. Eleven days in, you should be about to hit 19,000 words. As part of the challenge they ask you to update your word count daily. Bill, arguing the: “if I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail spectacularly” case, has been sitting on 2060 words for most of the week.

And there’s a handful who are still sitting on the big doughnut.

It’s odd how some people hit the literary wall, too. Like one writer shot up to 22,000 words really quickly, and then hasn’t updated the word count in about three days. Another went from almost nothing to more than 28,000 words last weekend, and hasn’t really shifted from there for two days.

Now, the reason I haven’t posted a new blog for June is that I’ve decided to take the challenge seriously. I mean, double dog dare, right? I started with a hiss and a roar, hammering out the story and was rapt at the way it seemed to be telling itself. I found this highly entertaining. Then I hit the wall; except the wall didn’t stop me, it just slowed me down. I knew this was going to happen though and I prepared for it by surging ahead early on. So, 11 days in, I am aiming to have kicked 35,000 words on target for 50,000 by Monday.

Wish me luck.

The Light of Meaning

2010-05-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

I only live about two kilometres from where I work. Nevertheless I encounter 11 sets of traffic lights on the journey to and from work.

Growing up I thought I had my head around how traffic lights worked. Red means you stop. Green means you go. Orange means go faster.

Yes, my father was a lunatic uninsurable driver. We used to go on vacations and wonder at what point: a) the car would break down, and b) how serious the crash was going to be.

This is a man who once drove into a bridge. I mean a bridge! It’s not like it jumped out in front of him.

My mother would sit in the front passenger seat with a death grip on the dashboard and occasionally yelp: “MIND!” as my father wound out the straight six to squeeze past some hapless victim who just happened to be in front of us.

In the days before speed cameras there used to be speed trains as well. This was where one driver would take the punt that there were no cops on the road up ahead and floor it. Then all the drivers behind would think: “Well, they can only catch one of us” and follow the fast guy.

Right, back to the point.

I was a bit surprised to discover that red means stop, green means go, and orange means stop if you can do so safely before you reach the intersection. I always follow this rule. I also know that it’s technically called “amber”, but Amber is a girl’s name, not a bloody colour. It’s orange, OK?

Now, what I can’t work out is what happened to the other people who sat and passed their driver’s license test and are presumably privy to this knowledge.

It seems we all fall into one of these categories:

I’ll stop when it goes orange, if I can do so before entering the intersection.

If it goes orange and I’m reasonably close, I’ll floor it to get through the intersection lest I have to lose two minutes of my life stationary and watching traffic.

If I floor it now I might get to the intersection in time to catch the orange light.

It’s red, but the cars stopped at the just-turned-green light haven’t had a chance to move yet, so I can get through without getting hit.

And I saw all of these on the way to work this morning. Despite numerous ads on TV warning about intersections and the city publicly announcing the installation of red-light cameras, people still run the risk.

I only have one word for them: Morons.

Mr Author Type

2010-05-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

I sit beside the fashion editor at the newspaper. Now I'm not saying anything about exorbitant profit margins in the cosmetics industry, but she gets sent shitloads of stuff for free.

Absolute shitloads of stuff. We're talking everything from perfumes and face creams to chocolate cakes and calculators. She's got drawers full of shoes. Designer handbags turn up on her desk. Every day more packages are turning up.

I've only had one letter delivered to me since I started working here three years ago. And I think that was from the tax department.

Fortunately the fashion editor works on a principle known simply as: Share the love.

This means that every now and then she will load up a table with crap she's been sent and we vultures in the department will pick the bones clean. I haven't had to buy shampoo in more than two years. I've got high priced Baldessarini eau de toilette sitting on my desk in case I start to waft during the day.

Of course I also have a tin of gravy, a rice steamer and a martini glass. I have no excuse for these. Random stuff just gravitates towards me.

Anyway, under the principle of "share the love" I was this week given a small, blank booklet. It's about 20 pages long and only the left-hand pages are lined. I didn't know what to do with this book and vaguely considered writing some poems in it.

But poems are difficult to write when you have nothing to say. I mean, you've read this much of my blog posting and I haven't actually said anything, right? I am soooo wasting your time right now.

But I love you for it.

So, my solution to my blank book dilemma was to go back through three months of tweets and pick out what I considered were my best ones. Then I either copied them or developed them a little. It was fun.

I managed to fill the booklet, despite Internet Explorer posting a warning saying I was running a script that might be causing the system to run slowly and would I like to stop running this script (ie, Twitter) now, yes or no? *Click no* By the time I got back to February tweets, it was displaying this message three times before it would show me more tweets, and then another two times afterwards. Which was a pretty passive-aggressive way for Microsoft to tell me: "Please will you stop running this fucking script!"

Anyway, I've titled the booklet "Laze Against The Machine!" and I will actually publish it one day when I have some money. But here are a few samples of what's inside (apologies if you follow me on Twitter and have seen them all before):

I'm so boring that this morning I tuned out of a conversation I was having with myself.
I was nearly killed by a freak Mexican wave.
Yesterday I accidentally set a ratite trap. This morning I'd caught two ostriches and a moa.
Beware of puns! It can be dangerous when a phrase turns on you.
I went to a bulldozer fight. The matador didn't stand a chance.
You can't drive me insane. It's not far; I can walk from here.
I called the suicide hotline. The guy was fantastic. Told me exactly how to tie a noose. Took me through it step-by-step.
When Evolution comes, I'm going to be first against the wall.

A Mammoth Technicality

2010-05-13T13:19:00.001-07:00

Here’s an interesting little argument for you to start with somebody.

Years ago there was concern that elephants were soon to become extinct. Hunters and poachers were shooting them, even on wildlife parks, and making off with their tusks, because some people somewhere got it into their heads that ground up ivory was a good base for organic viagra. Or they wanted to carve little figures out of tusks and sell them to tourists at vastly inflated prices.

Well, we still have elephants roaming the African wilderness because of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; CITES. And also because people started shooting poachers, who aren’t an endangered species.

It prevents elephant ivory from crossing international borders, effectively stemming whatever tide of elephant tusks was flowing. There’s still probably a black market trickle of elephant ivory, but now that people need a CITES certificate authorising the possession of their ivory, the demand is so much less.

One alternative the hunters have found is in the frozen wilderness of Siberia. For three months a year they can get out there and happily and legally dig up mammoth tusks. Because mammoths are extinct there is no problem, except that the “hunters” have to spend two days defrosting the ground around the tusk before they can get it out.

Now, according to my good friends at Wikipedia, there are an estimated 150 million mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost. So there’s no real danger that the trade in mammoth ivory is going to dry up any time soon.

Meanwhile, scientists are optimistic that one day they will be able to sort out differences in mammoth and elephant DNA and eventually a little half-tonne woolly bundle of joy will be delivered via a surrogate elephant mother.

Can you see where I’m heading with this?

At the moment of mammoth birth, technically the woolly mammoth will no longer be extinct, but will be an endangered species. Therefore CITES kicks in and the tusk hunters are out of business.

Or will they argue that the newborn mammoth is not of the same species as the 150 million others floating around the Siberian underground? Because scientists have dicked around with the DNA and used DNA from another animal to effectively build this new species of mammoth, is it still a proper mammoth?

I think there was a similar argument circulating when Jurassic Park first came out. If such a park were possible, would the animals there technically still be dinosaurs?

Well, that’s one for you to argue about with somebody. You can make a fair case for both points of view.

If some alien species found a strand of human DNA and filled in the holes with, say, chimp DNA, would the result still be considered human? Fortunately, that’s one for the aliens to debate. But I'm pretty sure you'd find the results in Temuka.

Shelling Out At McDonald's

2010-05-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did the fast food breakfast thing.
Technically, the only time you should visit a fast food joint for breakfast is if your previous night’s dinner came in a fifth-of-a-gallon bottle. I’ve always liked the way Americans can talk about “a fifth” of some spirit or other.
Here in New Zealand we don’t have fifths. We have wholes. We’ve metricised ourselves, I’m thinking it was a way to save money.
Years ago we had fifths, except because we’re metricised they were 1125 millilitre bottles. Then at some point the liquor stores decided to abandon 1125ml bottles and just go with 1 litre bottles ... for the same price. I mean, who’s going to quibble over 125 mls? That’s half a cup. Except that you’ve now effectively put your price up about 10 per cent. I dunno. The math on that one is a bit beyond me and I’ve wandered off on a tangent.
So, anyway, I wasn’t hungover, but I did have a hankering for a McMuffin. I pulled into the drivethru and noticed something strange on the McMenu.
A sausage and egg McMuffin would set me back $4.20. But a sausage McMuffin, sans egg, was only $2. Which, through process of elimination, means that at McDonald’s an egg costs $2.20.
WTF? What are these eggs made of? Are they especially talented eggs? Do they cure cancer or something?
“New, at McDonald’s: the SuperEgg, each one individually laid and blessed by the God of Commerce.”
McDonald’s pricing amuses me anyway. When petrol companies put their prices up it’s like this big national news story. “Petrol’s just gone up three cents a litre!” But McDonald’s keeps quietly shifting its prices up with no mention at all.
I reckon, 10 years ago, that egg would have only cost 50 cents. That’s 50 cents shelled, cooked and blessed by the Queen of Good Karma. And even then we would have been “Fifty cents for an egg? Are you crazy?”
And now we’re paying $2.20 for an egg.
Except we’re not.Because the day I pay McDonald’s $2.20 for an egg is the day I don’t buy an egg at McDonald’s.

Brilliantly Bizarre

2010-04-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

It was raining, so I popped open my social umbrella and attended the opening night of Sarah Harpur’s first solo act, “Life. Death. Pets.” at the Fringe Bar in Wellington.

If you live in Wellington, or are rich and within flying distance, I strongly encourage you to see the show as it only runs for a few days.

To be honest, I didn’t know much about Sarah beforehand. She has a popular blog, Harpur’s Bizarre, which Google thinks was ripped off, corrupted and used as the name of a magazine somewhere.

Sarah is quite amazing. Who else could simultaneously convey a sense of nervousness and confidence? All while delivering some fantastic material about her life, her insights into death and quite a lot about how, when growing up, she viewed her pets as her children. Her cute, delicious children. Who ate each other (extreme sibling rivalry) and taught her graphic lessons about procreation.

How many people could get the joint rocking to a song about her dad’s death? Yes, Sarah, I want to join the Dead Dad’s Club too. My own old man went in a way not totally dissimilar to yours. I really related.

To demonstrate her inherent weirdness Sarah interrupted the show with an audio-visual presentation from her youth, where she presented her own hilarious interpretation of the Bain Family slayings in Dunedin. Complete with action figures with Bain faces pasted on. See it here (but later because I haven't worked out how to do one of those "open in a new window" link thingies).

It was opening night, so most of the front row was Sarah's family and friends. Which, mixed with the cosy venue, meant it felt like we were all in Sarah’s living room, being treated to an hour of an intelligently unhinged person's brilliant stream-of-consciousness rant.

I sat at the back and recalled attending the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1996. And wished many of the acts there could have been half as good as Sarah.

Finding A Park For Your Satellite

2010-04-13T13:40:00.001-07:00

Anyone who lives in a city knows how hard it is to find a good parking spot. We take this for granted.

What you probably don’t realise is that satellite parking spaces are filling fast too.

I discovered this after an interesting Saturday night. I have an alert on Twitter which lets me know when the International Space Station will be crossing over in sight of Wellington. Despite having had this service for at least six months, I have seen the ISS precisely twice. And one of those was sheer fluke.

So on Saturday I was out at Tawa having dinner with my friend Steve and his family. I thought it would be fun to take out some binoculars and watch the ISS fly over at about 6.50pm. I set an alarm on my cellphone to remind me.

It was a beautiful night; cloudless with just a hint of a breeze. The whole family (there were nine of us) piled out of the house with three minutes to spare. I pointed to the south-west and said: “It’ll be quite bright and will appear down there somewhere.”

The binoculars were passed around. The first candidate turned out to be a low-flying plane. Then somebody said: “I see it!” and pointed straight up to a bright star glinting above.

The person with the binoculars said: “Yes, it’s definitely a satellite. It’s moving a little bit and I can see it’s in two parts.”

This made sense, because at that time the ISS had a space shuttle attached. Yet I had seen the ISS before, and it was motoring. It wasn’t just sitting there.

Steve helpfully suggested: “Maybe it’s not the ISS. Maybe it’s a geostationary satellite?”

Well, that sounded logical. But then I noticed that what I first thought was a plane was in fact the ISS. Which seemed fair because I’d previously seen a plane that we thought was the ISS.

But it started me thinking: are there any geostationary satellites sitting above Wellington? Well, I investigated yesterday, and discovered that, no, there are no satellites sitting permanently over the city in which I live.

That’s because apparently a geostationary satellite can only remain effectively stationary if it is directly above the equator. It has something to do with inclination and “eccentricity”.

I’d found a list of commercial satellites in geostationary orbit dated December 2009 and it totalled 287 (an abnormal amount owned by Boeing).

Now, for a satellite to remain in geostationary orbit it must be at an altitude of 35,786km. Adding in the Earth’s diameter we’re looking at an orbiting circumference of 264,924km. So, at this point, in theory, there’s 923km available for each satellite. Which is a pretty big parking spot.

But the owners of any satellites will want to ensure it remains over a certain point of the Earth to get the best signal. This means that even though each satellite “sees” more than 40 per cent of the planet’s surface, there are an ever-decreasing number of parking spots over any particular city.

I wonder how long before somebody starts putting in parking meters up there.

It Just Gets My Goat

2010-04-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

Criminal behaviour has raised its ugly head in New Zealand again this week.

Geordie, a beloved old goat who quietly munches on grass on the outskirts of New Plymouth, was spray-painted by … well, morons.

On one side of Geordie’s flanks the letters “FTP” now appear in bright orange. When I first saw this I thought: “Wow, internet geeks are getting serious. They’re promoting File Transfer Protocols through guerrilla tactics.”

But this was not a real-world attack by hackers. No, apparently, this was an anti-police slogan meaning Fuck The Pigs.

Did your mind just jump where mine did? If you want to write “Fuck The Pigs” then why the fuck do you do it on a goat? Did you fail animal identification 101? Did duck goes quack, sheep goes baa, cow goes moo, and pig goes oink confuse you?

I can picture the scene:
“Is that a pig?”
“I dunno. I think so.”
“Wait, aren’t pigs supposed to be pink or something?”
“Pink? Are you gay or something? What animals are pink?”
“Shut up. OK, now, `fuck the pigs’… how do you spell `fuck’?”
“Um, F-um-U-um-Q?”
“No, it’s F-U-K isn’t it?”
“That doesn’t sound right. Isn't it meant to be a four-letter word?”
“Well FUK has four letters, doesn't it?”
“Look just put FTP.”
“Yeah, everyone will know what it means.”

And how did they expect this sort of act to help their cause? If they wanted to make a statement, paint it on the side of a police patrol car, not the side of an innocent 20-year-old goat. All the people of New Plymouth now want more pigs in town to tackle illiterate morons with spray cans.

I’d actually love to find out who did it. Because then I’d go out to buy my own can of spray paint, and little Bertie Brown would wake up one morning with the words “Once Fucked A Goat” painted across his face.

Two Questions For You

2010-04-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

I like that my blog gets a reasonable number of hits, and that a few friends post comments. But I’m hoping to get a big response to this one, because the subject really interests me.

What was your first memory? And what was your most magical dream?

Most people I talk to say they cannot remember anything before five. But my first memory – and yes, it is very vague – is of actually being in my crib. It was one of those with the sides that slide up and down, and I can remember it being down. And I looked out into my parents’ bedroom.

I can’t recall exact chronology, but I remember various things before I turned five. I can remember reaching for a door handle and finally, aged four, being able to reach it. I remember my mother teaching me the alphabet so that I’d have a head start before starting at (then) primer one (strangely, it was pronounced “primmer”). I remember my fun toy car. I remember being spanked for wetting my pants – which was vastly unfair because it was the fright of seeing the woman who spanked me that caused me to wet my pants in the first place!

And I remember my most magical dream. This was around age four and I was in my own bed. I dreamt of a witch coming to get me, but she was on the other side of a pond. The fright of thinking she might get me caused me to wake up and seek the security of my parents’ bed.

They had a small window in the wall just behind their bed. A streetlight outside shone vividly through the curtainless window and onto the big mirror on the vanity unit. I remember lying there, awake, afraid to go to sleep because the witch might be there waiting for me.

I can only assume what happened next was a dream. Yet it was so real I remember it in detail to this day. Above the bed a circle of golden dust appeared and began circling clockwise. Then all these great toys – I particularly recall a red firetruck – appeared in the golden dust.

Like Damocles Jnr, I knew that if I reached for them the whole thing would disappear. So I just watched for a while, and then they faded back into nothingness. Sad that the firetruck got away. I never wanted or had a red firetruck in my toy collection – but that one would have been nice.

So, what was your first memory? What was your most magical dream?

Super Awesome Mega Battle Tank

2010-03-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Between about 1982 and 1986 a young photolithographer at The Evening Post newspaper in Wellington muddled through a strictly amateur film-making project.

Five days a week he would work with chemicals that would make a modern health and safety officer faint, and on the weekends he’d head out with mates and workmates to make his movie.

OK, it was badly acted and the script was… well… the script was… well, never quite actually written. But that didn’t stop this determined young man from ensuring his workmates kept the exact same haircut for four years and didn’t stop him from getting government assistance to finish the project off.

The film ended up being shown at Cannes. The film-maker, a lad named Peter Jackson.

Now, 20-odd years later, in the same place where Sir Peter toiled preparing newspaper page negatives for the platemakers, another film-making project is taking place.

This is nothing new for the building. The Dominion Post building is huge, but really only the top six floors (ie, those above ground) are used. But if you take the stairs you discover they go down. And keep going down, into like a labyrinth of strange nooks and crannies. This large empty space has been home to various TV ads and at least one feature film (Stickmen).

In one particular area, my mate and workmate, Bill, has built his intergalactic space tank. Well, the interior at least. It has flashing lights and old car seats and ancient joysticks and a dodgy wooden wall that might fall either forward (and flatten the actors) or backwards (and screw up the take) at any moment, and some cheap computers for added technology.

There’s also a sofa and a ukulele for when Bill gets bored.

For the past couple of years he and a few mates (alas, not me, though I’ve dropped several unsubtle hints) have been involved with putting Bill’s sci-fi series together. Bill’s written the script and they’re churning through the 13 or so three-to-five minute episodes.

They’re incredibly badly acted, and the sound-effects are over-the-top, and the exterior shots are obviously a plastic toy tank sitting on a rock, and the script is absolutely brilliant. OK, maybe the editing is in league with the acting, but you can’t expect perfection – or anything close – on a zero budget.

Anyway, the first episode went up on Monday (after a long wait). You should definitely check it out … and encourage your friends to, too.

http://www.kiwispacepatrol.co.nz/

Mockery Time!

2010-03-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

A photographer at work took this picture and offered it to me for this blog (thanks, Steve!). It’s a piece – piece being the operative word – by a Chinese artist, but other than that, I know nothing about it.

I have no comment about its artistic merit and do not mean to belittle the artist's work. But I'm going to. I feel irresistibly obliged to mock it, and invite you to join me in doing so. Unless you're the artist, in which case, I'm really very sorry for making fun of your work and truly hope that some day you'll get around to finishing it.

Now, to get started:

* You’re not half the child your brother Greg is.

* Um, Mrs Johnson, we’re not sure if it’s a boy or a girl, and we might have to go back in.

* Oh, I didn’t notice the lower half was missing; I was busy doing my nails.

* Mrs Wilson, just what DID you smoke during pregnancy?

* She put the “mid” in midwife.

* We’re afraid the child might have some bladder control issues later in life.

* There you are, Mrs Jones. You get the other half when you’ve paid the bill.

* Mrs Evans, exactly how much drywall were you eating each day?

In The Chair At The Dentist's

2010-02-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

First off, I want to apologise to anyone from Dunedin who takes offence at this blog post; primarily because they will know that I am not, in any way, exaggerating.

The big news in my life in the past week has been toothache.

I’m not going to wax lyrical about the whole ordeal, except to say (as the eternal optimist) that four days of fever and jaw-related agony enabled me to lose more weight in that period than in a month of solid dieting. I’m tempted to ask the dentist to put the tooth back in and then go back in six months.

What I am going to tell you about is the surreal experience I had while waiting for the anaesthetic to kick in. The dentist, who looked about 23, poked the needle into what was left of healthy gum and squirted the “make numb now” juice.

He then stood back and said: “We’ll just have to wait a few minutes for that to take effect. It’ll work its way down the jaw, so let me know when your lip goes numb.”

“My lip’s already numb,” I said.

“That’ll be the infection,” he said.

Long, uncomfortable pause.

“So… how long have you been dentisting?” I ask.

“Oh, about 10 years.”

“Really? Where did you qualify?”

“Otago. It’s the only place in the country you can study dentistry these days.”

Now, for any foreign readers, let me tell you about Dunedin. Dunedin is the main city of the second most southern New Zealand province, Otago. It was originally settled by Maori who were then ousted by lowland Scots looking for some climatic hardship after the sunny disposition of their native land.

While New Zealand has taken great pains as a nation to rectify the wrongs done to Maori when European settlement arrived in the mid-late 1800s, the general response of Dunedin to Maori claims has essentially been: “Get fucked.”

Otago University is located in Dunedin and has a reputation as one of the country’s leading halls of learning. However, the student populous – known colloquially as Scarfies – has a reputation for being, well, somewhat boisterous. The enthusiasm of these young adults has been met, in recent years, largely by police in riot gear.

The local rugby ground, Carrisbrook, is nick-named the “House of Pain” as a heads-up for visiting teams as to what to expect. Punching, kicking, eye-gouging, biting and rucking (the act/art of raking a downed opponent with your studded rugby boot) all ensue, and often even as the visiting team tries to take the field.

Scarfies, who cannot afford seats in the stands, having spent their entire student allowance on beer, are relegated to the grassy bank to watch the game. Often they bring an old sofa to the match so they can lounge in style while watching the match progress. Should the unthinkable happen and the home team loses, it is not unheard of for the students to depart and leave the sofa behind – usually on fire.

With that background in mind, I said jestingly to the dentist: “So, how many couches did you burn?”

He looks thoughtful and then says: “Um, really just the one.”

This was the man I was about to let loose in my mouth with a wrench.

He saw the panic rising and said: “That was just after the 1995 World Cup final.”

Well that said it all. I won’t pick at old wounds (having already done that last year), but suffice it to say that when an under-strength All Black rugby team was beaten in South Africa by South Africa in overtime, the effect on the New Zealand national psyche was devastating.

“Oh, well, that’s perfectly understandable then,” I said, without hint of sarcasm.

“At least I didn’t throw the TV out the window,” he said, “unlike some.”

His eyes misted as he recalled: “You could walk down the street that day and see broken windows and TVs everywhere. Some of the TVs had shoes still embedded in the screen; or a half-empty bottle of Speight’s (beer) sticking out, or a couple smashed on the side.”

I could picture the war zone. It must have been magical. And while I vividly imagined this vista of the post-battle victims, lying where they had fallen, like soldiers’ bodies, broken, bleeding and disfigured in battle … the bastard ripped my tooth out.

Watching Justice Being Done

2010-02-16T16:41:00.000-08:00

I live alone, so often have the TV on for company, even when I’m not really watching it.

This is particularly so in the mornings, when I listen to The Edge radio station but have the television on in the background.

I used to watch Who’s Line Is It Anyway in the mornings, but lately that channel has been playing up early in the day, so I’ve switched to re-runs of Will and Grace. [Have to admit I laughed this morning when Will referred to Jack as “Notorious F.A.G”.]

After that it’s on with the radio and down with the TV volume. So there’s no point switching channels or anything.

Hence I end up watching the shows kind of out of the corner of my eye, while listening to something else.

For some reason the channel then shows re-runs of three programmes that obviously belong to the court TV genre. First up is Judge Joe Brown, whose whole courtroom seems to be packed with people they swept out of the trailer park; or possibly couldn’t get tickets for Jerry Springer.

Then the plaintiff and defendant stand up and demonstrate that the gene pool really does have a shallow end. As for the Judge? Well all I’ll say is that he’s not doing the African American stereotype any good whatsoever.

Next up is Judge Judy with her nearly all-white courtroom; all having fallen into an entire vat of makeup on the way in. JJ herself wears a frilly robe and a couple of giant glittery rocks on her ears that make me think of those African or South East Asian tribes who stick giant, weighted discs in their ears as a sign of virility or something. Indeed, Judy is definitely saying: "I might wear black, but I'm fucking loaded and don't you forget it, matie."

Third up is Cristina’s Court, which must have somehow won a daytime Emmy at some point because the opening credits include her holding it! She seems a bit softer edged that Judge Judy; but it’s all really just a pile of shit.

Now, if you ever are unfortunate enough to see one of these shows I want you to consider this: The cameras. There is inevitably about four feet of space between the judge and the contestants. Yet there is a fast cut of shots from one contestant to the next, front shot, left side, right side, side shot of plaintiff and defendant, straight on shot of the judge, side on of the judge, and a wide angle of the courtroom where no cameras are seen at all.

Where are the cameras when things are handed up to the judge? When everyone is talking? I’ve seen those big-arse TV cameras; if they’re cleverly using three, or as I worked it out, five; how can the courtroom audience possibly hope to see the judge, and vice versa?

And then there will be all the production crew and director off to the side; which is probably why you occasionally see one of the people in the background suddenly and inexplicably look off to stage left.

It's all been edited together so we believe the illusion though. Hell, even when the judge finds in favour of the defendant he/she will just pay the $300 bill, pick up their $5000 fee for appearing and bugger off happy.

I just find it strange is all. Just sayin’.

A Great Bloody Idea for a TV Show

2010-02-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

I hope you guys appreciate sarcasm; cos I’m going to town.

I was pleased to see television news ethics had reached a new low at the weekend. At the Winter Olympics a 21-year-old Georgian luger took the last turn at about 140kph, flew off the track and hit a steel pole, dying pretty much instantly.

Television news took great delight in showing the fatal accident not once, but several times, from different angles. Sadly, I missed it. And some odd sense of decency tragically prevents me from seeking it out.

Why did the TV channels choose to show this clip? Simply because they had the footage? Certainly a death on the luge track has news merit but should viewers be entitled to see another person’s last moments of life?

In England there was a controversial documentary which followed the last days of a man dying of cancer and included, with his approval, his death. This sparked a huge outcry and the question was asked: should a television station be allowed to use real human death to improve its ratings? Essentially, should the TV station be allowed to profit from human death?

Last year I watched a documentary about a large American airshow and the vintage planes involved in it. One of the pilots interviewed early in the show was then shown completely fucking up his landing and his plane exploded, killing him instantly.

However, when Al Qaeda was chopping people's heads off in Iraq, that was off limits. Because that would have pissed off the military and certain black-ops chaps would visit the news directors and ensure they met with interesting but painful "accidents".

Yet, I know there have also been clips of fatal race car crashes shown on TV.

So, it seems that if you’re playing sport and it’s televised and you suffer a fatal injury, then it’s OK for broadcast. Because that's the risk you take in playing the game. But if somebody runs across the field naked, that’s not suitable for television. That's in poor taste.

My proposal is this: We introduce Snuff TV. Now that the lines of taste have been pushed far enough back, I don’t see why we can’t just start killing people for entertainment on television at least once a week.

There will be a variety of games. It will be a bit like that Gladiators show, but with explosions, hangings and disembowellings. There could even be a sniper section where we choose three members of the public and viewers can text vote on which one should die. Then we shoot them on the way to work.

The options are endless.

“Now Rob, you chose the ancient Japanese practice of hari-kari for cash. You've now been disembowelled; how do you feel?”

“Yeah, Max, I gotta say it’s pretty painful at the moment.”

“Rob, did you expect the smell to be this bad?”

“Ha, no. I think this explains why my farts always smelt so awful.”

“Good one, Rob. Now you’re in for $10,000 an hour at the moment, but if you survive the full day you’ll take the $100,000 bonus and receive potentially life-saving medical assistance.”

“That’d be great, Max. Hey watch what you’re stepping on there!”

“Haha. Always like to see a victim with a sense of humour. Now, Marianne, how are things going at the gallows?”

Pie = $3.14

2010-01-26T11:26:00.001-08:00

Today I’m going to talk about pies.

In New Zealand and Australia the meat pie is part of the culture. It’s the blue collar equivalent of caviar. I think it fits into the cultural jigsaw in a way similar to the way a sausage, bun, mustard and pickles fit into the American culture as hot dogs.

Ah, the joys of cross-cultural food translation.

According to the font of all semi-accurate knowledge, Wikipedia, the standard Kiwi pie is not too dissimilar to the American pot pie. Except that the shortening in the base makes it more structurally sound and I think a little bigger.

Typically a pie will fit moderately comfortably in your hand, and be filled with minced meat, spices and optional extras such as cheese, mushrooms or vegetables. The recipes are often closely guarded secrets.

When I was growing up, May’s pies in Timaru had a national reputation for goodness. These had a kind of yellow pastry but were thick with ground lamb and heavily spiced. It was common knowledge the best mutton pies in the country could be bought at Dunsandel, a few miles south of Christchurch.

The pie warmers in towns from Kaitaia to Bluff would be filled with the drying crusts of three or four varieties.

As a side note, the popularity of the meat pie is such that the Government has set certain rules about them. For example, they must contain at least 25 percent meat. Unfortunately this is the pre-cooked weight, and doesn’t specify what part of the animal is used. Technically muscle, sinew and even snouts are meat, under this definition.

But the Pie Days of my youth are gone. In a similar way to the McDonald’s and KFC invasion from the United States, Australian pie makers have invaded New Zealand.

The worst offender, in my opinion, is Mrs Mac's. These are made in Australia from 100 percent Australian ingredients and, I’m picking, are sent to New Zealand frozen and sold to petrol stations and dairies at about 300 for a dollar and then retail for about four dollars each.

And, frankly, they taste like somebody’s eaten them already.

Less offensive is Big Ben, which is an Australian company which at least uses New Zealand ingredients and makes the pies in New Zealand. But not a great recipe.

Irvine’s pies, made by Goodman Fielder, tend to be the best of the service station crop for my money. Not so strong on mass, but the pastry is nice and it all seems fairly proportionally well balanced.

Fortunately the cafes of the country maintain the quality and individuality of the good old Kiwi meat pie. Great chunks of meat in the middle, blazing hot globs of mushroom falling in your lap as the architectural integrity of the pie’s structure collapses. Or cringing with pain as the melted cheese explodes volcanically from its insulated pastry pocket and burns your lips to shreds. It’s brilliant.

I heard someone say recently that after travelling the world they believed the best pies were made in New Zealand. It gave me a haunting touch of patriotic pie pride; with a bonus 25 grams of saturated fat. I like it.

Doo De Doo De Doo

2010-01-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

As you probably know by now, I love the English language. Particularly its ambiguities of spelling. Homonyms are my bread and butter. Which is funny in itself, because I currently have no bread or butter in the house, and have never used a homonym to make a sandwich, and yet you understood exactly what I was getting at.

Hmmm.... a homonym sandwich with cheese and Marmite. Could work.

This particular post was prompted by my good friend Cindy, with whom I have spoken to on the phone a couple of times.

Now, for a Kiwi, half the fun of talking to an American is gently making fun of their accent.

"Say duty"

"Doody."

*snigger snigger*

"Say data."

"Dayta."

*snigger snigger*

I never claimed to be particularly mature. Let it go.

This can even be localised. Nothing's funnier to me than asking a Southlander to say purple. "Paaarlpul." Ah yes, the good ol' southern accent.

Accents can be funny. But on the whole we can understand each other.

But then there are the funny stories of people going into a sh0p and needing somebody to translate English into English so everyone can understand each other through the accents.

I've heard that one of my favourite films, Trainspotting, was nearly given subtitles in America, even though it is simply English with a Scottish accent. I've read American reviews of the film saying: "Don't worry, you can work out what they're saying after about half-an-hour."

Watching the DVDs with the subtitles on can be interesting, too. I think they've cleaned up their act a bit now, but there used to be times where the character would say: "I'm fucking sick of this fucking shit!" and the subtitle would read: "Gosh, I'm upset about this!" ... Like deaf people aren't allowed to swear.

Right. Well, I didn't have a point, and I feel I've made it.

I hope you understand my written accent. I could read it aloud, but you probably wouldn't understand me.

Cleaning Up Christmas

2009-12-22T11:55:00.001-08:00

Christmas is nearly here!

Deck the halls! Jingle the bells! Pluck the turkey, slaughter the fatted pig and roll out the credit card; the season of socially enforced goodwill is upon us.

It’s weird that there’s very little that’s “nice” about Christmas; yet if you stop to point this out, you are labelled a Grinch or a scrooge. Well, what can I say but bah! humbug!

We encourage children to be greedy, we enforce generosity, build temples of debt and condone alcoholism. All in the name of Jesus. Boy, I bet he is pissed.

Having said all that, I do like the music. Well, not really. Mostly it’s eight shades of shyte. We roll out the same carols each year and sing them without even thinking about the words.

You might be thinking here that I’m having a real negative attitude day. Well, you’d be right – I mean, have you seen the traffic out there? A guy got pissed at me yesterday just because I wouldn’t let him make an illegal lane change and cut me off on Brooklyn Hill. He followed me home, tailgating me and making obscene gestures. T’is the season in-effing-deed.

But what’s at the heart of this attitude? It’s that, as a child, nobody told me the lyrics. I hate that. You must explain the lyrics to your children.

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle all the way!
That’s easy enough, right?
Oh what fun it is to ride, on a one horse open sleigh!
Okay, now stop, and explain to the five-year-old from New Zealand, who’s never seen snow or a sleigh, what the crap you just sang. Why wouldn’t he be singing: “A one horse soap and sleigh” and wondering why the fuck Santa needs all that soap? What’s soap got to do with it? Did angels appear unto the shepherds and say: “Behold, in Bethlehem a child is born; best bring him a few bars of Knight's Castile.” Did Santa have to soap up the skids on his sleigh so it rode better?

Oh the hours of confusion that would have just been so easily solved if somebody had said: “It’s one horse OPEN sleigh… I know it sounds like we’re singing a one whore soap and sleigh; but we really aren’t.”

So there. I’ve made my point. It’s stuck with me forever, and I’m still bitter about it.

A Quick Lyric

2009-12-11T15:37:00.001-08:00

OK, so I am behind on my blogging. I apologise.

And what’s worse is that The Darjeeling Ltd is coming on TV in like 10 minutes so I’m not going to give you a full-service blog right now anyway. Not that I have any topic to blog about except my current enjoyment of old songs.

For some reason my musical tastes rarely infringe upon the post-80s. The ‘60s rocked, but then, so did the ‘70s. For although the ‘70s gave us the musical mutilations of disco and punk (which disguised great music behind a wall of pointless attitude), it was a great decade.

Floyd did its best work in the ‘70s. So did Split Enz and, er, some other bands whose names currently escape me.

Yet what I’ve come to realise is that there is no reason to define music in terms of which decade it emerged. I have passion for The Beatles, The Stones and Led Zep. But, equally, I love Muse and Radiohead.

You can guitar solo me with Clapton and Frampton and Best, and I’ll give you Satriani, Vai and Johnson (that’s Eric, not Robert).

Truth is, music transcends. And that’s just one thing I love about it. I’m probably one of many who believe the film Almost Famous was written for me. I connect to it on an almost spiritual level. I guess that’s because it was written by somebody who loves music... almost as much as I do.

Having The Last Laugh

2009-11-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine died at the weekend.

We were not close friends, but were close enough that I shed a few tears at the news and wrote her a long letter which she will never get to read.

Her name was Nicola. She was known to one and all as Mrs Barnes, or Barnsie. A bright, intelligent woman whose body, unfortunately, just couldn't keep up with all that her spirit demanded from it.

The best way to sum up Barnsie is: Fun.

She had this deliciously evil sense of humour, where she would feign outraged indignation at some comment I'd make, and then respond with a quip that would be even further down the sewers than I could handle.

Who else could keep an argument about Snoopy and the Red Baron going for over a month?

She died in Auckland after a major operation. We were all expecting her to pull through. It was inconceivable that she wouldn't. I was expecting to be joking with her at the office Christmas party.

But she's had the last laugh. You see, she left instructions not to be embalmed, which means her last big trip is from Auckland to Wellington... on ice. Good one, Barnsie.

So, in her memory I dedicated my Twitter posts today to death, or more specifically, making fun of death.

Here are some that I was quite happy with:

I'd like to dig my own grave. I'd be like: "Man, I dig you. You're such an awesome hole in the ground..."
ReinCARnation and Carma. Where you come back as a type of motorvehicle depending on your life. I'm comin' back as a Yugo.
Debts: What you accumulate so you have something to laugh about when you die.
What if Jesus' name wasn't Jesus at all? What if he was actually called Kevin? Then you could say: "I thought I'd died and gone to Kevin."
When dealing with death, it pays not to do so from the bottom of the deck.
In Hollywood it only seems to rain in cemeteries. Serious drought? No worries, build a cemetery...
Death is so absolute. Wouldn't it be better if it was more vague? "Can't take your call right now, I'm kinda dead. Leave a message..."
I got a message from beyond the grave. It was right behind this bloke's tombstone. It said: "Keep off the grass".
If you find yourself at death's door, say "Can I interest you in a new set of encyclopedias?" and you'll be good for another 20 years.

Bill's Folly

2009-11-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

I work with a hilarious bloke called Bill O'Byrne. I'd heard of him even before I started working here, but that was a couple of friends saying: "Oh yeah, he's a really nice bloke."

And it's true. He's wonderfully self-depricating and hilarious.

So he's started a blog in conjunction with the Dominion Post newspaper. The blog is called His Place, which (just between you and me) was reached after his suggestion of Men's Bits was rejected.

Anyway, his column kicked off with a hiss and a roar. Literally, as it happens.

He went up the coast and met these kids who had developed their own spud gun. Except they shoot apples, because a bag of seconds apples is cheaper than a bag of potatoes. They spray cheap hairspray into a chamber at the end of a PVC tube, ignite it and BOOM; the projectile is projectiling.

So Bill sets up the camera and rushes about 50m away with another video camera and prepares to be shot at. He's prepared to do this because a) he's wearing a cheap MIG fighter pilot helmet he bought off Trade Me; and b) he figures he'll have just enough time to duck out of the way of the oncoming apple.

Only one shot was fired. Nobody was hurt. But shit it was close.

I share this with you because the first time I saw it, I was LMAO, veritably ROFL; and I still LOL every time I watch it. (Ah, remember a time when you could laugh without letters?)

Anyway, enjoy:

Check out Bill's highly entertaining blog at: http://hisplaceblog.wordpress.com/

Good Karma? Sorry, No Buyers

2009-11-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

Conclusion: Karma has substance, but no matter how genuine you are, happy thoughts just don’t cut it.

As a laugh last week I put two years worth of good karma up on New Zealand’s internet auction site Trade Me.

I wrote a blurb that went something like this:

Over the last two years I have been collecting good karma through various good and selfless deeds. Things like paying for lunch when I'm with friends (sometimes even with my own credit card), providing professional services free of charge, helping old ladies to cross the road (whether they want to or not), driving smelly old alcoholics home from the bottle store so they don't inadvertently get clean by walking in the rain. Generally lighting up the lives of the people around me each day with my sparkling personality. That sort of thing.

I let other people win at Lotto almost every week, I hardly ever run over old people in mobility scooters (despite the obvious temptation), at the track I always try to encourage the slower horses by putting money on them, I donate a lot of money to charity (a casino's a charity, right?), and when I'm robbing somebody at gunpoint the pistol is almost never loaded. That's got to count, right?

Anyway, all this good karma is stored up and I really have no use for it right now. I've got plenty on hand from the rest of my life and the last two years' worth really isn't going to make much difference. So I'm willing to transfer it to you for the very reasonable price of whatever it fetches at auction.

Sorry, instant karma not available as part of this deal.

I will, however, send you a non-binding official letter of authenticity describing the transaction for the benefit of the Universe. I will write it myself and possibly even frame it for you.

Now this was aimed at giving a few people a bit of a giggle; myself included. I especially enjoyed answering the questions:

Q: What are your delivery options? ;) markmie (37 ) 9:35 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: Universal courier, of course :-) 9:37 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: I understand that instant karma isn't available, but is it gonna get me? bookiemonster (8390 ) 10:04 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't say for sure. Mr J Lennon is best to ask on that subject (I suggest a ouija board). I used to have sachets of Instant Karma (just add water), but unfortunately they sold out. The packaging was really cool, the sachets would just sit there and just shine on... like the moon, and the stars and the sun. 10:14 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: Like a crazy diamond? bookiemonster (8390 ) 10:24 am, Wed 11 Nov
A: They would shine like they were riding a steel breeze. They'd shine like a raver, like a seer of visions, a painter, a piper a prisoner. They'd shine! And then there'd be a big long David Gilmour cosmic guitar solo. That's the sort of aura they had. But unfortunately, the Instant Karma sachets are no longer available. Just two years' worth of my good karma. 10:38 am, Wed 11 Nov

Q: Do you have a buy now price hugshot (305 ) 9:58 pm, Sun 15 Nov
A: It's difficult to put a price on good karma. Which is why I've put it up for auction. I figure, if you're selling the godly benefits of two years of (mostly, kinda) good deeds, then the subjective value to the purchaser would differ. That is, a nun would probably have no use for it at all, whereas a politician would probably pay a fortune in taxpayers' money to get hold of two years' good karma, to make up for the bad karma generated by simply being a politician. 9:43 am, Mon 16 Nov

The auction closed this morning. It had nearly 250 views (which was enough for Trade Me to put advertising on the page) was put on five people’s watch lists, but alas attracted no bids. I guess politicians don’t feel comfortable buying used karma off Trade Me.

So, a couple of days after starting the auction I got a great idea. I’d put up some happy thoughts, kind of to keep the karma auction company.

I made up some bullshit about how the happy thoughts were good and positive, but despite JM Barrie’s promises, they weren’t strong enough to get you airborne. I figured that if anyone was willing to pay the asking price ($1) I’d write down five thoughts that make me happy and email them.

I didn’t really push the auction and after two days it received only about 20 hits. Consequently I received the following email from Trade Me:

Dear Lindsay,
One or more of your listings have been removed because it doesn't appear that there was an actual item for sale.
Auctions should be for a genuine item that you're legally entitled to sell. The reserve price should be appropriate for the item's value and condition.
The listing/s we are referring to are: Happy Thoughts (#253533306)

Although it was open for me to contest this decision, I was concerned that taking issue with their decision might lead them to look at my Good Karma auction and remove that as well. But it just seemed strange to me that they removed something which was honestly going to be an item (even if only intellectual property) and left up the item that was complete rubbish.

I think perhaps that if the karma auction had come down I could have argued religious persecution. Because then Trade Me would be forced into the position of stating that karma does not exist. And I’d have about four seasons of My Name Is Earl to prove them wrong.

But happy thoughts? Well, I’m thinking that, ironically, the Trade Me administrator who took the auction down could probably have done with a few happy thoughts of his/her own.

Plastic Plane Morality

2009-11-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that I listen to The Edge radio station every morning. I love the Morning Madhouse – they seem to have the perfect balance of male, female, married, gay, pervy and the voice of morality (yes, this means you, Jay-Jay).

Each day they have the Twitter Top 10, where Jay-Jay collects 10 tweets that have caught her eye in the previous 24-hours. Then they pick one and it becomes the “Twitter topic” for the day; the basis for a general discussion with listeners.

I’m honoured to have had a few of my tweets mentioned on the Twitter Top 10 since it started.

Anyway, today’s Twitter topic was – did you go to school with anybody famous?

I didn’t enter the discussion, as I scoured my memory for those schoolmates that had gone on to great and mighty things.

Oddly, the only person of note that I went to school with was New Zealand’s first AIDS victim. I think he contracted it via the needle. He was in and out of prison a lot, and once it became common knowledge that he had AIDS he was treated abysmally. Prison officers wouldn’t even touch him without wearing rubber gloves.

Now, the small evil side of me was unsympathetic. And it has nothing to do with the disease – it was just that he stole a part of my childhood innocence.

You see, in my first year at school, at age five, I took my favourite toy to school. It was a little plastic aeroplane. I was fascinated with aeroplanes at that stage. I had this weird idea based on the war stories I saw on TV and from war stories my Dad told me. I was convinced that if any little Cessna or Piper Cub flew innocently over the town, that if I wasn’t under cover, it would swoop down and bomb me.

I would hear the plane and sprint for the nearest garage, or run inside the house. It was kind of a junior OCD.

Despite this, I loved aeroplanes. And so I took my favourite plastic aeroplane to school. And at playtime I went out to the sandbox and practised my take-offs and landings.

So I was playing innocently when this boy comes up and says: “Can I play?”

I was a sociable kid, so I said: “Sure.”

Then he said: “Can I have a go with the plane?”

Dubious, I said: “Do you promise to give it back?”

And he said: “Yes.”

So I handed over my treasured plastic plane. He took it and it swooped and dived with such violence that I feared for its structural safety. I became worried for the safety of the plane’s passengers.

So I said: “Can I have it back now?”

And he said: “No. It’s mine now.”

I said: “But it’s MY plane.”

He said: “No. It’s mine. And you can’t have it.”

I, naturally, burst into tears. C’mon, I was only five. Even the expression “suck it up” wouldn’t be invented for another 20 years.

But a teacher came along and, while possession is nine-tenths of the law, she knew that he was a thieving little shit. She made him give it back to me.

So my precious plastic aeroplane was returned. But it was somehow tainted by the experience. As was I. If that teacher hadn’t come along, I would have lost my treasured plane simply because I was being generous; as my upbringing had taught me to be.

This is why I will never forget him, even if, 36 years later, I cannot assuredly recall his name.

Reset the Trip Meter

2009-11-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

In this age of internet technology and satellites floating overhead bouncing data in all directions at mind numbing speeds; it’s quite easy to forget just how big this world is.

It was kind of brought home to me a month or so ago where I watched a documentary on life in the 20th Century. The presenter noted that in 1900 the only way to get a message from London to New York was pretty much through letter and via a ship.

If you were lucky the message would reach its intended reader in about three weeks. Depending on the weather.

Only 60 years later you could travel from London to New York in under four hours on the world’s only supersonic passenger craft; the now defunct Concorde.

But even then communications satellites were starting to go up and hover in geostationary orbit, allowing people all over the world to watch The Beatles sing about how all you really need is love.

In the 1800s, settlers setting out from England for New Zealand faced a nine month journey, assuming the weather held and they didn’t float aimlessly in the doldrums for several weeks.

Now, on Twitter I have a friend, Cindy, who lives in North Carolina. I called her up a week or so ago just to say hi. And despite living some 14,000km apart (that’s about 9000 miles) there were no discernible delays as we waited for our voices to be electronified, processed through the data exchange, beamed to a satellite, beamed to another satellite, beamed down to another exchange, de-processed and sent to her portable telephone; which, in deference to the distance my voice had travelled, promptly went flat.

OK, maybe not promptly.

Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that we all still lived on Gondwanaland, but today’s distances applied. Or that I had a sea-going car that goes roughly the same speed over water as it does over land.

Right, so I fill my car with gas, pull out from Wellington Harbour and head north-east towards Los Angeles. The speed limit here is 100kph, and for safety’s sake, and for ease of calculation, I’ll stick with that.

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with `s'."
"Sea?"
"Yep."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with `h'."
"Horizon?"
"Yep."
etc

Assuming I had a buddy I could share the driving with, we would cover 2400km a day. So, if we left at midnight Sunday (to avoid the traffic) we’d pull in at Marina Del Rey about noon on Friday. Oh, but then there’s that bloody time differential to consider. Right, so we’d drive for four-and-a-half days and finally pull in at LA about 4am on Thursday. Which would be good, because, again, we’d beat the traffic.

After stopping for breakfast at Carl’s Jr (I hope they're open 24-hours), we’d be North Carolina bound. At only 3400km away, that would only be a day-and-a-half’s drive. We’d be pulling into Charlotte at about 7pm on Saturday.

Then we’d hoon off out to Cindy’s place, only to find that she already has company and it would be more convenient if we could come back next weekend.

My fault entirely. I should have dropped her an email to let her know I was on my way.

Space, the Final Front Desk

2009-11-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

I saw an article today saying the Galactic Suite Ltd's Space Resort – the first space hotel – is set to open on schedule in 2012. The tariff is rather steep though at NZ$6.27 million for three nights.

And if that’s anything to go by their mini-bar prices will be exorbitant.

But it got me thinking, what would life be like aboard such a place? Especially once things got settled down and the wrinkles were ironed out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Galactic Suite Ltd’s Space Resort, I’m your concierge, Hal.

“Now a few things to cover before you are escorted to your suites. First, and please remember this, no matter how stuffy it gets in here do NOT open a window. It’s a simple rule, but one that’s already claimed the lives of three of our guests.

“We ARE in a non-gravity environment and this applies to the whole hotel. It’s not possible to call room service and ask for gravity to be turned on in your suite. It just won’t happen.

“Please remember to strap yourselves into your bed before you go to sleep. We’ve had problems in the past with guests floating down the hallways while snoring and then staff members haven’t known which suite to return them to, and if we guess wrong… well, that’s another law suit.

“Just a reminder to keep cellphones, iPods and laptops turned off for the entire duration of your stay. They may interfere with the hotel’s navigation and send us all plummeting to Earth in one giant, screaming fireball. Which is a pretty hefty price to pay for a game of World of Warcraft.

“Feel free to use our sun deck if you want to catch some rays. Bear in mind the sun rises every hour-and-a-half and is only up for about 40 minutes, yet we still recommend using our special SPF10 million sunscreen with ultraviolet and anti-solar radiation filter. At this point I urge you to read the fine-print regarding unique tumours, rare cancers and inadvertently turning into a superhero.

“As well you’d know, this hotel has been credited with the responsibility for turning the Fantastic Four into the Quite Interesting Seven; with our company having been behind the accidental creation of Dr Paranoid, Captain Inert and, of course, Cheese Toasty Man.

“One of the temptations associated with being in this frictionless environment is to send yourself rocketing down the corridors to give yourself the illusion of flying. It can be exciting. Unfortunately, you have no braking or steering mechanism and the walls are just as hard here as they are on Earth.

“Feel free to look at the stars as much as you like. They’re a truly beautiful sight, but no, we cannot turn them off if you’re trying to sleep.

“Yes, the Moon does seem so close up here; but no, we cannot just pop over there for a barbecue.

“While we are in orbit, we lack the facilities to stop the hotel over your home town so you can wave to the neighbours.

“Once again, welcome to our hotel. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

Welcome To The Raw Chicken Diet

2009-10-20T19:17:00.001-07:00

Growing old means consequences.

I’m finding that out.

Warning: What follows is graphic and falls squarely in the bounds of “too much information”. So, read it at your own risk.

You’ve no doubt heard me rave on about how wonderful New Zealand is. It’s true. But it’s also not safe in other areas. Specifically, we lead the world in campylobacter infection rates. That is, food poisoning.

So at a young age we are taught to cook chicken and pork thoroughly before eating. I do. I promise.

But about two weeks ago I bought some raw chicken kebabs, and in my drunken state I didn’t quite cook them enough.

Drunken logic: Yum, this chicken tastes so good. It’s very tender though. Really quite tender. Hmmm… it was frozen, maybe it needed more than 10 minutes per side to cook through? Never mind, I’ll drink spirits; the alcohol level in my blood will rise to new levels of toxicity and kill any nasty bacteria that might be circulating.

How was I to know that campylobacter was alcoholic? It has a higher tolerance to alcohol than the Sun has tolerance for heat.

When I was younger and this sort of thing happened, I would have a shocking couple of hours on the toilet and then it’d be all over. All done. Be careful and don’t let it happen again; at least for a few years.

No longer, it seems.

Monday was the calm before the storm. I thought back hungoverly to the weekend and honestly believed I’d gotten away with it. Ha!

Tuesday morning at work the urge hit me. I felt the first contractions. Like there was a riot happening in a football stadium that had only one door. I snuck off to the work toilets and let loose the dogs of war.

I swear, I was hanging on to the seat to avoid lift-off. Sweat was pouring off me and I was gasping like I was in labour and had just run a half-marathon in record time.

Finally, the riot subsides. I wash everything thoroughly and crawl out of the toilets; drag my lifeless body to my desk and drink three gallons of water to replace the fluids which had so violently departed my body.

I do about half-an-hour’s work and suddenly the bowel’s fire alarm goes again. Everybody out. And so it continues in the “never trust a fart” theme, until I’m absolutely exhausted and scared to stand up in case the convicts make a break for it.

And it stops.

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief and go back to life. Sensible, non-bacterial food with lots of fibre to slow things down. Cheese is always good to put the bowel brakes on, too.

So the weekend rolls around and I’m all happy again. Except no. You see the constant rush of excitement down there annoyed the exit area quite a lot. Enough for it to protest with the generation of a swollen vein, known simply by the term: "The h-word".

Now, as a rule, swollen veins in that general area are good – if you’re a bloke. But that is, as a rule, at the front of the equation. Swollen veins at the rear of the equation are just a pain in the ass.

So I drink my way through the pain over the weekend and apply large amounts of appropriate cream. (Since this process started, I’ve gone through half a jar of anti-bacterial hand-cleaner as well). By Monday the tail-end Viagra episode has settled to tolerable levels.

Then said vein bursts. And there is nothing quite like the first time in your life when you find blood pouring from the rear exit. And you’re checking all your clothing in case there’s some tell-tale seepage/splash-back deal going on.

Then what to do? I mean, it’s not like you can bung a Band Aid up there! Do you keep working? Do you hide your head in shame? How do you tell your boss you're sitting like that because of 'rhoid rage?

I guess it’s just a case of visiting the pharmacy, asking for some more appropriate cream, and sitting very carefully for a while.

Why have I written all this? Well, partly to get it off my chest. Or at least to get it out of me in some way other than the most recent popular port of departure. And partly because some people get enjoyment out of others’ misfortune. If you're one of them, I think I just made your day.

I Don't Mean to Be Invictus, er, Vindictive

2009-10-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Clint Eastwood

Please don’t fuck us over. Truly, the ego of a nation is sweating in your palms.

I have long been a fan of your movies, both the ones you’ve acted in and directed. When I was growing up, you were The Man. No one threw a Hollywood punch like you, or managed to not look like a complete and utter dick despite having an orang-utan hanging off your neck.

In recent years you've turned more to directing, and have turned out some classics.

Now you are about to release Invictus – the story of how Nelson Mandela pulled South Africa together for the 1995 Rugby World Cup. How the love of the sport united the country, how they beat the odds and overcame the previously all-conquering All Blacks in the final to win the Webb Ellis Trophy for the first time.

I’m just going to detour here and explain a few things about the average New Zealander. We are relatively isolated and live on a small group of spectacularly beautiful islands that have pretty much been thrust into existence by tectonic plates. We like people from other countries, provided they like us in return. But the “like” is a default setting. We like everyone until they give us reason not to. And, oh my god, we have a sense of fair play. We strongly stand up for the underdog because, more often than not, the underdog is us. We’re kind of the little tough kid on the block who will stand up against the bully, just for the sake of it, and get a few solid blows in before he kicks the shit out of us.

Politically, we’ve gone toe-to-toe with the United States over all things nuclear, and France over their policy of nuking half the South Pacific just to see if their bombs worked. Militarily we’ve shipped off to the Crimean and Boer wars, First World War, Second World War (where Kiwi Charles Upham became the first combat soldier ever to earn the Victoria Cross and bar); we’ve had troops in Korea and Vietnam, and even sent our elite SAS to Afghanistan (where they had a 100% success rate on missions and earned a US Navy Presidential Unit Citation for “extraordinary heroism in action”).

So we’re a fiercely proud wee nation. And all we, and Aretha, are asking for is a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t. And if we don’t get it, that’s OK, too. Just please don’t be mean about it. Because pissed off Kiwis aren’t a pretty sight.

Which brings me back to Invictus. Rugby is almost a religion in New Zealand. It’s a great mix of politics and violence, and the All Blacks are the only team to have a winning record against all other countries.

South Africans, though, are almost as passionate about their rugby. In the 1995 Rugby World Cup the South African team beat the All Blacks. Well done. They did play well.

Now, New Zealanders all start muttering here. Because a couple of days before the final a handful of the Kiwi players snuck out of the hotel and went to McDonald’s for dinner. Now the irony does not escape us here; but these players woke up the next day all fit and feeling fine. The rest of the team, however, were all ill. Post-World Cup investigations revealed that what the rest of the rugby world was calling “sour grapes” was actually “poisoned coffee”.

The inability to provide clear and solid proof about this meant we, as a nation, just had to suck it up and move on. But it’s still a sensitive subject. Which is why I’m begging you, Mr Eastwood, to be tactful when dealing with this whole situation.

We’re trusting you to give the world a clear and accurate story. But you represent Hollywood. And Hollywood has a history of putting “based on a true story” at the start of a film and then just pulling the story and characters out its arse.

All we’re asking, Mr Eastwood, is please, please, please: Keep your arse closed and tell it like it was.

Speed Kills ... Kangaroos

2009-10-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

I don’t mean to be critical of Australians. Honestly. I mean, it is a national pastime for New Zealanders to be critical of Australians, but I try not to be. I’ve been there. It’s a great place. The people almost speak English and only 90 percent of the wildlife tries to kill you.

Yes, the Aussies are crazy. But then, New Zealanders invented bungy jumping and the jet boat, put the first bloke on the top of Mt Everest and split the atom to eventually enable global thermonuclear warfare. We even had an early pioneer in flight, who arguably flew before the Wright Brothers (though all evidence of said flight was sadly lost in time). So really we are in no position to judge crazy, y’know?

But I digress.

One of the fun events in Australia each year is the V8 Supercars racing around the Mt Panorama circuit at Bathurst, New South Wales. It’s great – high powered saloon cars roaring around and around and around…

For any American readers: It’s kind of like NASCAR except (get this!) there’s bends that go both left AND right. And up and down bits. Often both at the same time!

Anyway, at a recent event the cars were roaring around when suddenly a kangaroo jumps from among the trees, over a barrier and out onto the road. A car swerves to miss it and then carries on its merry way. The kangaroo, undamaged, is nevertheless going: “What the fuck was that???” Interestingly, the car’s driver was simultaneously thinking exactly the same thing.

I don’t know the kangaroo’s fate on the day. But I do know that after consideration of the incident the Australian solution was this: Let’s shoot all the kangaroos in the area so this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

This is despite the logical few suggesting: “Why don’t we just put up big fences?”

They have been car racing at Bathurst since, I don’t know, at least the 1960s. Forty years later one kangaroo jumps on the track during a race, and suddenly ALL the kangaroos in the area are doomed.

My solution is a compromise: The kangaroos should be incorporated into the race as a points bonus for the drivers.

“And Williams is coming off the mountain in first place. He’s got a five second lead on Murray, but only two roos to his tally. Murray, with seven roo carcasses to his name, could still take this race out…”

Or, if you’re more humanitarian, points could be deducted for hitting a kangaroo.

All I’m saying is that Australia has been given this natural gift of giant, bouncy marsupials. They should make the most of it.

In case you think I'm joking: Read about it here.

Addendum

So, I went looking for the specific clip on youtube (it's here), and what do you know, there's like 50 different clips of kangaroos hopping alongside V8s at Bathurst. Maybe they do just want to get in on the game.

It's A Global Conspiracy!

2009-09-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

It was a momentous moment in my life this week.

After three years without any sort of VCR, I finally purchased an HDD DVD recorder. It’s awesome.

I use a cable service offered by TelstraClear, which broadcasts all the channels offered by digital satellite service, SkyTV. The signal’s pretty good, and the set-top box breaks down about as often as the old Sky box did.

I couldn’t get Sky at my new location, primarily because I don’t own the house and would have no right to install a satellite dish there (the landlords live in the same building, so I couldn’t even do it sneakily).

Sky introduced a Tivo-like service called MySky. It was much hyped; a box-top set that let you watch one channel while taping up to three (or four?) others – and all in high definition. Not to be outdone, TelstraClear announced it would be introducing a similar service. In July. 2008.

I was excited and keenly watched the months tick down. And as we went into September 2008 I was starting to get puzzled. But I held out. I think I saw a story about two months ago that said TelstraClear had finally decided what sort of set-top box it would introduce.

Eventually I gave up and took matters into my own hands. I was in the electronics store anyway, so thought: “Why not put a DVD recorder on hock while I’m here?”

Now I’ve got a year of “interest free easy payments” to look forward to. But at least I can suffer through it easier now with a cool new Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. Murphy’s Law now dictates that TelstraClear will introduce its new Tivo-like service sometime next week.

Anyway; my point, and I do have one, even though I’ve wandered like several hundred miles from it; was that the new HDD DVD recorder taught me something interesting about the whole electronics industry.

I’ve got a 32-inch Acer LCD TV that’s about two years old. The new DVD recorder remote has a function on it which allows you to turn the TV on and off, and change channel and fiddle with the volume. The manual came with a list of brands catered for, and a two-digit number to get the remote to work on said brand.

Acer was not listed.

Which left me puzzling; who do I call about this: The Acer people to find out what their TV code was, or the Panasonic people to find out why Acer TVs weren’t listed?

I chose the latter, and called the “customer care” line in Auckland. It was a toll call, but was answered (get this) by AN ACTUAL PERSON! A friendly guy named Graham.

I explained the situation, and Graham gave me this amazing revelation: Apparently, various technology companies around the world make and sell TVs for OTHER technology companies around the world.

Like, your new Panasonic could have been made by Goldstar for SONY in a deal with the electronics branch of McDonald’s and Rodney’s Chicken Shack in Waimate.

Graham suggested I find out through process of elimination. It was only a two-digit number, after all. So I went home and typed in codes up to 36 where it finally worked.

With this information in hand, I then went back to the DVD manual figuring that, logically, the code number would tell me which company manufactured my TV. This revealed unto me that my Acer LCD was made either by NEC or AIWA.

I now have absolutely no idea what to do with this information, other than to blog about it and let people who previously read this blog expecting entertainment to go: “Huh, he’s really losing it.”

Yes, this is true, but I’m losing it with a Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. So: Ha!

Quick: While Nobody's Listening

2009-09-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

TV people do some strange things.

I realise that’s a sweeping comment. People who aren’t on TV do strange things too; but TV people are exceptionally good at it. Although I actually only have one example to call upon to prove my point.

I’m a big fan of rugby league; specifically Australian rugby league. League was a break-away from rugby union when rugby players in England’s coal mining areas noticed the clubs were making crap loads of money, but the players were expected to pay for their own shoelaces.

There were many arguments; and as is often the case where money is involved, neither side was willing to budge – ie, those who had the money refused to give it away and those who wanted the money weren’t able to get.

This was early 1900s. The break-away reached New Zealand around 2007 or so, and in 2008 a tour of Australia and Europe was organised. This featured some All Blacks and others, and was generally a success.

Oh, there was one Australian they picked up on the way to Europe. His name was Clive Churchill, and in Australia he is now considered the all-consuming godfather of rugby league, although nobody really says why, because that would mean acknowledging that he was there with a bunch of Kiwis.

Well, long story short, Australians embraced the game. Especially around Sydney where it now dominates rugby union and Australian rules (essentially Gaelic football).

Anyway, the 2009 rugby league season is coming to a close. The grand final between Melbourne’s Storm and Paramatta’s Eels will be this weekend. It should be a good match: the heart goes with Paramatta, the mind with the Storm.

In Australia, Channel 9 broadcasts the league. Being a commercial channel, naturally they slip ad breaks in as often as possible. But they also sell the rights to pay-per-view channels around the world which don't break for ads.

The team of Channel 9 commentators is led by an old chap named Ray Warren. He’s brilliant. Consummate professional is he. It's hard not to get caught up in the game when he's verging on a stroke everytime a player passes the ball. But he has this weird quirk that I just don’t understand.

When Channel 9 goes to a commercial he says: “And I’d just like to welcome all the viewers watching in New Zealand, in the UK on ESPN and in the United States…”

He slips this welcome in when the domestic audience isn’t there; like it’s our little secret. “Don’t, for God’s sake, let the Australians know anyone else is watching!”

Like it would be some massive blow to the Aussie TV ratings for the locals to discover that Brits, Yanks and Kiwis were watching the league, too. I find it very bizarre.

Now, for any North Americans reading this, I urge you to watch the grand final this weekend. The game’s excellent. It’s a lot like American football in principle, only the game doesn’t stop between downs (so it’s much faster), there’re six downs to a set and only lateral passes are allowed. Check it out.

What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? They Freakin' Blog About It

2009-09-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

It is spring here in the southern hemisphere … as in: Spring!

There are blossoms appearing (but still being blown off the branches by icy winds); lambs apparently born and frolicking completely ignorant of their big upcoming trip to Europe in time for the Christmas roast; and cute girls are wearing short skirts over-top of their winter tights.

Spring – one of the three seasons we can all agree on a name for. Spring, summer and winter have that commonality. We Kiwis call that other season autumn. North Americans call it fall. I’ve got to say, I think we have the upper hand in this, because “fall” indicates something is going to land on you.

“Come the fall…” makes me think either you’re going to fall down, or something is going to collapse on you. Autumn seems to make more sense. It’s so neutral. It even has that weird “umn” thing going at the end, like it’s not entirely sure of itself. It’s a true season of change.

But autumn is not what I wanted to discuss. Spring is a time of waking from winter’s dormancy, and as a long-term single guy I’ve actually found that the only time of the year when I really find my romance nerves twitching is spring.

It was this emergence of romantic feeling from its annual hibernation which probably caused me to spend an inordinate amount of this past weekend mourning lost love. While watching sport, of course.

It’s a love I treasure, but don’t often talk about. She was beautiful and exciting and full of life. It was like she’d been kissed by the God of Fun. She was a florist who would light up a room brighter than any bouquet.

We used to meet up occasionally and talk; have coffee or lunch, and it was all very chaste.

The major sticking point was that she was engaged. But that was OK, because she told him everything from day one and I, in turn, never tried to break them up. It was totally dysfunctional, but all above board as well.

No, we never kissed. Yes, I did see her naked. Yes, we did go on one (fiancé-sanctioned) date and it was a lot of fun. We both understood the situation: she wasn’t going to break up with him to be with me; and I wasn’t going to ask her to.

Unfortunately, he was Canadian and wanted to take her home to meet the family. They packed up and, oddly, moved to Australia – which is like 1600 miles in the wrong direction. Apparently it was a money thing.

I haven’t heard from her since. But I learned through acquaintances that they parted ways in Australia; then she met somebody else, moved back to New Zealand and is living up north somewhere.

I’m happy to be a fond memory for her. To me, she’s so much more. Why else, I wonder, would my memories return to her when spring so heartlessly jabbed at my slumbering desire for love?

Insert lonely sigh here.

Questioning the Laws of Zombieism

2009-09-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I don’t have an obsession with zombies. There are just some things about them that kind of fascinate me.

I was watching Resident Evil: Extinction on the movie channel this morning before work. I’ve seen it before so I wasn’t so much following the story as wondering about a few strange things in this particular zombieverse.

I understand it’s the third in the Resident Evil trilogy and I haven’t actually seen any of its predecessors. But it seems that there’s a virus floating about that turns people into zombies and an evil corporation and Ali Larter wandering around as a superhot psychic kung fu and weapons expert who kills zombies with the same efficiency that a nuclear explosion kills moths.

I don’t know how long ago the outbreak of zombieism began in this story, but in this film somebody said six months. There’s a convoy of survivors in trucks, driving around trying to stay out of the zombies’ way.

Now these are some impressive zombies. For a start, the moment they became zombies they all put on trousers and grey, green or black clothes. There wasn’t a single zombie out there wearing a bright red Jean-Paul Gaultier dress or carrying a Prada handbag. Not even a yellow t-shirt.

Nearly as amazing were the survivors. They’ve been driving around a desert for six months and all the women still have perfect hair and makeup. Nobody’s going: “Shit, we’ve been out here for months, there’re no baths or showers around and we’re all rank.”

In the film a few people get bitten by zombies and a few more get eaten by zombies – who haven’t had a decent meal in forever so they're rather enthusiastic. Yet they’re still on their feet, staggering about. They all move at two speeds: Full and shamble.

The people who get bitten all slowly turn into zombies. Yet during the metamorphosis the other zombies still try to kill them. And I started to wonder; at what point do the other zombies just go: “Oh, he’s one of us now, we should back off.”?

And what do the zombies hope to achieve when they reach the changing victim? I mean, the bitten person is already zombifying. Do the zombies want to taste the last vestiges of the person's humanity?

Picture this: You’re a zombie and you’ve attacked a person and you’re gnawing on their leg. Suddenly their zombification is complete and you notice the flesh has kind of gone stale. Yuck. Now do you apologise to your new zombie colleague for chewing on them? Do shrug and give them a light-hearted “arrrrgggh”? Is this the sort of thing that happens all the time on zombie sitcoms?

I think, if it was me, I’d just give an embarrassing smile and say: “Y’know, I think you’d look just great with a red dress and a Prada handbag.”

My Little Splinter of Classic Mania

2009-09-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

I love The Beatles.

I was raised in a fairly strict Baptist family and my mother’s kooky friend from a radical religious cult kept sending us comic books that were so conservative you had to pay them to open the pages.

These comic books were great masters of ideology. I seem to recall something about two Christians venturing out into the world doing God’s will. They prayed a lot and cast out demons and that sort of thing.

What I do remember is that the comics put the blame for the social revolution of the 1960s firmly at the feet of The Beatles. And I think that's just awesome. I did back then, too. It was my internal rebellion against God.

I had always liked them when growing up. I didn’t even mind that My Sweet Lord wasn’t talking about Jesus. What a rebel that George Harrison was.

The town I grew up in had one radio station and a playlist that stopped sometime in 1943. What it did have of modern music was stuff like Bobbie Gentry and certain slower numbers by Carole King. When it finally got hold of McCartney’s sentimental dirge Mull of Kintyre it went on high rotation for about three years.

But that was about as close as it dared get to The Beatles.

When I was 17 I finally bought a Beatles’ greatest hits tape. All the tracks I had heard from time-to-time and never knew who did them suddenly had a common name. I was instantly in awe.

I bought books and other best-ofs. I listened to Hey Jude every morning while getting dressed for over a year.

I determined that I liked mostly what came after Revolver, yet the first actual Beatles album I owned was Rubber Soul – bought second hand off a guy who was moving to Canada.

Then, about a year ago, a photographer friend at work gave me a DVD. I put it in the computer and discovered it contained every single Beatles album ever made. Including the three Anthologies and Let it Be… Naked.

Suddenly I was able to put everything in perspective. And there were some memorable moments. Such as when a mellow guitar slide in You Never Give Me Your Money on Abbey Road took me straight and vividly back to me as a four-year-old hanging out in the family lounge with my eldest sister’s friends.

Me and music have that sort of relationship.

But when you look at The Beatles you can see their music – although fantastic – wasn’t the entire source of their fame. The early Beatles flourished largely on the back of Brian Epstein’s marketing abilities. Their personalities and music obviously gave him a fantastic product to market; but it was because he marketed them so well that they succeeded so incredibly.

And I guess that’s why, 40 years later, their music still sounds fresh. And why they can market a Beatles Rock Band electronic game and why they anticipate it will sell millions upon millions of copies. Not to mention introducing a whole new generation to the music of the Fab Four.

So, welcome back John, Paul, George and The One With The Big Nose (who no longer answers fan mail, apparently).

A Flicker of Kiwi Cinema

2009-09-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

New Zealand cinema has a long and interesting history. Well, it's got a long history. OK, it has a history.

Seriously, though, Kiwis fell in love with the big screen quite early. There were films being made here in the early 1920s and some bloke even devised an early way to make talkies (though his method never caught on).

Anyway, a guy I follow on Twitter is a big fan of foreign films. Him being overseas officially makes Kiwi films foreign. I offered to give him a list of cool NZ films he might be able to track down.

These are in no particular order, except that I quite like them.

Goodbye Pork Pie – this 1981 comedy is a Kiwi institution. A length of the country road trip with two unlikely fugitives in a yellow Mini. The yellow Mini remains an icon in this country. Not only did the film show Kiwis being Kiwis, it showed some things we either do (or want to do) that aren't exactly legal: smoke dope, car surf, steal petrol, stick a big middle finger at Mr Plod etc. Director Geoff Murphy was later lured to Hollywood to make sequels to bad movies (ie, Young Guns 2, Fortress 2 and Under Seige 2). Before he left, though, he made a string of top Kiwi films such as The Quiet Earth, Utu and the lesser Pork Pie clone Never Say Die .

Second Hand Wedding – is mentioned this early because it was directed by Geoff's son, Paul Murphy. This 2008 film is a light comedy about a goodhearted woman who loves hitting the garage sales to pick up some bargains. Almost qualifies as NZ's answer to Australia's classic The Castle but doesn't quite have the same deep-cultural-cringe-laugh thing going on.

Sleeping Dogs – NZ's first 35mm feature film appeared in 1977 and was directed by future Hollywood director dude Roger Donaldson (Species, Dante's Peak, The Recruit and The Bank Job). The story is of a man known as Smith (a young Sam Neil – Jurassic Parks 1 & 3, Hunt for Red October, Dead Calm, The Piano and Dirty Deeds to name but a few of nearly 100 appearances to his credit) who is on the run in a dystopian society. Donaldson – who is technically Australian, but we won't hold that against him – also more recently revisited his Kiwi roots with The World's Fastest Indian in 2005.

Once Were Warriors – put the dark side of NZ culture on the world stage. It was helmed by top director and bad transvestite Lee Tamahori, who later went on to make Mulholland Falls, The Edge, Along Came a Spider, the Bond flick Die Another Day and Nic Cage's 2007 flick Next. Tamahori jumped to mind because The World's Fastest Indian starred Anthony Hopkins, who also starred in The Edge.

Came a Hot Friday – a 1985 slightly askew comedy about two conmen trying to fix a horse race in 1949 NZ. Features a stand-out performance by late legendary Kiwi comedian Billy T James. James also appeared (vocally at least) on the next recommendation – Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale. This 1987 animated flick brought to life a beloved cartoon strip about everyday events on a disfunctional NZ farm. While in every theatre people walked out saying: "That's not how I thought The Dog was meant to sound..." it was always a hiding for nothing for writer/director/cartoonist Murray Ball. Everyone had a different idea of what The Dog was meant to sound like. The farmer was obvious, who else could play a Kiwi farmer but John Clarke? But Kiwis were too close to The Dog to realise Ball had actually made a good choice in Peter Rowley. The film was well reviewed and received elsewhere in the world. It also gave NZ its new unofficial national anthem, courtesy of Dave Dobbyn.

So far it's been largely entertainment over art, so let's head down Jane Campion lane with An Angel At My Table. The 1990 film stars Kerry Fox and is a sensitive and powerful story about the life of esteemed Kiwi novelist Janet Frame. Frame, a brilliant recluse who only died a couple of years ago, was so misunderstood as a child that she ended up in a mental institution and was scheduled for a lobotomy before her writing suddenly started winning awards.

Illustrious Energy – is a largely forgotten NZ film, but one I've always held in high esteem. It's a drama that follows the fortunes of two Chinese goldminers during the Otago gold rush. It is almost like a nugget of Kiwi cinema that you'll need to dig hard to find.

Snakeskin – when newbie director Gillian Ashurst decided she had to get a road movie out of her system she wrote Snakeskin. It's an east to west tale that goes from sunshine to darkness, comedy to dramatic tragedy, clean fun to dark perversion. This is done subtly, deliberately and paying homage to the genre all the way. Kiwi audiences expecting another Goodbye Pork Pie just weren't up for that. So when Snakeskin won a slew of awards at the NZ Film and TV Awards in 2001 people began mourning the decline of NZ cinema. In fact it remains a solid, entertaining film starring Melanie Lynskey (whom Americans will recognise as psycho girl from Two And A Half Men) and American Boyd Kestner (GI Jane, Black Hawk Down, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood). Sadly, Ashurst hasn't directed features since, though I understand she's still behind the camera, making documentaries.

The Devil Dared Me To – falls distinctly in the "watch it only once and pick a rainy day when you're already half drunk" category. I mention it here because, well, it had potential. And I try to stick with talent from Timaru (haha). After their off-the-wall series Back of the Y Masterpiece Television (see earlier blog) Matt Heath and Chris Stapp were somehow funded to make a big screen film. Sadly, they ran out of money at some point well before they expected to, which is why the film seems to ramble about and finish suddenly.

A couple of late additions: If you're looking for Kiwi comedy you pretty much can't go past Sione's Wedding. It's known elsewhere as Samoan Wedding and was largely the production of comedy troupe The Naked Samoans. It was a big hit here, but was unkindly reviewed internationally by screen nazis who simply didn't "get it". Maybe the jokes were too "in" for their liking. The general gist of it is a group of lads who never out-grew their teenage antics have been banned from the upcoming Sione's Wedding. Sione used to be part of the group. However, some fast-talking allows the boys the chance to attend; provided they can each find a date. A proper date. The plot unwinds in fairly obvious fashion, but the jokes – visual and verbal – truly make the film memorable.

No. 2 – was the first feature film by writer/director Toa Fraser. It starred esteemed American actor Ruby Dee as the matriarch of an extended Fijian family living in Auckland. In a superb mix of comedy and drama we watch her seek out the life of her family over the course of a day as she beligerantly browbeats her family into preparing a feast. Dee does very well, but I simply could not buy her as Fijian. That was my only criticism of the film, which throws its story out on many threads and then draws them together at the end. Also features a fantastic Kiwi jazz-blues song written by Don McGlashan and sung by Hollie Smith.

Well, I think I've wasted enough time on this. You might be wondering why I haven't even touched on the works of Peter Jackson. It's because his light shines so bright I don't want to dazzle you all. Seriously, PJ's stuff is second-to-none right the way through. Just watch everything for fun, laughs and lots of blood on the early stuff. From brain-eating aliens to lovesick hippos with machine guns to real-life murder to dwarfs with big feet to giant apes; he's done it all.

Sex – The Wheel Deal

2009-08-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

I have a theory.

It has long been suggested that a man’s car is an extension of his penis. So those little guys who buy a flash car with a big engine are actually saying to the world: “My dick is soooo small that I am seriously overcompensating.”

And if you’ve got the money, why not? For a woman it’s relatively easy (if expensive) to go down to the plastic surgeon and say: “Up the cups from A to D, please.”

I’ve watched Dr 90210. I’ve seen it happen. [Though I’m so out-of-date I switched to Dr 90210 thinking “I wonder what Kelly and Brenda are up to this week?” – up to a C-cup as it turned out.]

Because boobs are a woman's most obvious visual sexual feature.

A guy, on the other hand, can’t go down to the surgeon and say: “I’d like another six inches tagged on, please.”

Because there are so many factors involved with the male plumbing. Blood rushes in to make it hard and is held there in a series of chambers. If you make things too big, then there’s the risk of being unable to maintain rigidity and consciousness at the same time. You can't just insert a 13-inch implant and expect Oscar-winning performances.

"We did have to graft off half your arse to provide the coverage needed... and it does look a bit like a patchwork quilt now..."

But there are some options available. You can have fat sucked out of the love handles and injected into the male mushroom of love. But this doesn’t make it longer, just fatter. So you end up two inches long and three feet wide.

Instead of all these options – of which men are extremely wary anyway; especially when it comes to someone else playing with his python with sharp tools – it’s far easier just to buy a flash car.

I was driving to work this morning and some idiot in a late model Holden was tailgating me down the hill. He then detoured to take a slightly longer route at high speed so that he could emerge from a side street slightly ahead of me down the road and cut me off.

Let’s face it. He was a massive tool with a micro tool inside a massive tool.

And it then occurred to me that everyone’s driving behaviour is different. And I began to wonder: What if people drive like they make love?

Boy racers in their Subarus, fluorescents, mags and twin-turbo engines. These are young guys effectively masturbating in public. They “dress up” and “go out” hoping for some “easy action”. They are car sluts. Sexually Transmissioned Diseases out there hogging the beds of our roads. And if they don't score, they'll get it done themselves.

Other guys will just be rude about it. These are the one-night-standers. They haven’t been caught out enough to improve their behaviour; so they cut you off at intersections, indicate when they remember, and – while less speed-freaked than the STDs – have no real regard for the speed limit. They might even have a late model BMW they keep in a garage and only drive at weekends.

If you get one of these guys in a relationship, he will steal the covers at night, never remember your birthday and dump you when he's reached your credit limit.

Fortunately, many drivers are family guys. They might have some bad habits, but overall they obey the road rules. The well-trained ones are happy to wait just that moment longer at an intersection to improve your day. The generous lovers who want to reach their destination, but also have regard for the comfort of their passengers. They love their car and take time to keep it well maintained without obsessing about it.

[I try to be that guy... try... haha]

Women? Well, my theory might apply there, too. After all, insurance companies keep insisting that women are better drivers than men. I think it could be because they’re confident they’ll get there, but time – and therefore speed – is not of any real consequence.

They're generous, too. Often unselfishly thinking of others. They'll let you in; but most of the time just to be friends.

Now, I’m painting with a fairly wide brush here. But I think it bears thinking about. And I will continue to think about it, as I sit at the lights on my way home tonight, wishing death upon the moron in the ponced up Mazda in front of me.

I Drive a Lexus ... Your Call

2009-08-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

Car names attracted my interest at the weekend.

I find it odd that people are employed to come up with names for the company’s flash new vehicle. Some of them make sense – the Suzuki Swift, for example. Mazda’s series of RX2, RX3, RX7 and RX8s all reflected that they were experimental rotary engines.

Others we just don’t really think about: Ford’s long had the Falcon, which actually has no feathers at all. Holden has a Commodore despite the vehicle not technically being a yacht.

I saw one this morning actually, it was something like a Toyota Armada Illustrious.

When I was a kid my father had a penchant for Ford Zephyrs. He liked the Mark III with its v-fins and six cylinder grunt that allowed him to roar past the Wolesleys, Consuls, Singers and other ’70s shit that used to pollute the roads.

Zephyr – a light breeze. What were they thinking? Were they referring to the six-cylinder motor’s compression? Were they referring to the hurricane which accompanied one of these monsters passing you on the open road? They had the aerodynamics of a concrete slab.

But I digress.

I had an idea at the weekend that car manufacturers should be forced to name a car after its target market.

Like instead of the Honda CR-X you’d have the Honda Hot Blonde Chick.

There would be no confusion. You wouldn’t have some misguided middle-aged accountant accidentally driving around in a Honda Hot Blonde Chick.

No, instead the car sale ads would all be for the new Subaru Suicide; the BMW 5-Series Just Made Partner; the Volvo Moderately Successful Architect; the Mitsubishi Wannabe; the Ferrari I Make Way Too Much Fucking Money; the Porsche Drug Dealer; and the Toyota My Life Is Over minivan people-mover.

Hmmm... what would you drive?

Mr Potter, I presume?

2009-08-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

The end is nigh.

No, not doomsday; I’m referring to the end of the Harry Potter film trilogy. There’s only one book (two movies' worth) of information left to hit the big screen.

What amuses me, though, is the difference between those who have read the books, and those who say: “I’ll just wait for the film to come out”.

I’ve read the books. They’re light, easy entertainment and Jess certainly knows how to twist a good plot. The last book was a great thrillride.

Did you notice the pattern though? In each of the last four books an important character was killed off: Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire; Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix; Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince; and Harry (briefly), Voldemort and a handful of others in Deathly Hallows.

People were sad when Diggory died; shocked when Black died and virtually went into mourning when Dumbledore took a terminal dive off a Hogwarts tower.

So I went to see Half-Blood Prince at the cinema last week. At the end of the film there were two distinct reactions among the audience, depending on whether they had read the book or not.

Those who had read the book: Wow, that was fun. I love how they played the teen romance thing for laughs. That was the lightest Harry Potter film in a long time.

Those who hadn’t read the book: What do you mean Dumbledore’s dead? Does he come back? That’s sooo sad. I’m just going to have a little cry.

Squeal, little piggy, squeal!

2009-08-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

There’s a new channel on my digital TV service – it’s called Wild.

Now you’d think it would be some hot music channel or maybe a teen party channel; possibly even an outback Alaska channel. Nope. This one is the hunting channel.

I watch it occasionally because it’s hilarious. Unintentionally, of course. There are great moments when a guy will be stalking a deer or something and he’ll turn to camera to explain his great plan.

“Whisper whisper!” he’ll say excitedly. “Whisper whisper whisper whisper! Whisper!”

What’s he saying? Fucked if I know. He’s whispering and there’s wind blowing across the microphone. But I’m pretty sure his intention is to try to sneak up on his prey, line up a shot, and then blow some innocent animal into its afterlife.

The funniest one was at the weekend. I have no idea what show it was, but there was this guy in full army camouflage gear – including camouflage hat and green plastic-looking combat boots.

I mean, this guy was seriously looking the part. He was an M-16 and a grenade away from invading Iran single-handed.

And he was out hunting with his mother. She was about 80 and grey-haired and also wearing full army camouflage with hat and boots to match.

They were – and I’m glad I’m typing this because I cannot say it without falling down laughing – they were out hunting wild piggies with a crossbow. It’s true!

Anyway, I watched with morbid fascination as son set-up the crossbow and aimed at the little piggies; then Mom stepped up and took the shot. Now the crossbow bolt went whizzing across the field and implanted itself right through the gut of Mr Piggy.

Mr Piggy was surprised. He thought: “Hmmm… I best get the fuck out of here!” and started trotting off as fast as his little trotters would carry him.

But it was too late, because he already had a mortal wound. Now the crossbow bolt, incredibly, at the hilt, lit up in a fluorescent red; so what I saw was a little black pig-shape and a red fluorescent blur racing across the screen.

Now Mom (who would be Mum in New Zealand, but it was an American show), turns and smiles to the camera. And son steps up and says something like: “Now, I know there’s some people out there that don’t agree with this. But I cannot think of a better mother-son activity than hunting pigs with a crossbow. I love you, Mom.”

Then they set off after the disappearing red fluorescent blur, and take Mom’s picture with the now dead Mr Piggy. I’m sure in their very non-dysfunctional way they would have cut off the leg and belly roasts and headed on home.

Then there would have been the command: “Here it is, now cook it up, bitch.”

And the response: “Yes, Mom.”

Throwing shit on TV is not OK

2009-08-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Finally, New Zealand television has crossed the line.

Now we Kiwis are a fairly liberal bunch – we have a general principle of “if nobody gets hurt, there’s no problem”, which actually extends to “if somebody gets hurt, but you’re drunk, then that’s OK too”.

My favourite radio station, The Edge, doesn’t loop, so there’s often an inadvertent “fuck” on the air. On TV there’s a “watershed” of 8.30pm, by which time any kid under 16 has technically gone to bed.

That’s when local productions unleash the hounds. Sex, drugs, violence and swearing everywhere. Hell, that’s just the newsreaders. In fact, about 15 years ago there was an infamous case of a TV news show reporting on an old guy becoming a dad, and accompanied the story with an explicit porn clip of an old guy boinking a hot girl.

I recall (but am unable to provide details) that the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) ruled that particular act a breach of its codes of broadcasting standards.

Now the BSA gets a few complaints thrown their way, mostly by the last vestiges of the Victorian morals crusaders who loudly proclaim they represent the “moral majority” when in fact they only really represent “the easily swayed weak-minded bastards who can’t be bothered arguing with a pig-headed idiot like you”.

But the BSA considers things like whether the TV station was aware of the offensive content, who the target audience was, what time it was broadcast etc.

It’s ruled on things like whether a news clip of suicide bombing was too violent for kids (it wasn’t); whether an interview with a guy who essentially thinks people should be locked up for life for littering was balanced (it wasn’t); whether showing topless women on motorcycles as news was indecent (it wasn’t).

Basically, the BSA is fairly liberal and open-minded. Three cheers.

But one of my favourite programmes has been ruled to have crossed the line. The show is called Back of the Y. It’s made on a shoe-string budget and features a couple of Kiwi blokes just being yobs. There’s various skits mixed in, such as Bottlestore Galactica and the inept stuntman Randy Cambell.

So what does it take to go “too far” on New Zealand TV? Pooman and Wees throwing shit around, and a woman eating the shit suggestively.

The complaint – made by a guy who has obviously never seen the first South Park short – included the claim that a scene depicting Jesus being beaten up by Santa Claus was a “hate crime”.

The complaint was upheld.

Now, I’m thinking that if that show was broadcast in America there’s a good chance it would bring an entire network to its knees. The phones would overload with complaints. The FCC would be throwing fines in all directions.

But it happened in New Zealand. And what was the BSA’s ruling? Well, first they noted the offending episode was a repeat screening which had attracted no complaints the first time it was shown.

Then they said they hoped the offending broadcaster would take their findings on board for next time.

Bite marks

2009-07-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

A replay of the TV series Alaska Experiment screened here recently.

It’s about a group of people who go off in different groups and spend three months living rough in an Alaskan winter. By rough, I mean they have buildings to live in, but no electricity or running water.

They’re out there arm-wrestling bears for salmon, head-butting rocks to pass the time, chasing dangerous and ravenous gangs of mussels across the bay, practising their figure skating routines and generally trying to make the muesli last the distance.

Anyway, I caught part of one episode where a couple had an encounter with a wolf. They saw it and it ran off, but circled around and came close to their cabin while they were trying to hunt it. After all, you don't want a wolf hanging around, it might sneak up on the cabin in the middle of the night and blow the whole thing down. Wolves are good with explosives you know.

But the highlight for me was the bloke involved, who insisted on calling the wolf a “woof”.

“Yeah, the woof has been prowling around, it left woof tracks here and here, and the cunning woof doubled-back and got within 30 feet of the hut there…”

Wouldn’t you be totally pissed off if you’d bought like the meanest, ugliest, most vicious guard dog in the world – rubber band around the goolies and everything – and called him Wolf. Only to have everyone start calling him Woof. And finally you gave up and started calling him Woof too...

“Woof! Time for dinner! Woof! Woof! Here boy! Woof!”

People would think you were a werewolf.

What's in a Name?

2009-07-29T13:57:00.001-07:00

Language is wonderful. One of the wonderful things about language is that words can convey feeling in a really specific way. They carry their own baggage.

Consider this: I watched Twilight at the weekend and was highly amused to find the vampires in the Twilight world, when exposed to sunlight, sparkled. They were like little diamonds. Quite the accessory for a woman to wear a vampire-skin bracelet.

“Yes, it’s an Edward Collin butt-cheek original. So it’s part of the moon that sparkles in the sun…”

Anyway, this interesting piece of Stephenie Meyer inspiration got me thinking… if vampires were truly to sparkle in the sunlight, surely that would be an integral part of the myth. And if so wouldn’t the naming be different?

Would Vlad the Impaler be quite so fearsome as Vlad the Glittery? Would Dracula instil the same fear in the hearts of humanity if he had been called Mr Sparkly?

Similarly, would everyone have gone to see Jaws if it had been called Big Tuna Surprise? Or Alien if it was called The People-Eating, Stomach-Popping, Acid-Dripping Sex Toy? Actually, probably yes on the latter.

No real message here. Just choose your words carefully. Which is always a good idea.

Twilit

2009-07-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Women of all ages are still melting in lust at the sight of Robert Pattinson in the film Twilight – a film I watched for the first time at the weekend.

I have not read the books, which I accept are probably a whole lot better than the film. And I cannot criticise the film, because it was a good, solid effort. And I also liked it the other seven or eight times I’d seen bits of it in earlier films.

First, let’s take a look at Mr Pattinson. Why are women of all ages attracted to this guy? What could it be about the perfect mix of angst and danger and haircut that’s so original it hasn’t been seen since the 1950s when it was first pioneered by James Dean?

The theme music; wow, how did I know it was going to be a supernatural flick when the theme was a bastardisation of The Smiths’ How Soon is Now, which had been previously used in 1996 film The Craft and the theme music to TV series Charmed.

Now mix in a bit of Bev Hills 90210 high school drama and you’re well on the way to a hit movie about vampires at high school; a theme never before touched. Joss Whedon – the dude who created Buffy – should sue.

A young woman falling in love with a vampire? “Hello? This is Mr Whedon calling for Khan Wee Suyem & Howe…”

OK, Bella was no Buffy. Buffy could more than handle herself one-on-one with a vampire. But take away her powers and we’re back to Twilight.

There’s that touching scene where Bella and Angel, er Edward, are together and Edward says: “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb”. How romantic. It’s a misquote of a misquote from the Bible (Isaiah 11:6) where it is popularly reported as: “…and the lion shall lay down with the lamb.” In honesty that particular passage says the wolf and the lamb should be together (which really messes with the Twilight story when you think about it), and the lion is destined to lie with the calf. Not so romantic if Edward says: “And so the lion fell in love with the cow”.

All that aside, a lion lying down with a lamb? In the biblical sense? That’s definitely in the “Thou shalt not!” category, people. And I think any pervert lion that tried it would do that lamb some serious physical damage in some very sensitive areas. That’s all I’m saying. Take that back to the Twilight scenario anyway you please.

Enter evil vampire James: The exact same close-up shot we’d seen of Brad Pitt in Interview With The Vampire. That was the film where Brad’s poor, brooding vampire Louis spent many miserable years eating animals instead of people on principle. My gosh, that sounds familiar.

Then there was the subtle wolves versus vampires antagonism going on which I’d been completely unaware of – at least until first seeing Underworld with Kate Beckinsale in 2003.

Anyway, enough picking the film apart. It has, after all, melted the hearts of women of all ages all over the world. Women who now plan to leave the dark, dangerous, brooding introvert they have been living with to go fall in love with a vampire.

Blog without purpose

2009-07-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

Of course the purpose here is to entertain, and hopefully I will not disappoint. But you’ll notice there’s usually a topic or focal point to my rants. Alas, not this time.

I aim to blog at least once a week, and since time is up (so to speak) this week, I felt I had to make some contribution. But nothing has pissed me off this week. I have nothing to complain about. It’s been a good week.

Wait! Don’t hit the back button on the browser just yet, because two topics did spark my interest. One was Samantha Kerby’s trials and tribulations when trying to learn about Spiritual Monism in her philosophy class; and the other was Jupiter.

In an effort to help my friend Sam, I tried to learn something about Spiritual Monism – having previously believed it was simply a description of when you pray for money.

You know the joke about the Zen master who pulls into the Subway store and says: “Make me one with everything”? That’s essentially Spiritual Monism; the belief that everything, thoughts and energy and physical reality are all part of one giant, universal fart that is even now expanding into hallways of some giant unknown where it will be inhaled by truly unsuspecting beings and possibly kill them.

That’s my new theology, incidentally, that the universe is a really bad, wet God fart that He is trying to blame on someone else. “And God saith unto the peoples of The World: `He who smelt it, dealt it’. And it was So.”

Have you noticed how the Bible puts capital letters EVERYWHERE? It’s like they’re saying: “It’s all important. But we're not sure What is Important, so we'll just Capitalise Everything that seems like Somebody might find it Important 2000 years from now.”

Except Numbers. I never could get my head around Numbers. All that begetting. It probably represents the most sex there is in the Bible and yet there was no vivid descriptions of seduction or anything. That really would have improved sales, God. You needed a better Editor.

Oh yeah, Song of Solomon is meant to be all about seduction; but it’s all romantic shit – the fig trees of wherever and hold you like a tree and your body is as a Big Mac unto the senses of Jerusalem etc etc. It never even specifies whether it’s talking about a woman or a man. It could be the greatest gay seduction scene ever written. A thought which has no doubt caused several Bible Belt readers to go into cardiac arrest.

Woah, biblical outburst. Where did that all come from? Rambling again. And I never even had a point to make about Spiritual Monism. Except that it’s not what happens when you pray for money. That's called a Lotto ticket.

Jupiter. Let’s give it a hand. As a planet all I’ve known is that it’s big. Like BIG. We’re talking like pro-wrestler ego size here. Like if King Kong had his own aircraft carrier built to scale and it contracted a bad case of giganticism big.

But Jupiter, it turns out, is also our friend. Isn’t that nice? A big tough friend in the neighbourhood who's just floating around, looking out for us. You see, Jupiter's high gravity pulls in comets and meteors and random big floaty-in-space things and hurls them off out of the solar system. It is an effective guard against inter-stellar bullies.

In fact, scientists looking for life on other planets are now initally looking for a "Jupiter" which will provide it with the necessary protection.

Without Jupiter, the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon? Well, let’s just say “is it that time of the week already?”

And here endeth the lesson. Hope you’ve been entertained and educated. Though I’m pretty sure nearly everyone knows about the Jupiter thing already. All I want to know is why didn’t you bastards tell me?

Tyred And Worn Out After A Long Sqwark

2009-07-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

John Cleese, talking about writing the sitcom Fawlty Towers with Connie Booth, said they basically took a big piece of paper and wrote down a plot outline where they essentially tortured this poor hotel owner.

They were designing Basil Fawlty’s life based on Murphy’s Law. The result was side-achingly funny.

So, in the interests of your entertainment, I shall relate my weekend tyre adventure.

I’ve had my car about 18 months and so far haven’t even had to open the boot, let alone change a tyre. That was until Saturday when I decided to go visit my nephews at my sister’s house in Mana (about half-an-hour’s drive up the coast).

I started out, but was fairly quickly aware that something was wrong. I drove about 500m and then pulled over, got out and discovered, yes, the rear left tyre was flat. Well, there was air in there, but slightly less than an asthmatic one-lunged geriatric with emphysema.

No worries, I thought: There’s a garage not far away, I’ll go there and inflate it. If it goes straight down again then I’ll just put the spare on.

So I drove slowly down to the garage, only to find that it was not only closed, but it was closed down! At this point the tyre was on its last exhausted puff. So I pulled into a car park to put the spare on.

I opened the boot and was relieved to find the spare was fully inflated. Phew. However, I was less enthused to discover that the bastard that sold me the car had neglected to leave me with a jack.

I had no choice but to drive home. Just after pulling out of the car park a woman walking past waved and pointed to the flat. I told her my predicament and she walked off.

Just as well we had this exchange, because I ended up following her about three-quarters of the way home. Eight kilometres an hour. Walking pace. About five metres behind this woman all the way. Had she not known my problem, she would have thought “Oh God! Psycho serial-killer!”

Meanwhile, I was having to wind the window down every few seconds to wave traffic through. These were quiet back streets which suddenly seemed like State Highway 1. There were cars lining up just for the view, I’m sure.

I get home and call up my nephews. One of them comes to pick me up. I go out there for the evening, and when they drop me back off they lend me a spare jack.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I’m waiting for a moment between rain squalls to get out and change the tyre. Finally I pick my moment and head out there. First things first; loosen the wheel nuts.

I get the tyre iron and take to the first nut. It won’t budge. So I end up standing on the tyre iron to get it to turn. It does. Relief. But then I cannot get the tyre iron off the nut. It’s jammed half-way around the iron’s star-shaped hole.

The wind chill factor now is -3000 degrees and it starts to rain again. I take the tyre iron and wedged nut and retreat inside. I try hammering out the nut, without luck, then reckon perhaps the way to fix it is simply to reverse what caused it.

I venture back out and sure enough, tightening the nut back up easily lets me get the tyre iron off. And so I start on nut number two. It moves with some reluctance. Nut three – like it’s welded on. Then the tyre iron gave way, allowing it to turn around the nut with only an arm-numbing clunk each time it slipped.

I called my nephew.

He kindly drove half-an-hour in to help me change the tyre in Antarctic weather. His tyre iron makes short work of the other nuts. I haul out the spare tyre. He jacks up the car.

We take the flat tyre off. We go to put the spare on… except the wheel hub is too low. The car needs to be jacked higher. But the jack is now leaning at an awkward angle. Jack it up any further and the whole car could come down on us.

We put the flat tyre back on and lower the car. Then we put the nuts back on and I roll the car back to more solid ground. (Did I mention that we were trying to do this on a hill? The nearest flat ground being about 200m away.)

Eventually – third try – we managed to jack up the car. It went fairly smoothly from there; flat tyre off, spare tyre on, everything good. Though now I have to find the money to get the flat fixed, buy a tyre iron and a new jack.

Many thanks to my nephew, Anthony, for his help. I’m sure the dose of hypothermia we both gained from the experience won’t be fatal. Seriously, it took me over an hour to warm up again after the adventure, and another three hours before I was anywhere near approaching “hot”.

So, please, take this moment to salute my ineptitude.

A very sensitive subject

2009-07-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I saw a programme about an issue that I really think it needs nipping in the bud. So to speak.

There was a documentary on TV about the increasing number of women having cosmetic surgery on their vaginas. Writer/presenter Lisa Rogers was curious about this trend and asked the simple question: WTF!

I’d read a preview of the show where Rogers quoted her father on the subject: “The thing is, Liz, if you’ve got a house you want to do up for a prospective buyer, you don’t start by decorating the cellar.”

There was one 21-year-old woman who had a chunk cut off her labia because her sister started spreading rumours her vagina was, well, excessive. This led to the woman being teased by blokes about labial inadequacy.

To paraphrase Jesus: Let he who hath more than two inches cast the first stone.

Anyway, the procedure was shown in full on the documentary and Lisa made the pre-cut comment: “Looks pretty normal to me”.

I agreed.

What I also found curious was that, in watching this programme, there was a lot of huhu on screen and I was watching with a kind of clinical detachment. There was no sense of getting jollies or anything like that.

So Liz talked to some male mates, who said pretty much that it’s not something men even think about. In fact, in the whole programme, it was only one arsehole toothless painter who said: “I like giving oral sex, so it’s important to me what it looks like”.

I guess you can afford to be that picky if you’re having to pay for every sexual encounter.

Anyway, I just wanted to reassure any women reading this, on behalf of sane hetero men everywhere – we really don’t care. If it’s clean and accessible, we are more than happy.

I have never, ever been in a group of men where the conversation has turned to labial proportions. There has been a lot of sexist and off-colour conversation, but never has this particular issue been at issue.

Generally, I think men just consider it an honour to be gazing upon one. It’s almost at a genetic level that a voice says: “Let’s not go looking a gift horse in the huhu.”

Simply: You don’t go to Disneyland and say: “I’m going home, I don’t like the colour of the gate.”

Ashton – Please Stop The Bloodshed

2009-06-30T13:37:00.001-07:00

One of the interesting phenomena I’ve encountered on Twitter is the whole celebrity thing.

Celebrities sign up to Twitter, allegedly, to “get close to the fans”. And some celebrities are really into the whole Twitter thing. They will tweet quite a lot throughout the day.

Now I do appreciate that they have a lot of followers and will often have hundreds of responses to each tweet. But the ultimate effect is that most of their followers are left with the distinct impression they are being ignored.

I’ve devised various tactics for generating a response from the celebs, with minimal success. A weak joke about paparazzi prompted Lindsay Lohan to tell me to fuck off and die.

Kirsty Alley responded to a tweet gently complaining about her typing in caps all the time by claiming it was a sign of intelligence. I unfollowed her, stating at the time that she seemed to be the only celebrity using Twitter to become less popular with fans.

My latest attempt to provoke a response was to tell Ashton Kutcher that he was the only person now capable of stopping the civil war in New Zealand.

He ignored me.

Now the New Zealand Civil War doesn’t get a lot of publicity. In fact, hardly anybody knows about it. That’s because it’s being bitterly waged in the hearts and minds of… well… me.

Yet, according to Statistics New Zealand, 80 people a day are dying in New Zealand. And because it’s a civil war, these people can be claimed as casualties of war. That’s closing in on 600 people a week; or over 2200 a month – 29,000 a year.

And all Ashton Kutcher has to do is tweet that the New Zealand civil war is over and the bloodshed can stop. A truce will be declared and my multiple personalities can go back to living in peace.

Eighty people a day is an awful karmic burden to bear, Mr Kutcher, sir. I urge you end the conflict now.

Peace.

Sleepyhead thinks you're an idiot

2009-06-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

One thing I really hate; I mean I loathe, as in bring on the bamboo shoot manicure despise is advertisers who think you are stupid.

They want you to purchase their product with your hard-earned cash but they also, in their ads, demonstrate that they think you are a moron.

In New Zealand there’s one company that is like fingernails on the blackboard every time I hear their jingle. This is odd, because I have absolutely no problem with the company or their products… just their ads.

The company is Sleepyhead. They make beds.

Their ads all start with a jingle they’ve had for years, where some guy cheerily sings: “Now you don’t buy a bed every day…”

There used to be a whole song, but that’s gone by the way. The announcer then cuts in with the mattress of the week specials etc.

The ads end with the end of the jingle: “…you can sleep on it!”

Brainless condescending bastards they are.

“Now you don’t buy a bed every day.” Think about it. Could there be a more bloody obvious statement?

"OH MY GOD! LOOK! The sky isn't falling!"

Or possibly:

*Yawn* *Stretch* Well, that was a good night’s sleep, I’ll just hit the bed destruction button and Sleepyhead will deliver a new one this afternoon. Not that there’s anything wrong with this one, it was brand new yesterday, but hey, I buy a bed every day.

What a waste. Thank God we have Sleepyhead to prevent such scenarios by warning us not to buy a bed every day, despite it being to their obvious economic advantage. Oh crap, my sarcasm meter just went off the dial.

So we come to the end of the ad: “You can sleep on it!”

WTF? That’s like trying to sell a new car by saying: “You can drive it!”

Here, buy the new Porsche 911 Carrera – it has four wheels, a motor and look, even a steering wheel. The driver sits here, in the driver’s seat, and uses these controls to make the car go brmmmm brrmmmm.

So Sleepyhead – a little heads up (so to speak). The only time I’ll be caught sleeping on one of your mattresses is if your ads give me a brain aneurism and I have no choice.

The Curse of Miscasting

2009-06-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

I watched a film last night called Hero Wanted. I’m hoping you haven’t seen it or know anything about it because I want you to take a little test.

Put your casting director’s hat on.

Now, the plot is fairly twisty-turny but follows certain must-haves of the action-drama genre. There’s the protagonist who’s basically a nobody at the start but then ends up in a violent showdown gun battle with a gang of bank robbers at the end.

The hard drinking protagonist’s name is Liam Case. His brother Dylan is dead, and when we see the cemetery scene we also see his mother’s name was Marie. The woman in his life is named Kayla McQueen.

Although it’s never overt, you get the feeling Liam’s the good Irish Catholic type when he says the Lord’s Prayer before heading off for the final showdown.

This is after Liam’s learned the shooting and killing ropes from his dear old dead dad’s best friend, Gill. Gill has an English accent so I was picking him as former SAS.

Now, with these story points in mind who would you pick to play Liam?

I was watching the film and thinking: “This was written for Colin Farrell. Only it’s so badly directed he wouldn’t have had a bar of it.”

It was just a little too by-the-numbers to attract Farrell, I think. I posed the question to a workmate who suggested maybe Ben Affleck or Matt Damon?

In fact, the closest he got to the truth was when he jokingly suggested Jackie Chan.

Liam Case was played by Cuba Gooding Jr.

He tried. Oh God he tried to show that he’s got an Oscar at home. But what are you to do with a story that’s so blatantly written for someone else? Well, maybe change a few character names for a start.

Bring in a director who has a knack for telling a story. And a real vision; not just some vague semblance of an idea of how to set up a confusing end-of-story shootout.

So, if you want to watch a severely badly miscast film; try to find Hero Wanted. The title is oddly appropriate.

Tribute to a hot extra

2009-06-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

I’m quite a fan of the theatre sports TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

It apparently originated as a British radio show which became a popular British TV show, hosted by Clive Anderson. It was then revived by Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles in America where it ran for about six seasons, rating reasonably well.

Producers loved it. It cost nothing to produce but was very funny.

But for me, one of the funniest things about the show was the American TV producers’ subtle manipulation of who’s visible on camera.

If you look behind Drew Carey as he’s seated at the desk, there’s inevitably about three super-model hot women sitting among the audience. There's never an uggo on screen. They all look like they've just stepped from the pages of some Anorexia Today glossy.

For the UK version; look behind Clive Anderson and it looks like a selection of rejects from a genetics research laboratory – all glasses, teeth and Adam’s apples. And that’s just the women.

It works in theory; people expect to see only attractive people on TV unless it's 60 Minutes or Jerry Springer. But there is a risk. In one episode of the American show there was one woman who was so hot… like a young Denise Richards on a good hair day hot… that I completely lost track of the show.

I was sitting there saying: “Just hurry up and finish the hoe-down and cut back to the hot girl!”

I was nearly in tears of regret when that episode ended. I had been briefly in love. Or at least infatuated.

So here’s to you hot girl over Drew Carey’s shoulder. Gone but not forgotten.

I’m Ready for My Close-Up Now, Mr Muhammad

2009-06-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

I watched a couple of movies at the weekend that are part of the new Hollywood genre – Mr Smith Goes to Baghadad.

These tend to be political dramas where the American armed services or covert operations units are called in to sort out problems in the Arab world and make the point that, well, nothing is particularly clear-cut.

It really is a terribly ambiguous area and there is no simple answer. There are religious and political and economic interests all colliding from all social strata to create an effective chaos. This is something Hollywood generally doesn't take to; except when there’s a buck to be made or a message to be pushed.

I guess Hollywood has this thing where the latest conflict is fodder for new movies. I’ve been amazed at how many World War 2 films were made in 1942 or 1943. I mean, they weren’t even sure at that point who was going to win; but they were busy churning out their patriotic promos.

It’s more discerning now. The two films I watched at the weekend, Rendition and Body of Lies each featured what I like to call EAS (or, Exploding Arab Syndrome). This can easily be translated as: In any street on the Persian Gulf, when the cameras are rolling, and there is a crowd, then there shall be a suicide bombing.

Stereotypical? Of course not. Because everybody knows that: In any street in Los Angeles, when the cameras are rolling, and there are Hispanics, then there shall be a drive-by shooting.

In any street in New York, when the cameras are rolling, and there are people, then there shall be a mugging.

In any part of New Zealand, when the cameras are rolling, and there are mountains, then there shall be hobbits.

These are all well established cinematic facts. Inevitably some acronym agency (the CIA, the NSA, the FBI or BKSB – the Burqa King Special Branch) is sent in to sort things out.

They discover that there is one featured Islamic terrorist who’s responsible for it all, and who is deluding all his followers to make them blow themselves up. They track Bad Muhommad down and arrest him. Which is where the story ends.

Except that the story doesn’t end there, because the interrogation, torture and murder of the Islamic terrorist chief and the retribution of his followers is sadly omitted. Such are the muddy waters of Hollywood plots in the Arab world.

Either way, the good guys win out at the end. With no one questioning why the Americans are getting their feet and reputations dirty in Iraq in the first place when it was their allies in Jordan who helpfully provided most of the 9/11 terrorists.

Do I have a point here? Um, not really. Basically I’m just rambling about how Hollywood has embraced the Persian Gulf as a setting for political action thrillers. Which really only serve to whitewash a complex political-economic-religious situation with plots so simple a blind wombat could follow them.

If Hollywood wanted to do some serious damage to the Nation of Islam, to really bring it crying to its knees begging for mercy, there’s really only one sure-fire way to do it – Ishtar 2.

`I'll be back... again and again and again.'

2009-05-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

You can’t terminate a good franchise.

When James Cameron had that famous fevered dream about a robot that had been sent from the future to kill him, don’t you just wish that he’d taken an aspirin and gone back to sleep?

Granted, Terminator was a great film. And Terminator 2: Judgement Day was equally good. But by the time T2 came up, movie producers were blinded by the dollar signs Arnie and co were producing.

There’s a key fact from the first Terminator film – the robots were losing the war. The humans were closing in and there was only just enough time for Skynet to send a single Terminator back in time to kill John Connor’s mother.

Since then, Terminators have been sent back in time at an alarming rate. It’s like they’re lining up to be sent back. And they’ve all FAILED! What is their programming language like?

10 Kill local and steal clothes
20 Track down primary target
30 Kill anyone who gets in your way
40 Let primary target escape in spectacular fashion at least once
50 Shoot people and blow shit up
60 Get destroyed in idiotic but impressive way
70 Go to 10

Does Skynet not think: Shit, maybe I should just send two Terminators back to the period of the first film? That way Sarah Connor could be killed off and we’ll end this sick fucking franchise before it gets going?

And, because it’s Skynet, a computer rather than a person, it won’t give a damn about how much money is not being made off the deal.

North Korea – nuclear armed nutters.

2009-05-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

Now nuclear warfare has always had its share of nutters. Right from day one. Apparently the scientists who detonated the first nuclear warhead believed there was a 25 per cent chance it would ignite the atmosphere and basically turn the Earth into a mini sun. That's a one-in-four chance. But they went ahead with it anyway.

Development of the atom bomb by America was helped by Britain and France on condition the Americans share the technology. Seriously, give the bomb to France? The nutter factor in action again. The French then proceeded to blow up half the fucking south Pacific just to prove the bomb worked.

"Mon dieu! Does this thing still work? [BOOM!] Oui! It does! How about now? [LE BOOM!] Oui, it still works. What about now? etc"

Russia stole the German scientists working on the Nazi bomb and developed the technology themselves. And China just up and stole everything, which the allies couldn't get really upset about because, well, once a country goes nuclear, you have to treat them nice. Because one nuclear bomb in the wrong place can create a rather big mess. And, as already stated, there's always nutters in control. Which is just the factor North Korea counts on.

The world's nuclear arsenal is now so big and in the hands of so many nutters that it's truly amazing we've gone 60 years without someone "accidentally" blowing up some tourist hotspot somewhere.

"The names that will go down in history; Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Cancun..."

India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers. Thankfully they seem to prefer blowing each other up on a face-to-face basis (and I think there's a lot of UN and US bribery and threatening going on behind the scenes just to keep the nuclear warheads off the table).

I honestly believe George W Bush stopped short of starting a nuclear war only because he couldn't actually find the right button. "Dick, it says nuclear holocaust on the button, but all I ever get is a pepperoni pizza delivered."

Now North Korea is a nuclear power. Unfortunately, these guys are unhinged at the best of times. They'll send a nuclear warhead into America with the view that it will deter the United States from taking any further action against them. Their whole basis of developing the bomb seems to be: "We need it for protection from the United States and other foreign aggressors who so blatantly haven't attacked us since the Communist uprisings of the late 1940s."

Um, yes, and when was the last time North Korea was invaded? Well, there's only South Korea, the United States and China who could now pose any threat to them. South Korea being on the other side of about 30 trillion anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, and China being North Korea's only real ally. The United States really just can't be bothered. I mean, why attack North Korea? It would be like a heavily armed Sumo wrestler attacking a kindergarten class. Besides the US is already too busy cleaning up its messes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But this latest North Korean detonation has even pissed China off. I rather suspect Kim Jong Il will be called on by members of the Chinese military who will utter the Chinese phrase equivalent of: "Pull your head in, Noddy."

I suspect Mr Kim is just pissed off that South Park keep hassling him. But it's so hard not to make fun of him. He's a complete loon, just like his dad. The problem is that now he's a nuclear armed loon. The latest in a long line of nutters with a nuclear bomb, just looking for an excuse to set it off.

Let's take another look at the Doomsday Clock, shall we?

Why I hate commercial radio but love The Edge

2009-05-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

My car stereo died.

I can’t afford to replace it right now, so have to make do with what I’ve got. What I’ve got is a CD player that no longer accepts CDs, a radio set to Japanese frequencies and a tape deck.

I don’t know if the tape deck works … I haven’t owned a tape in about 10 years.

Fortunately, my radio does just manage to pick up one station – Classic Hits 90FM. So I listen to that on my drive home, and each day pull into the car port saying a silent prayer of thanks to the best radio station in the world: The Edge.

Classic Hits is a reminder of everything that is wrong with commercial radio.

First and foremost, the commercials. There’s thousands of them, all running back-to-back and only occasionally interrupted by DJs and “classic” hits.

Why did he put the word classic in quote marks, you ask? Well, these are, almost without fault, songs that I hated the first time around. There are current songs I don’t like, mixed with a healthy dose of middle-of-the-road has-beens. I would give examples but I tend to mentally block them out.

Then the DJ has one piece of trivia a day which he/she will tease for hours.

“Which famous rock star loves flashing their breasts? Have a think about it and keep listening. I’ll tell you soon.”

Twenty minutes later: “Do you flash your breasts in public? I know a rock star that does. That’s coming up next.”

Ten minute break for ads. Another tease. Crap pop song that reached Number 31 on the charts on the back of high-rotation airplay in 1981. More ads. Turns out the breast flasher was Meat Loaf.

By this time, of course, I have deliberately crashed my car into a brick wall at high speed just to get some relief from the brain-dead inanity of the radio.

In the mornings I listen to The Edge on my small transistor radio. Now The Edge is pretty close to being the number one rating station (on average) throughout the whole country. It also broadcasts online.

First up, I want to say that I’m not a great fan of the playlist. But it’s a Top 40 station and nobody is ever going to like everything that’s in the Top 40. On the other hand, when they play “classic” hits, they play bands like Pearl Jam and Harvey Danger. Great stuff.

Two minute ad breaks. And not between every single segment. Need I say more?

Interesting gossip or bit coming up? We’ll have that about 7.30 this morning. More Scandal with Jay-Jay Feeney coming up at 10-to-eight. Of course they have teasers, but they tend to tease something like an interview that’s coming up “on Tuesday next week”.

Multiple DJs who totally take the piss; rather than a single DJ battling boredom with his one piece of lame-arse trivia.

The Morning Madhouse; the award winning (and sometimes just nominated) breakfast show.

Dom Harvey – no one person should be this anarchically funny. A ball of blokish attitude with a punchline for every occasion. A man who knows where the line between hilariously funny and inappropriate is (and it’s usually just behind him).

Jay-Jay Feeney – Dom’s long-suffering wife and the voice of reason on the show. She is thankfully out-voted on objection to many of the show’s more outrageous ideas. But even then she ensures everyone is aware of her opinion. An incredible sense of fun tempered by an innate sense of responsibility.

And Mike Puru – the ambiguous one. The straight man … maybe. It’s the eternal question, actually; is he gay or is he straight? I know; but I’m not telling. The funny thing being, though, that it doesn't actually matter. We'd love him either way. Does he really smoke that much weed? Generally he's a good bloke and we're sure he'll worm his way back on TV one day. Once he learns that "b" is not a vowel. Kia-ora, mate.

Later in the day you get Fletch and Vaughan. Twin towers of insanity (who would welcome terrorist attacks).

So, really, I’m just taking this moment to voice my appreciation for The Edge. You keep me sane rather than driving me insane. Thank you.

I must be cool – they bleeped me

2009-05-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well that just ___ing ___sses me off.

As a journalist I’m a user and defender of the English language (all examples to the contrary). But I do seriously object to its abuses.

Look, I can put up with people’s misspellings, the misplaced apostrophes, and hell, even the textifying of the language. But what I hate more than people being “offended” at swear words is those who manipulate this offence to make their non-swearing look cooler.

Now, before I go further, I want to say that I have no objection to swearing. I don’t swear a lot myself; and when I do it’s usually ABOUT something rather than AT something. I think that’s a big factor in the offence stakes.

What amuses me is that America – producer of 90 per cent of the internet’s pornography, where on average 81 people a day die from gunfire – considers itself the great upholder of language morals.

These days they will bleep out anything. Hell, you can’t even say “asses” on American TV without it being bleeped out.

But what is worse is the bleeping out of perfectly non-offensive words, so that it seems as if the person swore; thus making them seem cooler in the eyes (and ears) of the audience.

The most blatant example of this is a promo ad for Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. It features a line from presenter Jamie Hyneman where he says: “I love it when we blow s(bleep) up.”

Now you’d think they were bleeping out the word “shit”. Because some people still find any reference to bowel movements offensive (instead of just, maybe, inappropriate).

Yet they leave in just enough of the word so that if you’re listening carefully you’ll hear not the word “s(bleep)t” but “s(bleep)f”. Meaning he’s said: “I love it when we blow stuff up”, and they’ve bleeped out the word “stuff”. Just so that he sounds cooler.

How fucked up is that?

Of course rappers have been doing it for years. And I laughed out loud the first time I heard Fall Out Boy singing: “this ain’t a scene it’s a god (blank) arms race”. They’ve bleeped out “damned”? Should they maybe have said "gosh darned"? Take us all back to the 1950s?

Now, you show me the modern six-year-old who has never in his or her life heard the word “fuck” and I’ll completely back down. But personally, I think we have bigger things in this world to worry about than being offended by swear words; which, like it or not, are a legitimate part of our language.

Although, I stress here, swearing should always be ABOUT stuff, not AT stuff – particularly people. That is the line of offensiveness I don’t think you should cross. Though it’s a bit of a lame arse one anyway; I mean, if you want to insult someone verbally, use your imagination and come up with something that doesn’t need swear words. Swear words in an insult are cheap and lower the user in the eyes of the linguist.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. I’ll leave the last word to those heroes of New Zealand folk music; Flight of the Conchords, who recognised the stupidity of it all years ago.

Counting the wrinkles

2009-05-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I turn 41. Scary.

Well, not that scary. The older I get the less I feel like it matters how old I’m getting; which for some reason was very important when I was younger.

You try to tell a five-year-old that the difference between five and six doesn’t really matter. Or tell a 14-year-old that anywhere from 15-19 is pretty much all the same – everyone functions in two modes; embarrassed and horny, and sometimes both at once.

In the 20s though you begin to notice that age doesn’t really matter that much. That’s because you’re now old enough to do stuff. Vote, have sex, buy porn, get into pubs, get drunk, drive a vehicle, fly a plane etc. The only thing you’re not old enough to do is get a senior citizen’s card; and you’re alright with that.

Then you hit 30 and think: “Oh fuck. My life is over.” But it’s not. Because really you’re just 25 with some experience and a few decent lessons under your belt. Hell, even if you double your age you’re still only 60, and that’s not even retirement age anymore.

Having said that, a guy I once knew told me that he hit 30 and couldn’t cope. He drank solidly for a month. Every time he sobered up he thought: “Oh God, I’m 30!” and got drunk again. Eventually he got used to the idea; though he was never really happy about it, even as an angry grey-haired man in his 50s.

At 35 you’re starting to admit that your 20s are really in the past. But take heart, you’re not 40 yet!

Then you are. And you wake up and you’re 40 and you think: “Well, I don’t feel any different to how I felt yesterday. I guess 40 can’t be all bad.”

This is how I feel now: a year on from the 40 tragedy – when my presents no longer consisted of bourbon, joke porn and heavy metal, but rather a succession of book vouchers.

I’m 41. Well, no, not till sometime tomorrow. Shit, I’m still 40, which is practically in my 30s, which is near as fuck to 28, right? Tomorrow I suspect I will have only one thing on my mind: Thank God for bourbon.

This post brought to you by...

2009-05-07T13:58:00.001-07:00

Sponsorship is an interesting concept.

I remember a former TV presenter once giving a strongly-worded speech condemning the levels of advertising on network television. He made the point that advertising has never improved the quality of anything it has been attached to.

Not that I support that idea; working for a company that lives and dies by its advertising levels. I say advertise away! Please! And newspaper advertising is just so wonderful. It doesn’t interrupt anything, it doesn’t flash at you, and you don’t have to click on it to make it bugger off. It’s just the best advertising ever.

Anyway, it’s interesting how advertising infiltrates so many aspects of day-to-day life. It can be fun spotting the product placement in movies. This has been going on for years; hell, there’s Pepsi product placement in Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

But that had a lot to do with the back stage feud between the two co-stars.

That said, I became aware today of another insidious little sponsorship deal going on.

In a previous blog I mentioned the rules of cricket and the Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition; primary sponsor DLF – some sort of building company in India, I think.

In cricket when you hit the ball out of the ground on the full you get an automatic six runs. The commentators usually drool at this: “Oh, that’s a lovely shot, and that’s gone for six” or “And that’s six! Over the member’s stand and into the car park” or “A beautiful stroke there and it’s gone 10 rows back for six”.

Except now they all say: “And that’s a DLF maximum!”

Pardon? WTF is a DLF maximum? Well, of course I know, but why are you rebranding the sport with this sort of insidious crap? Where will it all end?

Which got me thinking: where else might you find such future sponsorship?

“…and the ball’s been passed to Ritchie McCaw and he’s over! Oh, that’s a lovely Big Mac five pointer by the All Blacks captain…”

“…that’s a swing and a hit and he’s made it to KFC country chicken first base…”

“…Beckham shoots, it’s a beautiful shot and yes! It’s a Vodafone magic point!”

Pigs in a blanket

2009-05-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

Some school kids from New Zealand visited Mexico recently, and brought back a souvenir that kick-started a worldwide media beat-up; namely, the Swine Flu virus.

Now this really is a case of the media following a pattern of: “Panic first, ask questions later”.

TV news channels had reporters standing outside everywhere announcing that nothing was happening yet, but dammit they were ready for when it did.

So, here’s the deal. People have been getting the flu for years. No biggie, right? Stay in bed for a few days, watch the soaps and croak down the phone to your mates. Chicken soup and orange juice topped off with paracetamol.

Except that just after World War I there was an outbreak of Spanish Flu that killed millions. It was the last real global pandemic. The thing about this flu virus was that it didn’t just attack one organ of the body; it went for a full-on systems meltdown. It attacked everything until the whole body shut down.

Well, the Swine Flu is from this same family of viruses. Hence the media frenzy. Although the modern media – watered down by many years of editorial cost-cutting – completely failed to make this point.

That said, there’s Tamiflu for anyone who sneezes and it seems most people’s immune systems are having little problem handling Swine Flu anyway.

But can you say “paranoia”? Egypt promptly decided to kill all its pigs. Afghanistan quarantined the country’s only pig. China quarantined its Mexicans. The Philippines ordered that all sick people stay away from pigs.

Anyway, as long as idiots are busy over-reacting, I feel fully comfortable sharing with you the better Swine Flu jokes I’ve either made up or picked up off Twitter.

- They said pigs would fly before America would elect a black president. Obama’s in office for 100 days … swine flu.

- Swine flu kills 90 people worldwide and people wear face masks in the airport. HIV kills 20 million a year and people still don't wear condoms.

- Breaking news: The Muppets have been released from quarantine. There were fears Miss Piggy had contracted swine flu, but it turned out she just had a frog in her throat.

- So if someone isolated the swine flu virus and combined it with avian flu virus - would you get flying pig flu?

- If you get swine flu, but only a small dose, would it be guinea pig flu?

- Did you know: The Greeks believe the origin of Swine Flu is that one of Odysseus's men whom Circe turned into a pig had a cold.

- I heard Kermit the Frog died from the swine flu. His last words: “That pig told me she was clean!”

- Ah-ah-ah-aah-OINK! … uh-oh.

You, believe me, me you. Me. Damn.

2009-04-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

I make my living at language – primarily English; which is fortunate, because I don’t actually have any other languages hiding up my sleeve.

Early in life I found a love of writing, but fell asleep in the English classes when the teacher tried to tell me about sentence structure. Verbs, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, proverbs(?); generally, I still have to look up the meanings.

But I love the language. I love playing with words and meanings and twisting things in strange and unusual new directions.

Now, my point – and I do have one – is that some phrases in English just do my head in. Everyone knows what they mean, so the fact they don’t make any sense never seems to be an issue. Unless you’re like me and have a brain that slams on the brakes and goes “what the bloody hell was that?”

One phrase in particular gets me every time. It is grammatically correct according to 1600s phraseology, but actually only started being used in the early 1900s. It’s this – believe you me.

What?

Now my father used this phrase often. Except he had no real education so made it fit by adding an extra word – “believe you and me”. Which kind of made sense. It works in the “we have both reached an agreement on this point and believe it, and you should too” way.

But later in life I discovered my dad had put me wrong (as he did in so many ways – “Yes, Davy Crockett was real, but Daniel Boone was just made up” being just one example).

The true phrase was: “Believe you me”. Which is technically correct on the old verb-subject-object stage, but not on the modern subject-verb-object platform. But it’s just so out of place.

It’s not even like Shakespeare wrote it and it stuck. No, apparently it didn’t even turn up in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1926. This made me think maybe it was originally a proper phrase, but it got damaged in the trenches during the First World War.

It was originally something like: “I believe you should come with me”. But it was hit by shrapnel and the field surgeons had to do some emergency editing; lopping off some words so it ended up just: “believe you me”.

It limps into the English language (first recorded use in 1919), bruised and bleeding. But it recovered well and became instilled as part of day-to-day speech. I’m not saying we should get rid of it, but just ask that you be aware of it and see if it starts doing your head in as it has mine.

So, believe you me, the point is made.

All lit up

2009-04-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

I’m taking a moment to mourn the loss of one of the best symbols of protest.

Here in New Zealand, every November 5, we commemorate Guy Fawkes’ night. This is a throwback to our colonial past. There was a guy back in 1605 who tried to blow up the English houses of Parliament. He was caught in a tunnel below Parliament with barrels of gunpowder and a long fuse.

Militant Catholic, he was. Tortured, he was. Gave up everyone, he did. Hung, drawn and quartered, he was. That’s the Yoda summary.

(In case you didn’t know the “drawn” part of the execution involved having his intestines “drawn” from his body, while he was still conscious, and burned in front of him. Ouch.)

So, every November 5 the bonfires are built and the fireworks come out. Oddly enough the celebration of Guy Fawkes’ night was ordered by the Government of the day as a warning to all the militant Catholics not to try to blow up Parliament.

Right up until the 1970s it was common to see kids building a straw “Guy” to throw on the bonfire. In Britain kids go around seeking a “penny for the Guy” so they can dose up on sugar before the bonfire.

Which brings me to my point: Burning the Guy was a burning in effigy. And right up until the 1900s it was popular to burn unpopular people in effigy.

I used to live in Timaru, where one of the big moments in history was the wreck of the Benvenue. It was a sailing ship that was caught in heavy seas on a fine day with no wind. It ran aground against the cliffs which were to bear its name.

The Harbour Master of the day led a rescue effort which was mostly successful. Unfortunately, the rescue boat was upturned by the seas a couple of times and some people drowned. The Harbour Master saved as many as he could before he crawled from the sea, totally exhausted, and promptly dropped dead.

Consequently the Harbour Board ruled that the whole thing was the Harbour Master’s fault (in that “blame the dead hero” mentality committees are renowned for).

As a consequence the people of Timaru came out and burned in effigy the entire Harbour Board.

It must have been a sight. “Hey, Bruce! Bruce! We’re burning you in effigy! That’s right; you are so unpopular right now that we made a big straw doll of you which we’re now setting light to.”

These days you’d probably have to get a fire permit to burn someone in effigy. And you’d need fire extinguishers nearby. And even then, what if the burning effigy accidentally set light to something else? How much damage could a burning effigy do?

How would you feel if someone burned you in effigy and your effigy fell over and set light to an orphanage, and the orphanage was next to a stable? So your effigy was responsible for panicked and burned little children and horses. Wouldn’t you feel some sort of responsibility for that?

And the person who lit the effigy could blame you! “If Lindsay hadn’t been such an asshole to begin with, I never would have burnt him in effigy and this whole disaster would never have happened.”

So, that’s my tribute to effigy burning. Next up: Voodoo dolls, what would happen if you burnt them in effigy?

Yes, it's about cricket – no, I promise it's not boring

2009-04-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

This is a public service announcement for all you sports lovers. Particularly the Americans, who love “all sports” with the definition of “all” being golf, tennis, basketball, NFL, ice hockey, volleyball and soccer.

New Zealand is primarily a rugby nation. But that’s a winter game. We don’t really watch baseball. It’s boring, we say. You stand there and watch nine innings of guys swinging bats –or not swinging bats – and seldom, if ever, making it even to first base. At the end of the game only three runs have been scored. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.

But, responds Mr American, what about cricket? Four days standing around watching some guy throw a ball at a guy holding a tree trunk. The batter blocks the ball, nothing happens and the crowd applauds! Four days, and often nobody wins. And we can never understand the rules anyway.

Well, I say… um, good point.

Recently, however, a new form of cricket has emerged. It’s called Twenty20. The professional Indian Premier League (IPL) has bought up top cricket players from all over the world to take part in their series, now being played in South Africa. [For some reason India was considered too dangerous… so they opted to move the whole operation to South Africa… which to me is a bit like seeking shelter from the sun by hiding in an active volcano.]

Anyway the IPL games last only about three hours and can be very exciting; but only if you understand how the game is played.

Here's a quick outline:

Basically, in the middle of the field is a strip of carefully prepared ground called a “pitch”. This ground has been meticulously prepared. If it was a pet it would be Paris Hilton’s poodle.

At each end of the pitch are three sticks of wood sticking up; these are singularly known as wickets and collectively known as "the wicket”; they have two small “bales” perched on top.

A batter is sent out to guard one end of the wicket. The other team’s bowler throws the ball down the pitch. If the ball hits the wicket the batter is out. If the batter hits the ball and it’s caught on the full, he’s out. If the ball hits his leg and the umpire decides that, if his leg hadn’t been there, it would have hit the wicket, then the batter is out.

Once the batter is out; that’s it. No return. Ten batters to a team. Each batter, ironically, is also referred to in a general sense as a wicket. Look, just don’t ask why, OK?

Now the object for the batters is not just to guard the wicket, but to run between them. Kind of a “neener neener” to the team in the field. The winning team is the one with the most runs at the end of the game. To encourage the batters to take risks, if they hit the ball to the boundary, they automatically get four runs. If they hit it out on the full (a home run in baseball) they get an automatic six runs.

But if the ball stays in play, gets thrown back to the wicket and knocks the bales off without the batter there, then the batter is out. This is called a run-out. Essentially this is decided by whether they have the bat within a small box area in front of the wicket called the "crease". Don't ask.

Now, the bowler throws the balls in sets of six. Each set of six is called an “over”. IPL games have 20 overs per side. Typically, each side sends out its heavy hitters first, but they then also meet the other team’s best bowlers.

Traditional cricket has unlimited overs. They just keep bowling the ball until it starts raining or they run out of batters or the bowler’s arm falls off. With limited overs the pressure is on from the start. Because only 120 balls are bowled by each side in Twenty20, the batter really has to make the most of each one. This means he’s more likely to take risks and try to make big hits (lots of fours and sixes).

This is entertaining. Especially for men (because when a four or six is scored, or a batsman goes out, scantily dressed dancing girls come out and shake their booty).

Don’t worry too much about the cricket terms. Hell, nobody knows what they mean. When the commentators talk about having someone at “silly mid-off” or at "fine leg” or “away to cover” they have no idea what they’re talking about; they’re just saying it so they’ll sound smart and get paid more.

Likewise they throw untold statistics up on screen, but the only one you should be interested in is the actual score. This is shown in two parts; how many runs have been scored, and how many wickets (batsmen) have gone out. So, 103/5 after 10 overs might be reasonable in Twenty20 (but a disaster in a test match). For the second half of the game, they will also show how many runs the team is chasing to win: "103/5 after 10 overs, chasing 183 – they need 81 runs off 60 balls, or 8 runs per over".

You might also wonder at the amount of padding the batters wear. They have leg pads and cups and helmets and giant gloves. This is because the cricket ball is rock hard and gets thrown at between 60 and 95 miles an hour.

Just as in baseball there are mind games going on. The bowler has a range of options about where on the pitch to bounce the ball – if at all – before it reaches the batter. If he puts enough spin on the ball then it could hit the ground and change direction completely. He can also determine how high it's going to bounce.

In a four day test it is all about the mind games. But in Twenty20 it’s flash, fast and fun. If you’ve got, I don’t know, ESPN11 then you might even be able to catch a few games of the IPL.

I sat down and pieced together how NFL was played and now enjoy it immensely. I can only ask you give Twenty20 cricket the same courtesy.

Now you’re talking my language

2009-04-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

New Zealanders have a distinct accent. Our trans-Tasman cuzzies like to remind us of this by insisting we say “fush und chups” and “sex” instead of “six”.

That’s OK. We can take it. Just please (and I’m going to swear here, so brace yourself) for fuck’s sake stop trying to imitate it.

The worst case lately has been on Aussie TV series Underbelly, which in its second series examines the activities of the Mr Asia drug ring in the 1970s and 1980s. The key figure in the story was a Kiwi named Terry Clark, who set up a Melbourne-based import/export business – importing heroin to Australia and New Zealand, and exporting addicts into holes in the ground.

Actress Anna Hutchison plays an important role as Alison Dine, a New Zealand kindergarten teacher who ended up running Clark’s network for a bit while he was in prison. Hutchison can pull off a Kiwi accent; primarily because she’s a Kiwi.

But Katie Wall, who plays Kiwi lawyer Karen Soich, cannot do a Kiwi accent to save herself. She sounds like an Aussie trying to do a Kiwi accent. Which she is. But what’s worse is that she sounds like an Aussie trying to do what an Aussie thinks a Kiwi accent sounds like. The result is this bastardised combination of Aussie “eeee” and Kiwi “uuuh” that is just revolting to listen to.

The thing is, if she’d just done an Aussie accent, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

An embarrassing confession here: I went to Canada in 1996 and spent two weeks in Montreal. I then spent a week in LA to do touristy things. While in LA I was in the hotel elevator and heard this small group of people talking. I had been away from South Pacific accents for a while, but this was familiar. I said: “Hey, are you guys Aussies?” and they looked at me funny and said: “Nah, mate, we’re Kiwis”.

I couldn’t tell them apart.

Ever since then I’ve maintained the difference between our accents is three weeks.

But this special message goes out to Katie Wall: If you can’t do it, don’t try. You’re right up there with Dick Van Dyke’s cockney on Mary Poppins and Meryl Streep’s “Deengo ate moi baaeybe”. Which, if Katie was doing it Kiwi, would no doubt have been: “a dungo aite muh boibbie”.

Old Zealand

2009-04-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

I live in New Zealand – for foreign readers that’s the two biggish islands just off the coast of Sydney.

Actually it’s about 1600km south-east off the coast of Sydney. And there are three main islands. The country uses its relative isolation to economic advantage in terms of keeping nasty plant diseases out; but it also affects the culture.

New Zealanders tend to be friendly and liberal. Except for those of us who are unfriendly and conservative; but we keep these people caged in an unlit basement beneath a trapdoor which is covered by a nailed-down carpet.

(Slight pause in blog writing as I notice there’s pickle on my fingernail. How did that get there?)

Anyway, New Zealand was colonised mostly after 1840, which makes it a relatively young country. Unfortunately, this also meant that when it came to nomenclature, they discovered all the good names were taken.

Hence the northern island is called North Island and the southern island is called South Island. We have a big ridge of mountains down the South Island called the Southern Alps. Various mountains of significance were named after 19th century British politicians by 19th century ship captains as they sailed past.

New Zealand itself is a pretty bland name. But we don’t mind and we don’t complain because it’s always been that way. And we don’t like change (despite this being a sentiment likely to get us locked in a cage in an unlit basement).

Anyway, the National Geographic Board has just noticed (after 170 years) that nobody officially named the north island North Island or the south island South Island.

So, now people are thinking – hmmmm… should we name them something different? Or do we reinforce our reputation for bland names by keeping these crap names?

The obvious thing is to give them Maori names. But nobody wants to do that, because the Maori names are long and difficult to remember. And honestly if it came to calling the islands Big Fish and Greenstoneland I think I’d prefer we stick with North and South islands.

What should we call them, then? Well, for any members of the Geographic Board who might be reading, here are my suggestions:

* Neil Finn and Tim Finn
* Eddie and Tenzing
* Chucken and Chups
* Rugby and Cricket
* Wine and Cheese
* Marmite and L&P

Some thoughts on Easter

2009-04-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Easter has come and gone, with its holiday, chocolate and its true origins and meanings lost in the mists of time.

Well, that’s not true; but what is interesting is the way in which we choose to celebrate Easter.

Traditionally it is celebrated at the same time as Judaism celebrates the Passover. The Passover itself being a dubious celebration of the night God killed a bunch of Egyptians just to prove an obscure point.

[Interesting aside: The Passover corresponds to the celebration of the ripening of the barley. Some scientists believe the culmination of the 10 plagues – which included frogs and gnats and flies – caused the top layers of the Egyptian grain barrels to begin fermenting corn which in turn produced a powerful neurotoxin. This, combined with the tradition of serving the first-born first; and a double helping, explains how the Egyptian first-borns all suddenly upped and died overnight.]

The Passover has since been superseded by the Christian celebration of Easter. Though we still have the "unlevened bread" (ie, hot cross buns). This is really the only date in the scheme of things that the Christians are sure about. Because Jesus was arrested just after the infamous Last Supper – the Passover feast.

As Christians would have it; Christ was nailed up on Friday, buried that night and rose again on Sunday. Which technically makes him a zombie.

But suggest this to Christians and they’re likely to get upset. Jesus Christ? A zombie? No, no, no. He didn’t eat brains. He wanted us to eat HIS body and drink his blood … hmmm.

So next year I’m advocating we get back to grass-roots remembrance of Easter. Dump the Easter Bunny and bring forth the Easter Zombie. He gives chocolate brains for us to munch on.

I was going to make t-shirts this year, but didn’t get to it (read: “bloody apathetic”). I had a lot of fun making up the slogans though:

* The Easter Zombie: loves you for your brains!
* Spare a thought: Every day thousands of zombies starve to death in Australia.
* Zombies – because that’s what Easter is all about.
* The Easter Zombie wants to taste what you think.

Signs You're Addicted To Twitter

2009-04-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve become a Twitter addict.

It’s great fun. No messages over 140 characters long; which also means it doesn’t have to take up too much of your time. Well, in theory.

You follow complete strangers, who in turn follow you. The number of followers you have, I think, determines who’s winning in the popularity stakes. “And it’s @Jesus by a nose with @Mohammed coming up on the inside…”

Anyway, recently the fun and talented Wendy Lester (AKA Wendywings) of Auckland began a thread called #twitteraddict. I warmly embraced this concept; though she and I seemed to be the only two contributors.

Here’s a selection of some of our better tweets:

* You know you have a problem when all of your friends’ names start with @.

* You tweet to your psychiatrist.

* Your significant other gets an account just so they will know what is for dinner because you tweet it every night.

* You name your firstborn @babygirl1.

* Your prayers now begin "@God..."

* Your favourite t-shirt has "BRB @reallife" on it.

* You're at the McDonald's drive-thru, see "Hash browns" and think "That's a weird topic."

* When you speak you subconsciously edit your sentences to under 140 characters.

* You see people texting at the mall and wonder "are they tweeting and what is their @ name?"

If the thread continues, I’ll continue to update the blog.

Ronin, Ronin, Ronin ... rawhide!

2009-04-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Ronin has been showing on cable here lately. Robert de Niro and Jean Reno slithering across the screen as agents with mysterious backgrounds all hired by the IRA to steal a metal case.

What’s in the case? Hell, we don’t know. Never find out. Just that a lot of people are after it. It’s a plot device, leave it alone.

The thing I love most about the film though is Natascha McElhone’s Irish accent. Now I’m not denying its authenticity – her mother was Irish, she should have had a fair idea what an Irish accent sounded like.

But when I hear: “I need you to steal a kiss.”

I always do a double-take. Did she say she wanted these heavies to steal a “kiss”? All through the movie she’s talking about “the kiss” this and “the kiss” that. I find it hard to concentrate.

The car chases are pretty good, though; and more realistic than many American TV/film car chases. You know – where the hero in his red 2007 Ferrari F430 Spider, capable of over 300kmh, somehow cannot shake the bad guys in the black 1963 VW Beetle.

The most improbable thing about the film though is near the end. Bad guy number two, who double-crossed the good guys, has a sniper set up at an ice skating show. He warns the good guys that, unless he calls in at specific times, the sniper will shoot the ice ballerina.

Things go awry and the sniper shoots the ballerina girl. The audience panics and everyone charges – in orderly fashion – for the exits. Which is a very American reaction, I think.

After the Cold War, I reckon if a Berlin audience heard a rifle shot and the lead skater hits the ice in a pool of blood, they’d probably think it was just a very harsh review. In fact, I’d be surprised if they didn’t applaud.

We discover during the film that Ronin is a Japanese term referring to Samurai who have lost their master: Warriors without direction. And in the end we discover that Robert de Niro’s character doesn’t fit the title. He’s still with the CIA and has been all along.

He recovers the “kiss”, then goes home, retires, and spends the rest of his days being mean to Ben Stiller.

What Happened? Saturday night at the movies

2009-03-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

I went to a friend’s place on Saturday night. He cooked up a big roast then we sat down to one of those old-fashioned family dinners, where everyone is laughing and talking and passing the gravy.

Then we played cards. It had been 23 years between hands for me, but it all came back quickly.

Finally we watched the M Night Shyamalan movie The Happening.

Wow. If ever there’s been a mistitled film it’s that one. This was because, over the 91 minute running time, basically nothing happened; and it built to a climax … where … nothing happened.

Mark Wahlberg and the very hot Zooey Deschanel starred as a young married couple who go on the run after people in New York, and then all over the north-east US, start killing themselves.

It turns out – as near as I can gather – that the trees, pissed off because all the bees have disappeared, start excreting a neurotoxin that flips a switch inside people’s brains: specifically the switch that says “don’t kill yourself”.

A few select people do try to do the Moon Walk before they die, but for the most part people just stand stock still, then choose the nearest useful means of self-disposal.

So we get to see people committing suicide in weird and wonderful ways. At the start of the film a construction crew is amazed when a bloke throws himself off an unfinished building. Then another. So the construction worker looks up and there’s a queue of people all walking off the top of the building.

At which point I couldn’t help myself: I broke into a chorus of “It’s raining men”.

And it was too soon for the dying people to be disillusioned audience members. Really, you don’t feel like killing yourself till near the end of the film.

The trees, incidentally, were only sending out a warning, and stopped killing people after about 24 hours. And, mysteriously, they seemed to keep their killing spree inside state and international borders. Which was bloody considerate.

So all was good. Till the end of the film, when the French trees get pissed off and start killing people. Imagine being persuaded to kill yourself by a French tree. I thought that’s what French cinema was for.

Pedestrians – why can't I run them over?

2009-03-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

I’ve looked, I swear to god I’ve looked, but I cannot find that bastard anywhere.

I’m talking, of course, about the big sign that's on the front bumper of my car. The one that says: “Pedestrians, please cross in front of this car, you’re perfectly safe”. I know it's there because, whenever I’m in a queue of traffic, there’s a whole line of pedestrians who cross the road directly in front of my car.

It’s not even as if it’s a small car. Gullible me – last year, when petrol prices were surging over $2 a litre, a family member conned me into selling my 1600cc Toyota Corolla and buying a three-litre straight six Lexus Soarer. Bloody nice car, grunty as hell, can’t afford to drive it faster than an intoxicated snail because it sucks more juice than a dehydrated Sherman tank.

The steering is just a little wonky and the brakes are a little soft. Yet people still seem quite comfortable crossing in front of me when I’m stopped in a queue at the lights. AT THE LIGHTS! They should be down there at the bloody button, waiting for the little red man to turn green; they shouldn’t be wandering up the street five metres just so they can cross in front of my car.

Last week I was driving up Willis St in Wellington. It was pushing rush hour, but this one stretch of road was oddly quiet. I floored it a bit to try to make the lights. And when I say “floored it” I mean I was pushing 40k’s here. This dude with a briefcase just wanders out in front of me. I jam on the breaks and hit the horn. The arrogant bastard didn’t even freaking look at me!

Which led me to later tweet the question: When is it OK to run someone over? Surely, based on Darwin’s survival of the fittest, this guy deserved to die. Why can’t you use Darwin as a defence in court?

I guess the problem is that I know the law in this situation. Unless the pedestrian has “set a trap” for the motorist, the motorist will always be held accountable. Which sucks. The law should state that anyone not fast enough to get out of the way, or who doesn’t know what the diamond at a pedestrian crossing means, should be run over as a matter of course.

And I’m just the one to do it.

Top Five Rare Pink Floyd Gems

2009-03-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

This is my Top 5 rare Pink Floyd songs which, in my opinion, have never received the credit they deserve.

First off, yes, I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan. I, too, hated their psychedelic stuff, so don’t worry about that. I’m just going to give you great, well-written songs; inventive, strong and attractive but generally overlooked over the years.

Got to say, there’s probably a lean towards the acoustic sounding stuff, but that’s really where the band’s early strength lay. That and Gilmour’s guitarwork – wow. At their best they could out-compose and out-imagine The Beatles; yet they were always under the shadow of insanity, then their trippy rep, anti-war propaganda and later the Watersless days.

My basis for picking the songs was that they not have appeared in mainstream compilation albums nor have they turned up regularly in live sets.

5. Green is the Colour

The oldest of the selection, this song appeared in 1969 on the soundtrack to the film More. It was the first Floyd album to not have Syd Barrett involved in any way. Apparently in 1970 Roger Waters said the song was about being on Ibiza – I guess that must have been before they covered the island in night clubs.

4. Fearless

Pink Floyd was just churning them out as the 70s rolled around. In 1971 was seminal album Meddle – the first of their post-Syd Barrett albums to prove without doubt that the band didn’t need the troubled genius at the reins.

That’s not to say Barrett’s influence wasn’t still there. Roger Waters wrote the song but used an open G major tuning he’d learned from Syd. Mix into that the Liverpool football club’s fans singing You’ll Never Walk Alone and you have a jewel of a song.

Considered a bit of an underground hit for Floyd, it was nevertheless not released as a single and is seldom heard in their live work. It did also appear on the rare 1983 American compilation album Works.

3. Mother

One of the first songs I really enjoyed on The Wall (1979). Yes, the lyrics are a disturbing portrait of a mother smothering her child. But the song's structure and style are so simple. After a killer solo from Gilmour, you can feel the singer’s anger coming through. It’s an anthem of teen angst that carried right through to adulthood. It’s also a bloody good song.

2. Two Suns in the Sunset

“Like the moment when your brakes lock, and you slide towards the big truck, you stretch the frozen moments with your fear. And you’ll never hear their voices, and you’ll never see their faces, you have no recourse to the law, anymore.”

As his official swansong from the band Roger Waters gave us a wonderful song about being caught in a nuclear blast. It appeared on an album considered the band's first flop. True The Final Cut (1983) is largely inaccessible, and apart from this the Fletcher Memorial Home (for incurable tyrants and kings) is the only decent song on it. Yet I’m still hypnotised by the farewell sax solo. Just beautiful.

1. Wot’s … uh the deal

In 1972 Pink Floyd released super-smash album Dark Side of the Moon. A classic in all respects that fully deserved its 11 years on the Billboard charts. However, it was not the only album the band released that year, the other was a movie soundtrack called Obscured By Clouds. Perhaps Obscured by Dark Side of the Moon would have been a more appropriate title.

This song was a stand-out on the album and in fact was resurrected by Gilmour and Mason in some of their 2006 sets. OK, the production values are still very 60s but you can see the strength of the Gilmour/Waters songwriting team shining through without the distraction of fancy synthesizers, sound effects, or temptations of the psychedelic.

Welcome to the Jungle

2009-03-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Another Top 5 for you. I was inspired to write this one while watching Underbelly on TV last night. The theme song included a sample line of "It's a jungle out there", which I particularly noticed because it reminded me of an old 90s song that used that exact same sample.

So I thought: Top 5 songs with the word "Jungle" in the title or lyrics.

Now I could have gone for the obvious – Guns n Roses or Kool and the Gang – or even gone Disney. But I decided to let that lion sleep tonight. Instead I did some research and came up with these:

5. The song that inspired it all. From their album Broadcast, Strawpeople's track – allegedly inspired by a certain amateur surgery performed by Lorena Bobbitt – Trick With a Knife.

4. The Vines came up with this offering. OK, so the opening guitar riff rips off Blue Oyster Cult and they have this belief that changing tempos three or four times a song and screaming into the mic somehow gives your music credibility. Nonetheless, quite a good track.

3. Probably the most commercially-recognised on the list, Steve Miller's Jungle Love, from the 1977 album Book of Dreams (and you'll never guess how I knew that!). This would have ranked higher if it wasn't for the "Hey, I've got a synthesizer and this is what I can do with it" wank at the start.

2. Alphabeat offers this cool rock/pop track. There's even a bit of jungle drumming in the mix.

1. I tend more towards punk than jazz, but this is a neat track by the Cafe Soul All Stars featuring Kenny Garrett and Roy Ayers. It's called Urban Jungle and has a nice long "sounds of the big city" intro before running into a modern jazz groove. Listening to this you can convince yourself you're in a Shaft movie. I even rated this ahead of contenders Kool & The Gang's Jungle Boogie, the Meters' Jungle Man and even Bob Marley's Concrete Jungle.

Oh and a special mention to Emiliana Torrini for her very odd track Jungle Drum ... dunka dunka dunka dunka...

Top Five - Happy Together

2009-03-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

I was watching High Fidelity at the weekend and enjoyed the "top five" lists the guys kept creating. So I thought I would do a few of my own from time-to-time. I was going to start with Top Five covers of great '60s songs, but flagged that one when I started looking at just the first on my random list.

So here it is, the Top Five covers of the Turtles' old classic, Happy Together.

5. I'm not a fan of dance mixes, which is why this version by Supremacy Studio is further down the ranks.

4. Well, the next few are kind of pop-punk. Fastest version was by New Found Glory, but I'm a bit of a Weezer fan, so chose their version instead.

3. Despite it being used in a Lindsay Lohan flick, I quite like Simple Plan's cover.

2. Oddly enough, another dance mix. I liked what DJ Kicken did with the song. Somehow sticks with the spirit of it without going OTT.

1. They got off their bicycle and produced this excellent cover. It kind of colours within the musical lines while still doing its own thing. Here's the Flobots:

The Final Frontier

2009-03-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

When humankind finally goes exploring into deep space, who gets to decide which way we go?

It occurred to me at the weekend, while I was listening to some people taking the piss out of Star Trek. And I got to thinking: OK, they're on a five year mission to explore space. Now, given the size of space, how much of it are you going to explore in five years? Because space is big. Ginormous, even. When we measure ourselves against space, well, the Earth is barely one particle of a gnat's fart in comparison.

But, I guess, we've got to start somewhere. The other thing that occurred to me is that we humans live a flat plane existence. Oh sure, we know the Earth is round, but it's so big that we perceive it as flat.

In reality, if you were to launch the USS Enterprise into space, there would be more than just a choice of left, right, front or back; there's up and down as well. So which way do we go? And how long do we go in one direction before we go a different way?

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the USS Enterprise. Its five year mission to seek out a new wig for William Shatner, to explore vast expanses of nothingness, to boldly go and go and go and keep going till we find something vaguely interesting. Then Bill's gonna kiss it and we can all go home.

Based on a True Story

2009-03-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

The second series of Underbelly has hit New Zealand TV screens. The ads for the show say it's a true story, but now a journalist involved in breaking the Terry Clark story has come forward and said Underbelly's version of events is a heap of shit.

It's an interesting issue this whole education versus entertainment question. The series' creators will say they have bent the truth a bit to enable them to tell the story better. Maybe just so they can give Anna Hutchison's breasts more airtime. And anyway, they never said it was going to be a documentary.

This is true. But then, are they entitled to advertise it as a "true story"? It seems to me that filmmakers get around this by saying: "Based on a true story". But the idea that it's "based on a true story" is so tenuous that it would be more accurate to say "not complete fiction". Or "we got one of the name's right ... but it's spelt differently".

The best of these was admittedly the Cohen brothers' Fargo. The start of the film says the events are based on a true story. In fact, it wasn't. But who was to know?