Grabthar's Hammer

Slow Death to Grabthar

2008-10-01T15:58:00.002+13:00

Hi kids,

Due to my new gig at Public Address, this blog may suffer through a long cold winter.

Feel free to pop over to the new digs

Hadyn

I'm one in thirteen

2008-07-29T09:10:00.004+12:00

So there was this story this morning that New Zealanders had the highest rate of bloggers in a recent survey of internet use across 15 countries. Apparently one in thirteen New Zealanders has a blog.

I imagine that this will be discussed on Public Address today because they got a soundbite (textbite?) from Russell Brown: "the ability to hide your identity on the internet meant people could share information they might not share in person".

So the 1/13 stat is pretty cool (although I wonder if it's inflated by people like me who have more than one blog), but the really interesting stats is the percentage of New Zealand web-users who have a blog by ethnicity:

Asian 31%
Pasifika 12%
Pakeha 6%
Maori 2%

As a researcher I want more data before I draw conclusions, but as a factoid (alternate version) it's kinda neat.

Other info from the study: of the 78 percent of New Zealanders who use the internet:

66 percent have broadband.
77 percent check their email every day.
28 percent use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
25 percent have made a friend online, and half of those have gone on to meet an online friend in person.
13 percent maintain their own website.
10 percent have a blog.

Ah San Diego

2008-07-25T16:51:00.002+12:00

So I'm browsing Wired.com's images of costumed Comic-Con attendees.

Some are pretty cool (ah, Steampunk)
Some are liars (claims he has a girlfriend)
Some brought real weapons (80 pounds of steel, bows, arrows and a 12-pound sword)
and some... some you just can't un-see (I strongly suggest not letting your gaze travel too far down)

It's Not OK.

2008-07-08T08:11:00.003+12:00

Yesterday's DomPost had a large front page article reporting that TVNZ sports presenter Tony Veitch had assaulted former partner Kristin Dunne-Powell, who needed hospital treatment and was confined to a wheelchair.

The Dominion Post also revealed that Veitch later agreed to pay her more than $100,000 to guarantee her silence. Whether or not she was the one who broke the silence or not has yet to be revealed.

And then last night on TVNZ news during the sport their was Veitch doing his thing.

This morning Stuff is reporting the TVNZ knew of the assault and that they are treating the matter as a private one for Veitch. So he will be keeping his job.

Now, if we assume everything we've heard is true (and currently there is nothing that would suggest otherwise) I'm quite surprised Vietch is still on-air. Because you know what this reminds me of? Clint Brown.

Clint Brown was an arrogant, loud mouth television sports presenter whose ego gave him a character that made him popular (not unlike many other sports presenters). He wasn't great, you might not want him to be your friend, but he was alright as a sports presenter.

Then, one night in Taupo, he got drunk, got punched, abused a taxi driver, and was subsequently stood down from TV3 news. He later resigned and the last we saw of him was this (now infamous) shot of him peering out the door at a reporter. He now does radio and some minor television work.

So why doesn't TVNZ stand Veitch down? He's obviously got some stuff to sort out now so why do I have to see him presenting sport to me? (Of course I could just switch to TV3 and I may do).

Like everything in television this is a PR exercise. And currently I don't think they've handled it well. And, as evil as this sounds, sports presenters are a dime-a-dozen. Throw this one under the bus and get another one. Or run those "It's Not Ok" family violence ads directly before the start of the sports news.

I blame the gorilla

2008-07-05T12:02:00.002+12:00

Isn't amazing what advertising can do?

Just recently New Zealand television has been playing the Cadbury Gorilla ad you can see below:

The unintended consequence of that? From the New Zealand iTunes Store:

It's meme, baby!

2008-07-01T13:40:00.002+12:00

If there's something I love it's a MEME!

And I just came across a great one from Thoughts from Kansas:

Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess...really, who buys a Zune?)
Press shuffle songs.
Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song?

So here goes:

It's Enough - Sleater Kinney - (Dig Me Out)
I think that while some of their stuff is political I'd be safe with this one
Float On - Modest Mouse - (Good News for People Who Love Bad News)
Seems fairly innocent, in fact it seems quite optimistic, this could be my campaign song!
Been a Son - Nirvana - (Incesticide)
A certainty to increase the female vote. Ok, I suppose it could hurt me in the conservative areas
Do the Bus a Bus - Busta Rhymes - (Turn it Up! Best of...)
"Presidential candidate listens to the hippity hop music!" Then again Obama has Jay-Z on his iPod. On the other hand this song does have a line about "hot bitches"

Following that was a long string of politically boring songs the dogiest of which was Tiptoe by Goldfrapp.

It took me until What Makes a Good Girl Go Bad? by the Flametrick Subs before I got to something that could cause me to lose the presidential race.

Filler

2008-06-25T21:08:00.004+12:00

I'm actually quite busy at the moment but I suppose I can take the time to post some snaps:

This is the bottle of 20yr old rum (surrounded by some of my Tiki paraphernalia) that Amy bought me as a surprise.

We also bought a Wii Fit on the weekend. It lets you set a goal BMI and fitness to work towards. But if you gin weight or otherwise don't progress towards your goal, like I did last night, it asks you why you didn't.

This is a photo of me lying to the Wii (not pictured, me crying)

To the left of this pic is my laptop and to the right is Amy's new teeny tiny Eee PC.

It is very small and very cool.

And finally a very cute photo of my cat. Awwwwwww

Worst headline this year at least

2008-06-17T16:06:00.001+12:00

And in the running for worst headline ever:
Missing Korean tourist enjoying NZ, email reveals

Pitiful

2008-06-09T13:25:00.003+12:00

I was going to write a rant about the Holden-owning IT manager from Karori who is interviewed about the rising cost of petrol on the front of today's DomPost. His reaction was that soon prices will be "out of reach" and that will mean that "prices will have to drop".

But I'm not going to rant. If this IT manager can't figure out any other solution than prices having to drop, then he deserves to pay stupid prices for his petrol. If he was a farmer, a courier, a plumber, someone who needs to drive a lot or lives far from public transport, he would have had a little bit of support from me (a little). But he isn't.

He is a blind man oblivious to the change around him.

Gone are my days of ire for these folk. It has since been replaced with a strange pity for their snow blindness towards the death of an old way of life.

Unquote

2008-06-09T08:26:00.002+12:00

There was an "interesting" headline on the BBC today:

'Twelve die' in Algerian blasts

The quote marks are there apparently because it is not known exactly how many people died. surely they could construct a more grammatically correct headline though I mean this is the "BBC".

Mosaics

2008-06-07T23:45:00.002+12:00

As seen on Mike's blog and Martha's Flickr:

Here's how it works:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

There's a Flickr group you can add it to, as well.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (kid version: favorite animal?)

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Here's my pic (and if you're curious the answers to the questions go horizontally):

1. Hadyn's Tiki Bar, 2. Escape, 3. Otumoetai College Field, 4. Autumn walk, 5. Dita 6, 6. Zombies, 7. The neon lights, 8. Adam And Eve On A Raft, And Wreck 'Em, 9. Day 106 - I am a librarian, 10. IMG_8118, 11. A North Philadelphia bullet, takes a mother's son away, 12. The first annual Wellingtonista awards

pickle me this?

2008-06-05T12:12:00.002+12:00

Given that this is the first post I've put up in a while I thought I'd make it a bit "esoteric" (literally "of the teric").

I have come to the conclusion that what sandwiches need (and hence the world too) is gherkins. The crunchy brine soaked acceptable little versions of cucumbers are fantastic! I never understood the reason people would remove them from MacDonald's hamburgers (adding to my "people are stupid" theory).

Anyway I just had a fantastic beef, cheese and gherkin sandwich from Green Land (the cafe not the Land). the only thing that sullied the experience was the cucumbers that had been slipped in. Ick!

I love pickles, hate the cucumbers they are made from. This is because I am a very complex person.

Consolation Prize?

2008-05-13T14:42:00.002+12:00

So I applied for a new job. It was a new role and something different to what I've done for the last five years, but in a direction I really want to head. I don't particularly want to leave my current job (in fact I'm very happy where I am, or will be once I get Gmail back)

After all the interviews and reference checks, it came down to me and someone else. So a 50/50 chance right? Well I got the call today, that it wasn't me. Stink one. They told me that we were so evenly matched they made the decision based on the "little things".

So the main reason I didn't get the job: because they thought I would be frustrated by the lack of creativity in the job.

So I don't know whether to feel bad or not. Did I just dodge a bullet?

Mind the Gap

2008-05-03T11:40:00.003+12:00

I don't watch a lot of TV these days, well I do but it's usually from friends in the US (ahem).

But one show I do watch is the Simpsons. The latest series is screening on TV3 at the moment, then suddenly one Sunday night, it wasn't. There was some movie instead. And then the same happened the next week too.

"What the fuck", I said, "that seemed like a short season". Instead what's going on is this:

To combat the rise of people downloading TV shows to watch whenever they want, the local stations are (commendably) getting the most popular shows from the states very soon after they screen there. This means instead of having to wait a full year (as we have in the past) we only have to wait, say, a week for the latest episode of Lost (sadly we are still two seasons behind here on shows like Dexter, watch Dexter btw, it's awesome! Where was I? oh yes!).

This shorter wait means people are less likely to get impatient and download the show. But the downside is that we now have to put up with a new phenomenon: the season gap. The gap is the bit in the American tv season when they show recaps etc. It's also why the "big" 22 episode shows seem to have a big climax in the middle.

So basically I now know what's up and am less likely to swear at the TV... but only a little less likely.

Help!

2008-04-29T08:18:00.003+12:00

O great and powerful Hivemind please help me!

I have been given two Rose's chocolates as a token of thanks. But separated from the box I have no way of identifying the contents of the shiny wrapper.

The first was easy, in a bright green wrapper it is marked (much like the Poison Arrow Frog) as containing mint (possibly pepper, hopefully spear).

The other is somewhat of a mystery and it is in this that I seek your guidance O wise and benevolent Hivemind (please see fig 138 below)

Man I wish I could draw...

2008-04-23T21:03:00.001+12:00

sw-nightday
Originally uploaded by Dr.Monster.

Coz I would totally draw something like this!

Video for Amy

2008-04-21T21:08:00.002+12:00

This is just an example to help Amy with her blog.

Tease!

2008-04-15T18:54:00.001+12:00

You can't see the film, but here's a film that says you can't see the film.

Australia: slow on the uptake

2008-04-15T08:04:00.003+12:00

Congratulations to Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce, women's and indigenous rights advocate, lawyer, and former federal sex discrimination commissioner. She is to become Australia's first (first!) female Governor General.

Normally I wouldn't care who the Governor General of Australia was (I can barely remember who the New Zealand one is) but the fact that it took until 2008 (220 years!) before they had a woman in the role is pretty astounding. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said:

I think it's a great reflection on the fact that modern Australia is about the proper role of women in our society.

We're nearly a decade into the 21st century, when did this "modern Australia" thing start? Is it Australia 2.0?

I'm really glad that in New Zealand we have a large number of women in high positions and have done for a long time*. And I hate it when I hear about people complaining that we are becoming "feminised" by it. For some reason being masculinised is ok though.

Also, just as an aside, the Herald headline says "Finally, the Aussies embrace girl power". "Girl Power" as it has become (rather than where it actually originated) has nothing to do with empowering women and everything to do with increasing the spending power and marketability to/of young women and girls.

*I know the glass ceiling is still very much in place.

Small town memories

2008-04-09T14:20:00.003+12:00

My Mum just emailed to say she'd been talking to an old school friend of mine. He's back working in New Zealand and has a wife, a kid and another on the way.

The timing made me laugh a little though, in that I've just purchased a large amount of music from my youth. Including the complete Nirvana discography. Nirvana was the music we used to listen to while we got... to doing our home work and going to bed early (you never know who reads blogs these days).

It's funny how, although I haven't listened to Nirvana for a really long time, I can remember all the songs and a surprising amount of the lyrics.

Accelerometer

2008-04-05T23:19:00.004+13:00

I don't wish to slight the wonderful field of music journalism (writing about idiots, by idiots, for idiots) but I'm getting kind of annoyed by the reviews I've been reading about the new REM album Accelerate.

The reviews themselves are fine and completely correct about the album. It's good and reminds you of earlier REM work (circa Green).

However, it is NOT their best album "since Automatic for the People", which is pretty much what every review says.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi was a brilliant trip to the edge of alt-country and a spectacular follow-up to the harder Monster (an album I liked but can see why others wouldn't). I haven't seen a single review that even mention New Adventures, which makes me think that perhaps they are judging the new album only on REM's most famous work.

At this point I'm going to stop before I become a raving fanboy. But I just wanted to speak my peace on this.

Back off man! I'm a scientist.

2008-04-01T20:56:00.001+13:00

I can now unequivocally state that Ghostbusters is not as funny for me when I listen to it in French or German. I managed to chuckle once when it was in Spanish.

2008-03-31T08:16:00.003+13:00

Walking to work the other day I saw this "meat is murder"-style poster:

I hope they don't include Hitler in that, he was a vegetarian.

And in a similar vein, I discovered that I would be able to feed 11 cannibals, which makes me feel useful:

Feeling ill

2008-03-28T13:54:00.002+13:00

In recent weeks some stories have come out of Britain that have involved youth and me feel physically ill.

The first was a story about a mob of 2000 (estimated) drunks youths descending on a party and completely destroying the house. Tearing it to pieces while the owners and police stood by helpless.

The second was the story of the woman slipped date rape drugs and then gang raped in front her children. The offenders videoed the whole thing, her children can be heard in the background.

The third came through today. A 15year old is charged with kicking a 20 year old girl to death because "she dressed like a goth".

She begged them to stop, but was kicked and punched too and they were both left unconscious, with her injuries described as so bad it was difficult at first to tell what sex she was.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but these stories really effect me.

Life, or rather Death, very nearly imitates Art

2008-03-26T16:57:00.002+13:00

Yes, I know that's a terrible post title.

Lucy Liu, actress and totally hot, has said that she would like to be cryogenically frozen after she dies.

Of course those who are a little bit more learned know that Lucy Liu will have her head preserved forever in a jar. (Her body will be replicated as love-bots too, so there's always hope).

2008-03-20T19:26:00.002+13:00

Get fucked Marc Ellis!

$12,000! That'll do for a start, next up: a kick in the nuts.

2008-03-18T10:17:00.000+13:00

Just in case I had any free time (which I don't): The Adventures of Hadyn Green

2008-03-04T12:54:00.000+13:00

OMG! This TV presenter is BATMAN!

I am NSFW (but this post is!)

2008-02-28T12:53:00.004+13:00

So guess who accidentally wore an inappropriate t-shirt to work today?

If you guessed me (by which you meant me not you), you'd be right!*

I bought a new Cleatis Preston shirt at the Paris Texas sale yesterday. It had a cool Asian-style demon on the front wearing a truckers cap and surrounded by stereo equipment and other decoration.

Cool, I thought and, after showing Amy, innocently purchased the shirt.

Fast forward to today when I wear my brand new shirt to work. Glancing at myself in the bathroom mirror (ok, checking out my new shirt in the bathroom mirror) I notice something, the "decoration" is actually cannabis leaves! And they're all over the damn thing!

I scurry out of the office to meet Amy for lunch. I can see she's looking more closely at my shirt. "Um, is that...?" "yes" "Oh, and he's smoking a doobie too!" "what!"

That's right, the demon has a giant joint (or marijuana cigarette) hanging out of his mouth. Sigh. Hence I have been wearing my sweatshirt at work despite the warm temperatures in my office.

The shirt's artist, by the way, is a guy called Spanky from Thailand and I really like his stuff (note: my the design for my tshirt is close to the bottom)

*just to clarify it was me, not you, that wore the inappropriate shirt, unless you did too.

Bang Bang

2008-02-24T13:14:00.002+13:00

One thing that bothers me in films is when there is a stand-off with guns (or rather one character has a gun and other does not), someone will, in order to emphasise a point, cock their gun.

Now I know nothing about guns so i have to ask: what does cocking the gun do? If it means the gun can now be fired then why was the second character worried before? If it means the gun can be fired faster then, again, what's the point? Is the difference between half a split second and a split second that noticeable in a gunfight?

I just saw this particular scene standard in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was possibly the worst use of it as the pistol involved was an old pirate version that requires the hammer to be cocked in order to fire at all. So when the scene starts the pistol is only dangerous as a blunt instrument.

So why is it always in films? Because it always has been, because it's a good expression point in the middle of a scene, because ... because ...

... actually if I could answer that I could write a formula for film cliches.

More music

2008-02-20T12:33:00.000+13:00

In a continuation, here are the songs I listened to on my way home (not having a great day mood wise, still the sun and the rhythmic jellyfish I watched for a few minutes was very relaxing).

Real Gone Daddy by Jim Flaherty’s Caravan [Rockin Bones]

Oh Yeah! by Baby Joe [Baby Joe]

Everything Man by Talib Kweli [Ear Drum]

Happy Anniversary by Little River Band [Greatest Hits]

What’s Mine is Yours by Sleater Kinney [The Woods]

Pilots by Goldfrapp [Felt Mountain]

Whiskey Bottle by Uncle Tupelo [No Drepression]

Soul Time Strikes Back by Supergroove [Postage]

Dangerous by Busta Rhymes [Turn it Up!]

My Friend by Groove Armada [ The best of…]

Ex Factor by Lauryn Hill [The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]

Canards versus Cuntards

2008-02-20T10:09:00.001+13:00

I'm not in a very good mood today.

Le Canard Noir removed by quacks (story not as funny as pun suggests)

My Morning Walk

2008-02-20T09:12:00.000+13:00

You don’t care but here is an iPod shuffle list that I had this morning on the way to work. I accidentally hit play instead of select and then instead of selecting the playlist I wanted I let the iPod decide what I should listen to. It was a good wee list too and made the morning a bit nicer.

Unguided by The New Pornographers [Challengers]

Take on Me by A-ha [Searching High and Low]

Garden by Pearl Jam [Ten]

I’m so Ronery by Trey Parker and Matt Stone [Team America: World Police soundtrack]

Stadium Blitzer by The Gourds [Stadium Blitzer]

October Song by Amy Winehouse [Frank]

Bum Like You by Robyn [Robyn]

Breath by Pearl Jam [Singles soundtrack]

Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starlighters [Billboard Top 100 1963(?)]

Anti-Gay Phone Call part 2 by Eugene Mirman [a comedy piece and well worth listening to]

Dirty Man by Joss Stone [The Soul Sessions]

Juggle Tings Proper by Roots Manuva [Brand New Second Hand]

Candy by Iggy Pop [A Million in Prizes]

If you are a pedant or a stalker you can tot up all the times of those tracks and figure out how long it took me to walk to work this morning.

I also dodged a bullet in that the next song was Central Plateau by Twinset [Flavour Country] and while I like Twinset (and they are very nice live) I just don’t like that album at all (which does beg the question, why is it on my iPod?)

Finn Higgins

2008-02-18T14:34:00.002+13:00

Someone I know is missing, any help would be awesome.

Details at the Wellingtonista.

New Depths for Bad Remakes

2008-02-18T09:40:00.000+13:00

I thought I’d have a listen to the “new” Thriller. Big mistake.

25 years ago, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones put together the greatest album ever. Ever. This year, as a tribute to this great accomplishment, Thriller has been re-released. And what do you do when your re-release something? That’s right you add remixes.

Perhaps it was his recent legal troubles, perhaps it was his creepy weirdness, but Jackson’s collaborations (and it does sound like he may have been in the studio for some of these) seem poorly chosen. Anyway here’s what you get:

First up you get some unreleased Vincent Price audio which is awesome, though mainly because it’s Vincent Price asking if you can “dig it?”.

The next four songs are a slog as Jackson collaborates with the worst bits of Black Eye Peas (remember when they were good?) Will.I.Am and Fergie. That tells you how good the tracks are. Will.I.Am turns The Girl is Mine into a one-sided affair where Michael Jackson sings and then Will just says how she loves how he “rocks”.

Akon shows up for Wanna be Startin’ Somethin’ and turns it into a cover which is ok, except that it’s a bad cover.

I had high hopes for the Kanye West Billie Jean remix but…it just falls short of what it shouldv’e been. And Kanye can’t help but add in his own vocals but instead of owning a verse or two he just throws in a few off hand “uh”s, “yeah”s and “number one”s.

Then the last track is For All Time. A track that wasn’t good enough for the album 25 years ago, so why add it now?

Sigh.

In the meantime I’ve also been listening to Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool. It’s much better. As is Daft Punk’s Alive 2007.

Also check out Daft Punk and Kanye West performing at the Grammys. Too fucking cool, check out the “Tron” suits.

New Depths of Bad Journalism

2008-02-15T12:34:00.002+13:00

Unsurprisingly this comes from the Herald:

An image from Mars taken by NASA's Sprint Rover shows an image that resembles a figure walking among the planet's rocks.
A magnified version of the image has been posted on the internet. Bloggers have been debating whether the image points to evidence of alien life on the red planet.

The so-called "Martian Bigfoot" has been around for weeks now and was roundly dismissed by bloggers, not "debated". Unless you count conspiracy theory loonies.

See the Bad Astronomy Blog for all the details (also note the date of the post, Jan 21).

But Jeebus, Herald, get your shit together!

Man of the Year

2008-02-14T12:07:00.002+13:00

“He’s connected, a good conversationalist, interesting, well-read, opinionated, accomplished, well traveled and has a healthy net worth,”

Of course you know who the above quote is about: Marc Ellis (that’s why he couldn’t spell “travelled”).

Something fishy is going on here. For the last two years Marc Ellis has been named “Man of the Year” by M2 magazine (somewhere between Maxim and GQ but for kiwis, so it’s bound to be good right?). In 2006 he was voted in by readers of M2, described as the emerging kiwi men. “Marc Ellis is not only the Best New Zealand Man as chosen by the emerging man, he’s the perfect example of one… But as past indiscretions have shown, he’s not perfect – something that helps him inspire such empathy and respect from other New Zealand men.”

And then he won again this year. In a year when Flight of the Conchords are the hottest thing in New Zealand and around the world, having won and been nominated for multiple awards including Salon.com’s Sexiest Men line-up.

Ellis’ contributions last year were to advertise his various ventures. Did he actually do anything that wasn’t just self-aggrandising stunts?

This is so wrong it’s suspicious. I’m not accusing M2 of picking Ellis for some financial reason, but I’m thinking that something is (how do you say?) up.

Then again maybe M2 just has the wrong impression of its readers: [our readers, the emerging man] will go to the cricket to have a few Tuis with his mates and hang out in the terraces, then scrub up to go to Cirque du Soleil with his wife that night and have a Heineken at the bar.

Drunks who will actively drink Tui all day and then show up drunk to a night out with “the missus” and promptly go to the bar and order a Heineken because they think it’s a fancy beer, then make “witty” comments throughout the performance. Yep, that sounds like a Marc Ellis type to me.

Invisible Ferry

2008-02-12T09:50:00.001+13:00

Invisible Ferry
Originally uploaded by hadyn.green.

When LOLcats spill over into real life. You'll have to look very closely at the sign to pick it up

Insurance Ads = Funny

2008-01-29T16:56:00.000+13:00

And with a continuing theme of funny videos (don't worry this won't become a trend here). This one actually, honest to Jeebus, made me LOL (in a cafe which was embarrassing).

[via Spare Room]

Authority offically calls Ellis a cock.

2008-01-28T10:47:00.000+13:00

If you’re a long time reader of this blog you’ll know my policy on Marc Ellis and his associates. Basically we here at the Hammer (i.e. me) think he’s a cock.

So it comes as no surprise that an ad featuring Ellis, for a company partially owned by Ellis, has been found to be "crude" and "sexual". Marc Ellis is only sexual if he can also be crude.

The ad is one a series for Ellis’ and friends juice company. The first one was banned for depicting children using fireworks in a very unsafe manner. This one has been banned because it showed children spying on woman sunbathing nude and then squeezing lemons.

Ellis’ company defended the ad by saying some people might not “get it”, because, you know, Ellis is all about the highbrow humour.

To be fair (and I’m anything if I’m not fair) the company did say they would be placing the ad in adults only slots from now on. The Advertising Standards Authority acknowledged the move by the company to reclassify the advertisement but still found it to be in breach of three separate broadcasting principles, it didn’t help that the company’s executives giggled after saying “adults only slots”.

Again I’ll ask: how much more of this shit do we have to take?

I flip Dark Side yo

2008-01-26T20:44:00.000+13:00

Ok so as a diversion from my last post, here's something I stumbled upon

Star Wars Gangster Rap - Watch more free videos

Heath Ledger Found Dead

2008-01-23T12:52:00.000+13:00

Wow they are sure taking this viral marketing of The Dark Knight pretty far.

UPDATE: given the anger of the first commenter I'll elaborate. My first thought when I read the BBC article was "OMG, I hope he had finished Batman", which I realised wasn't good. Hence with this post I was hoping to make more of a postmodern* comment about the unreality of "celebrity lives" and how we see even their real lives as entertainment. Sadly I couldn't do it without this explanation. Sorry anonymous commenter.

*or possibly not postmodern

A Late Cloverfield Review

2008-01-22T10:39:00.000+13:00

If you haven't seen Cloverfield then I recommend not reading this post (until you do)

So I went to see the highly anticipated monster movie Cloverfield ~~last night~~ last Thursday (I wrote this straight away and then mucked about before posting) with my lady friend, Mr Tibby and his friend Richard. For months and months we have been happily led around at the whim of JJ Abrams and his viral marketing crew. Snapping up any little tidbits of information whether they be right (it is all on handicam) or wrong (see picture below, which is very wrong).

But now I've seen it and I can say that while it didn't live up to all the hype it was a pretty good film and a nice adaptation of the genre.

But do be careful when you see it, the handicam can cause motion sickness.

SPOILERS FOLLOW – Dirty big spoilers too, so just in case… SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

First what I liked:

The handicam – with the camera placed as it is in a "normal" film the moviegoer is placed into the role of observer; a silent voyeur of the action. With the handicam (manned by Hud) the moviegoer becomes part of the cast. You become just as interested in what is happening behind the camera as with what you can see. Literally: "is there something behind me?"

The monster – The monster is pretty cool. It's not Godzilla, it doesn't hide, it kicks ass and (spoiler) it possibly doesn't die. Also we see the monster as our character, Hud, see him (more on why he's "our character" later).

Themes and Visuals – As we left the cinema I overheard a woman just in front of us say "Well I'd give that a one out of five. The only funny bit was when [a guy in the audience] laughed". This woman was obviously thinking she was going to the latest Scary Movie instalment (called Meet the Spartans btw). Or, more likely, she was expecting some guy in a rubber suit flailing his arms about and maybe giant heroic characters like they had in Predator. Needless to say her comment pissed me off. She's probably the same kind of person who thinks zombies movies are actually about zombies (and not about rampant consumerism or popular culture sickness).

Monster films always capture the fear of the day. Godzilla was the embodiment of the atomic age, with the monster itself being created by a nuclear bomb. Naturally this resonated with 1950’s Japan. Then the Cold War came along and suddenly it was invaders from Mars (the “red” planet) and other monsters that were just stand-ins for communism (see Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The seventies and eighties gave us the aforementioned Zombie movies, the nineties brought more UFOs.

The themes of Cloverfield (which is actually the military's designated name of the monster, for some reason) seem to be rooted in the current American fear of terrorism. The introduction of the monster could be transplanted easily into any film about the terrorist attacks of 2001 (as has been noted by many reviewers). Things explode, buildings collapse, and huge dust clouds roll along the street. People stand stunned in the street and wonder: who has done this to us? And why?

I don’t agree with Russell that it’s “just a movie” and people should get over it, I do agree that no one should get in a tiz about it (though Russell offered no links so I couldn’t say who it was). Part of the reason why this film is so good is that it hits that note in your head. You know that the movie is referencing the events of September 11, 2001 (hell, some the backgrounders are yelling it out) and you keep remembering that as you go through the journey with the characters.

Monster films that don’t have the connection to people through these themes and event don’t capture people as much. Just look at the remake of Godzilla or The Invasion for instant flops; the world wasn’t worried about nuclear warfare in the late 90’s or ideological brainwashing last year. Make it relevant or expect it to flop.

The other theme (for me) is the obvious one of voyeurism. Everyone has cameras and cellphones and are "documenting" the event. The Statue of Liberty's head flies through the air and skids along the street and the first thing that happens is that people take photos of it. Mix that in with the fact that we are watching the action through a handicam and you’ve got the other big phenomenon of the day: YouTube (do you really need a link?).

Given that so much of the marketing for the film was done virally on the internet the format and the voyeurism seemed perfect. Actually as quick aside, I was surprised at the amount of footage from the trailers that turned out to be important scenes in the film.

What I didn’t like about the film:

Most of the points raised by The Bad Astronomy Blog (especially Nitpick 4, but not Nitpick 6). That was easy.

But the thing I really didn’t like was the main character: Rob.

So we have four main characters and two supporting characters. And when I say that I suppose I mean that we have two main characters and six supporters. The two main ones are Rob and Hud (behind the camera, possibly a script in-joke on “heads-up display”), everyone else is just talking cannon fodder.

Rob is, I suppose, the protagonist. But I just couldn’t stand him! He doesn’t care for his friends, like Hud who blindly follows “his main dude” everywhere. All he does is willingly put them in more and more danger. I kept wanting him to die.

For me the protagonist was Hud because, mainly, he was us. I just didn’t like him when they showed his face. His voice was Judge Reinhold (circa Fast Times…) his face was Seth Rogen. So when Hud, died the film ended for me (apart from the cool little “are you watching” wink right at the end).

Also the group are a bunch of rich kids. Rob is 20-something and is off to Japan to be vice-president of a company for goodness sake. Beth, the improbably alive love interest of Rob, is in her father’s apartment overlooking Central Park. I found it really hard to associate with these characters. They weren’t attending a cool party in the city; they were throwing a cool party in the city.

Also it fell into the traditional horror/monster movie problem of no grief shown for those who die. Rob sees his brother die, breaks down on the phone to his Mom (much, much later) and then that’s it. Marlena explodes in front of them and there’s very little emotion, even by Hud who had the “hots” for her. And speaking of that: when they get to the field hospital, why don’t they mention Marlena is badly hurt?

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly The Hater has put it better than I:

3. Human Emotions. I know what you're thinking: If during a terrible disaster you had to tell your mom that her son, your brother, was dead, you probably wouldn't then follow-up that painful news with a lie about being evacuated just so you can go rescue a pseudo-girlfriend who is probably already dead anyway. In fact, talking to your mom would probably make your desire to escape the danger that much stronger. But, whatever. Have you ever had to weigh your family, life, and dead brother against your probably dead pseudo-girlfriend and almost certain death at the hands of an alien monster? No, you haven't. You don't know what it's like till you're the one getting miraculous cell phone service in the subway.

Anyway, it is a really good film and I hope you liked it as much as I did.

Sharks: Nature's Media

2008-01-16T09:47:00.000+13:00

Remember the Summer of the Shark? And how suddenly there were millions of sharks, all of them out to get you and your family.

Back then sharks were everywhere and… OH MY GOD! SHARK!! SH-SH-SHARK!!! No wait it’s just a bit of wood. Turns out shark attacks were decreasing (much like their numbers) and the whole thing was just a way of getting through a slow news period.

Well New Zealand is having another one of these media beat-up things. Pretty soon we’ll have people going out to kill the sharks, filling the water with chum which will, ironically, attract sharks while the fishermen get drunk. SHARK!!!!

Now even the politicos are in on the act. National leader John Key (SHARK!!!!!) has called for limits on commercial crab pots at popular beaches over the summer, saying they act as "human berley" by attracting sharks to swimming areas.

Naturally the guy setting the pots is not using actual berley made from humans nor even berley for humans. So that is a (SHARK!!!!) misnomer

Mr Key, who just happens to have a holiday home at Omaha, said regulations should be introduced so Ministry of Fisheries officers could stop high-volume use of commercial crab pots on heavily used beaches (during the peak summer period where he holidays) in case they attracted sharks, which they don’t. (SHARK!!!!)

The Department of Conservation has informed Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton that there is no evidence crab pots attract more sharks than would otherwise be there.

But Mr Key said “residents” (Pumpkin Patch owner Greg Muir, who has owned a holiday home at Omaha for seven years) approached him late last month concerned that a fisherman was regularly setting about 40 crab pots.

The two were backed by hard evidence, just kidding (SHARK!!!!). They were backed by Daniel Baturic, president of Orewa's Surf Life Saving Club, who said sharks seemed more prevalent when pots were in the area. And there are more pots in summer when there are more sharks. So perhaps the sharks are increasing the umber of crab pots and bathers not the other way around.

The ministry's inshore fisheries manager John Taunton-Clark said he would track down the fisherman in question and explain the residents' concerns, but was powerless to do any more.

SHARK!!!!

A list of music (and a bland title)

2008-01-10T12:51:00.000+13:00

Hello again friends.

10 days into 2008 and I bring you my first piece of information for the year that you can take away and use (free of charge) in your daily lives: white chocolate toffee pops are awful. There you go, live well my friends.

In other non-news I thought I’d give you a run down of my favourite music of 2007. I did this using the very scientific manner of creating an iTunes playlist of songs released in 2007 and with a rating of 4 or more stars.

The 21 songs (as ordered by play count) are:

Candyman – Christina Aguilera (actually this one was a music video I purchased from the iTunes store, but same diff right?)
Love Rain (Coffeshop mix) – Jill Scott and Mos Def - Collaborations
Rag and Bone – The White Stripes – Icky Thump
Catch Hell Blues – The White Stripes – Icky Thump
On Call – Kings of Leon – Because of the Times
Like I Love You – Maximo Park – Radio 1 Established 1967
Trunk – Kings of Leon – Because of the Times
I’m Slowly Turning Into You – The White Stripes – Icky Thump
All That She Wants – The Kooks – Radio 1 Established 1967
Don’t Get Me Wrong – Lily Allen – Radio 1 Established 1967
Careless Whisper – Gossip – Radio 1 Established 1967
Ray of Light – Natasha Beddingfield – Radio 1 Established 1967
My Body is a Cage – The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Steady As She Goes – Corinne Bailey Rae – Radio 1 Established 1967
If You’re Into It – Flight of the Conchords – The Distant Future EP (Business Time would be here too but I didn’t want it on high rotation)
Black Thumbnail – Kings of Leon – Because of the Times
No No No – Ghostface Killah – Hidden Darts (and this is looking to become my song for summer 08)
Stronger – Kanye West – Graduation
In the Mood – Talib Kweli – Ear Drum
Say Something – Talib Kweli – Ear Drum
Country Cousins – Talib Kweli – Ear Drum

All the hip hop is at the bottom because they are fairly new to my collection compared to the other stuff.

I can’t say enough about Radio 1 Established 1967. It’s a brilliant album. The artists were assigned a year between 1967 and 2006 and had to cover one of the top ten songs from Radio 1 in that year. Some covers are brilliant remakes with new styles (Like I Love You, Careless Whisper, All That She Wants), others are straight covers with a good flavour of the new artist (Don’t Get Me Wrong, Ray of Light). Of course some are just awful (as many covers tend to be) like the Streets covering My Song, blech!

Talib Kweli’s Ear Drum may be one of the best albums of the year and definitely the best hip hop album I have heard in a while. And I obviously loved the White Stripes and Kings of Leon new stuff.

Honourable mentions go to Patti Smith, The New Pornographers and Tori Amos.

Herald, readers, high

2007-12-19T12:07:00.000+13:00

At 8.15am this morning the Herald reported that BBC Radio 1 was censoring the word "faggot" in the Pogues, Fairytale of New York. At 9.00am they reported that this was no longer the case. Wow. 45mins is pretty good, except that the articles mention the passing of a day before the censorship was overturned.

Anyhow to keep with my festive theme and my theme of the Herald and it's readers being dim (or maybe just high), the esteemed newspaper/website reported that it's readers had voted Snoopy's Christmas the worst Christmas song.

Snoopy's Christmas features everything you could ever want in a Christmas song:

a tense dogfight (pun!) over the battlefields of World War One*;
foes coming together in peace;
vague historical accuracy (which is more than can be said of some carols);
simulated German accents and;
a dog flying a plane and drinking booze.

These, mixed with the awesome vocals of the Royal Guardsmen (though I don't about their new version Snoopy vs Osama - that is not a lie), and the fact that it's not religious put Snoopy's Christmas near the top of my favourite holiday tunes.

Here's my top five:

Fairytale of New York, The Pogues
Christmas in Hollis, Run DMC (note: the Herald had this listed as "Christmas in Hollies")
Soulful Christmas, James Brown.
So This is Christmas, John Lennon
12 Days of Christmas, John Denver and the Muppets

But what song would I put as the worst? Well we all hate those stupid "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" parody songs. But I really hate the Little Drummer Boy. I'll show you "parapa-pum-pum", Muthafucka!**

Anyhow here's Run DMC

*Which at that time was just called "The World War"
**no, I have no idea what means either

Lake?

2007-12-17T13:36:00.000+13:00

Why I might not trust Google Maps NZ just yet

Something to look forward to

2007-12-16T12:16:00.000+13:00

I am SO excited.

American Gladiators

Just for fun

2007-12-14T17:28:00.000+13:00

This isn't an angry post, it's just something slightly fun I came across

Out to get me, thin

2007-12-13T13:15:00.000+13:00

I have this sneaking suspicion that New World (yes, the supermarket) is saying something about my current physique. Every time I go there to get one of their award-winning steak and cheese pies (made with actual bits of steak!) they are "out" or "not doing them today". This causes me to turn around and get a healthy sandwich from the make-a-sandwich-bar thingy behind me.

I know what you're trying to tell me. Bastards!

My Thursday Night

2007-12-10T10:16:00.000+13:00

Those of you who read the newspaper may have seen this picture (10/12/07 page three, top left):

The actor Giovanni Ribisi (My Name is Earl, Lost in Translation) is in town to shoot Avatar and was snapped by local photographer Mike Roseingrave at Mighty Mighty where Giovanni was taking in the Wellingtonista awards. Or so the paper said.

The actual photo looks like this:

They cut me out!

Thursday was brilliant by the way. The quiz was funny. The awards went down very well (even though the Dropkicks didn't win). Me and my fellow Wellingtonistas and were very merry and partied into the night after a magnificent set by the Blam Blam Blams (they played the Doctor Who theme!).

Afterwards a group of us headed to Hawthorn Lounge and ended the night there (with toasted marshmallows no less).

UPDATE: some of the very funny Wellingtonistas have reworked the image even more:

That is the mug of Damian Christie for those who don't know.

Tis the Season

2007-12-06T09:55:00.000+13:00

I love Christmas!* And when I heard that there was going to be a Shrek Christmas special, well I just about puked I was so happy!!!!

From the Herald:

Everyone's favourite ogre will make a special small-screen appearance this Christmas, in the television special Shrek The Halls.
Set on Christmas Eve, Shrek finds himself accosted by Donkey, Puss In Boots and the Gingerbread Man, who try to disrupt Shrek's newfound domestic bliss.

All of your favourite voice actors are back too!!! Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas. All of whom desperately need money.

Shrek is not my favourite ogre though, far from it. Still it is hard to pick. I mean do you pick Gustave Doré's baby-eating ogre from Hop o' My Thumb? Or do you prefer the ogre from Orlando furioso who discovers Norandino and Lucina during their honeymoon?

I don't remember Shrek doing that?

*No really I do love it

Other Terrifying Dimensions

2007-12-03T13:55:00.000+13:00

In the future actors will be able to chew the scenery to their heart's content because it won't exist. They'll also look amazingly realistic (unlike current actors) unless the shot isn't a close up, in which case they'll look like cartoons. Cartoons that move strangely. Animals will look like they are being moved by preschoolers (especially the horses). But (and this is a large but) it will all be in spectacular 3D!

Of course I'm talking about the new Beowulf. I don't do reviews (Che does though) but I can sum up Beowulf in one word: Shrek*.

That's what it looked like. Apart from the odd close up of Cartoon Brendan Gleeson (best actor in the film imho). Cartoon Angelina Jolie was the other good looker in the film but possibly because she was naked.

Actually Cartoon Ray Winstone gets his kit off as well but because it's an animated film (and hence not really "art") his man-parts were always covered with helmets or smoke or tableware, making the tense, scary wait for Grendel a Mike Myers comedy (another Shrek allusion perhaps?)

But really I wasn't there for the animation (which was ok but nothing really stunning), and I really wasn't there for the actual film (awful as it was) I was there for the 3D!

I live in 3D every day of my life but never knew that depth was so cool. Sometimes the effect was just a cheap trick of a spear or axe or arrow flying out of the screen. But often the 3D was used to bring a depth to the scene which reflected in the characters and helped the animation seem more real (but not quite). The first Grendel battle scene is one to mention; objects and people actually seemed to move in an actual space.

I am really looking forward to seeing this technology with live action films where the bad CGI actors won't distract me. I have a feeling that the 3D will make special effects seem that little bit more real.

Someone asked on Saturday night (before I had seen the film): do you think [Beowulf] will be as groundbreaking as The Jazz Singer?
Tom answered: Possibly, but the Jazz Singer wasn't a particularly good film either.

* Just to clear things up, I didn't like Shrek either

Collect the Set

2007-12-03T10:22:00.000+13:00

Over brunch on Sunday Amy and I were discussing religion, in particular the seven deadly sins. You know them right? Sloth, Wrath, Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Pride and Envy.

This came about because I had once again ordered the "Big Breakfast". I thought it wasn't gluttonous, Amy disagreed. A small bit of thought later and I realised that I actually commit all of the seven big ones an a daily basis.

Sloth: as can be noted by my extremely slow script development and multiple unfinished projects
Wrath: um, have you read this blog?
Lust: we'll skip this one
Greed: I want it all and I want it now.
Gluttony: See the big breakfast incident
Pride: I am so vain I think this blog is about me
Envy: you've got it? I want it.

What I was hoping was there might be some kind of discount I can get for having all seven.

What to bring to a Sausagefest

2007-11-30T14:30:00.000+13:00

A little while ago I began watching the greatest show on television at the moment: Girls of the Playboy Mansion (aka The Girls Next Door).

The show is all about Hugh Hefner's live-in girlfriends Holly, Bridget and Kendra. Kendra is my favourite.

The appeal of the show is simple: It's a fly on the wall of the Playboy business; it offers a real look at Hugh Hefner beyond his usual public image; the girls are actually engaging; ..........and every now and again they get naked.

During one episode a while back the girls learned some Elizabethan English for a party or something. During which they learned the rather awesome term, "Sausage Wallet" (to be used instead of "bitch" or "ho").

I love this word so much! Please go forth and spread Sausage Wallet far and wide.

Girls of the Playboy Mansion wrap their mouths around Elizabethan English (includes video) [Jezebel]

I luvz mah lolcats

2007-11-28T21:29:00.000+13:00

moar funny pictures

Condensation

2007-11-28T14:32:00.000+13:00

A while back I switched from watching TV3 to TV1 news. One channel is no better than t'other but TV1 doesn't have Duncan "I suck Nat Cock" Garner. [sidenote: how did he win Best Reporter?]

But Tv1 have started to do something equally as annoying. Every now and again they will glance down at their page notes like they are actually quoting someone or like what they've just said is more "real" because it's written down on paper and not on a teleprompter.

They often do it for the more editorial comments too ("Jones was considered to be a" [looks down] "evil fucker" [looks up] "by many..."), which just make them look like condescending bastards. Simon Dallow is the worst.

Basically I need to stop watching the news.

Dick on a segway

2007-11-28T11:44:00.000+13:00

Some guy just rolled down the road, up the wheelchair ramp and into the (small) lobby of our building all the time on his fuckin Segway!

He then went out the other side where someone opened the door for him, and he ducked his way through (yep still on the Segway). Fool.

Retards Need Not Apply

2007-11-09T09:28:00.000+13:00

Confirming what I've thought for a long time:

speaking of technology...

2007-11-08T10:54:00.000+13:00

I've been burning a dvd now for two frickin hours! That's two hours without music too because the writer does nasty things to my itunes.

I thought we were living in the 21st century man! I'm surprised I don't have to crank a handle to do it.

Work: a bunch of...

2007-11-05T15:12:00.000+13:00

Further proof that work sucks, this is from my taskbar:

Bad Film Good

2007-11-05T11:50:00.000+13:00

Keeping up with the new theme of this blog, today's hate is Bad Films.

You all know what I mean.

As such I recommend going to see this: Show Me Shorts film festival.
In particular this session called "I See Dead People"

Actually, you know what, just stay for the first film. I hear it's gonna be the best one anyway (it's also the longest).

Ok so this is me...

2007-11-03T01:48:00.000+13:00

moar funny pictures

A New Beginning

2007-11-03T00:56:00.000+13:00

This blog was once a place that I put up funny things I had read, heard, thought of, etcetera. And of course the occasional rant.

Now this blog is going to become a place for me to vent my spleen as it were. A place for my hate to reside. And it should fill up pretty quick because I have a LOT of hate right now.

You might note the time stamp on this post. I'm waiting for noise control to come and shut down the party in the flat beneath us. Think I'm a crotchety old man? Fuck you. You try spending over two weeks without a decent nights sleep because the retards who live beneath you like listening to awful rap music at ungodly hours. Be cool, go down and talk to them? Well they look like they're running a very dodgy tinny house (not one of those cool laid back tinny houses we all laugh about), and I don't wanna get stabbed.

I rang the noise controllers at 12.00 and again at 12.15 (because you need to wait 15mins and call back if it's still noisy) and then again at 1.00 because it got louder. Hence I have decided that we will move out as soon as we can...ok the noise just stopped. It's done that before though, every time they change CD (see the fuckers aren't even using MP3s!). Ah, see it just started up again.

Mum!

2007-09-26T11:30:00.001+12:00

Baseball
Originally uploaded by hadyn.green.

My mum came back from her first real overseas trip in ages (Australia isn't really overseas). She went to England and Paris and a little place outside of Atlanta called Griffin.

While there she managed to score free tickets to the baseball (Atlanta Braves v Florida Marlins). Not only were they free, they were fantastic seats and also got them entry to the "club members area".

Anyhow, while there she managed to almost snag a foul ball and got this awesome photo. If you look at the "original size" you can see the ball being hit. the pic has generated a lot of email discussion with the Dropkicks

MIKE:

the ball would be a blur (see the batter's hands; the ball would be moving around that sort of speed).

Sorry, getting geeky here, but I looked up the typical speed of a baseball hit: 0-60m/s (http://www.iit.edu/~johnsonp/argtalk.html), say this one was hit at 30m/s. The photo was exposed for 1/50s, so the ball would have travelled 30/50 or 0.6m whilst the shutter was open - about the length of the blur just in front of the batter's plate.

Of course, I may be completely wrong - the ball could be in the catcher's glove for all I know.

Hamsters of the Gods

2007-09-21T08:42:00.000+12:00

Dear all

Hell Hamsters has been furiously working at that festival wheel!

By July, it had screened or was going to screen at the following festival:

FantasyCon 2006 (UK)
HorrorFest (UK)
Nervermore Film Festival (US)
A Night of Horror (Sydney, Aus)
Angry Film Festival (US)
Zompire Film Festival (US)
Another Hole In The Head (US)
DragonCon (US)
It Came From Lake Michigan (US)
Rhode Island International Film Festival (US)
Dark Carnival Festival (US)

Now it will also be screening and in competition at the following festivals:

Show Me Your Shorts (NZ)
Terror Film Festival (US)
Hollywood Film Festival (US)
ScreamFest LA (US) - in fact it's screening there pretty much at the same time as the Hollywood Film Festival
Big Mountain Short Film Festival (NZ)
Eerie Film festival (US)
Thriller Chiller!(US)
B-Movie Fest (US)
Encounters Short Film Festival (UK)

I'm particularly proud that HH was selected for Encounters, as it's the best UK short film festival.

Hell Hamsters has now tallied up 20 festivals - well done all!

Cheers

Elisabeth and Paul

A list of bullet points: Y’know what I hate?

2007-09-20T15:01:00.000+12:00

Reporters copying the press release.
Bonus tracks at the end of albums that are tacked onto the end of the last song. Especially if the bonus isn’t as good as the last song (see Kings of Leon: Holy Roller Novocaine).
Mainstream media outlets on the net covertly stealing blog posts.

1 and 3 go together here. When I go to a site like Stuff.co.nz I like to read news, real news, not opinion. Interesting stuff that has been investigated and analysed. Currently I get some good news, some stuff regurgitated from overseas feeds, some stuff regurgitated from press releases and, now, blogs.

Jo’s new blog (and it is a blog this time not an online journal) helps me sum this up: Blogs are Letters to the Editor. A newspaper would never write its own letters to the editor (unless it had no scruples) so why would an online newspaper (Stuff, Herald) do it?

But as for stealing blog posts, I was reading a rugby article the other day on Stuff that was congratulating another Stuff reporter for pre-empting those evil northern hemisphere reports who always claim that the All Blacks are poaching from the Pacific nations. Confused yet? A quote should sort this out:

In a column appearing on Stuff on September 12 headlined Time British scribes got it right, Kayes pointed out that there are more New Zealand-born players in Samoa's squad than Samoan-born players in the All Blacks - debunking the myth that New Zealand gobbles up the Pacific's finest while offering nothing in return.

Except that there was a post on the Dropkicks website on the 11^th that contained the exact same information. The Dropkicks aren’t a huge site (but we are growing!) and so perhaps this isn’t a real conspiracy…except that the post was rewritten by the Dropkicks and posted on the very popular Public Address site the morning of the 12^th. I don’t want to come straight out and accuse Stuff of poaching things off blogs but it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

I know that a good journalist (or columnist in this case) should always check the sources themselves etc etc, but not even a mention or a “hat tip”?

Burst culture done for the day.

Hawaii

2007-09-20T13:38:00.000+12:00

If you really want to know how the holiday was you're just gonna have to email and ask me and most people already have so, that ends that discussion.

If I had to describe Hawaii in one word it would be: Hawaiian

Good now I'll write about some other stuff soon.
(ps. that was a cheating version of a holiday wrap up, I'll put more photos up on flickr soon)

The Photos

2007-08-20T09:13:00.001+12:00

Waikiki
Originally uploaded by hadyn.green.

Just in case you weren't jealous here are some of our snaps

More on ads

2007-08-16T16:45:00.000+12:00

I felt i needed to extrapolate on the ads thing I put a post or so ago.

Ads are insights into what nations want to be. Hence the we want to be stoic, forthright and a little bit of a larrakin. The Japanese, clearly, want to be insane. The Americans want to be awesome. They want to be as cool as George Clooney and Brad Pitt's lovechild, they always want the best come back. In short, they are George Costanza (in a way).

This is, of course, gross generalisation made after a few days here. but that's blogging for ya. WoooOOoooOOooo burst culture!

Sigh

2007-08-16T16:43:00.000+12:00

Well... fuck

Notes from a Small Island

2007-08-16T08:15:00.001+12:00

Sometimes it's like we're not even living in the 21st century. Today (the fourth day of our holiday) is the first day I've been able to access the internet from my laptop. Yeah, I know, but it's really hard to go cold turkey.

So, Hawaii.

It's really hot. Like really hot. Not as hot as Japan at the same time last year but wow, hot. And windy. But unlike Wellington the wind here is nice and soothing. Of course there is a hurricane coming.

It's called Flossie and has just today been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, which mean 85mph winds instead of 100+. It's moving just south of the Big Island (Hawaii) and so Oahu (where we are) should be sweet. 8ft swells but still sweet.

Every day (and I'm just rubbing it in now) we've been swimming and sunning for a couple of hours. The water is only slightly cooler than the air so there's no issues when the water gets to crotch height.

I am also loving the fact that it's football season. Amy isn't. Football rules the sports pages (did you know that there are 30 Hawaiians in the NFL, including the Chicago Bears Olen Kruetz?) and the TV coverage.

We've watched a lot of TV actually. given that it is actually very very hot, we like to relax for part of the afternoon in our room with air-con on. Obviously the shows are the same as back home but the ads are so...interesting. I think you can tell a lot about a culture by its ads (you listening MG?). The American ads are very slick (the exception being the local Hawaiian ads) all of the shots are perfect and the production values look high. No expense is spared to fool you about what the product might actually do. The food ads are especially pretty.

But if I had to sum up Hawaii (and by proxy America) in one word (and I don't but I will), I would say: BIG.

On our drive in from the airport I noticed how so many people were driving "trucks". What Americans cal trucks we would probably call "utes", that is until we saw the vehicle in question. American trucks are actually HUGE. You may have seen the slightly large Dodge Rams around New Zealand. Here people who drive those are considered "pussies" (their words not mine). The average truck here is much larger.

Actually all of their vehicles are larger. Cars, motorcycles, 4wds all of them are huge. Possibly to accommodate the people after they have eaten the huge meals they are served.

The chances of me coming back with a tan are slim to none (due to my red-headedness). The chances of me coming back with a giant belly full of cheeseburgers is about 90%.

On our first day here we decided to go shopping (this isn't about food btw, i just changed subjects mid-blog). We walked to the Ala Moana mall and spent most of the day wandering and shopping. We decided before we left that we would intentionally not bring much so we could buy things here, turns out that was a good idea, as stuff is really cheap here. I got two new pairs of shoes for (like) NZD$50 each, two Hawaii University t-shirts for $10 each. I still have to find a place that sells a good range of NFL stuff though.

And the booze (which is what the Wellingtonistas want to know about) is dirt cheap. I'm drinking (good) Zombies and Pina Coladas for $8!

The food is slightly expensive though and I wouldn't want to own a car with the petrol prices.

Oh and for those keeping score: I've already done two tiki bars and have collected one mug.

I'll be back, hopefully, soon, with photos.

ps. Jose and Tom can be consoled that I have already selected gifts for them after missing their birthdays.

Spoilt Rotten

2007-07-23T16:18:00.000+12:00

So I don't read Harry Potter. Never have, never intend to. However that doesn't mean I want to know how it ends.

Hello! Movies! (yes they are not the best movies ever, though I really did like Azkaban)

I'm not a huge fan of spoilers. In fact I love watching movies without knowing ANYTHING about them (I saw Terminator 2 without knowing anything or even seeing Terminator 1, THAT was awesome!). But I understand that some people (like my partner) just have to know.

Some people are dicks and will just tell you how things end and ruin them for you without asking though. However, I did find this from danah boyd very funny.

The spoiler who took the cake in the reports I got? The asswipe who had the gaul to rent a plane and fly it over San Francisco/Berkeley with spoilers.

Shit that's so evil it's funny. There's no escape from a guy in a plane!

The weird thing is now you could tell me what the end is and I wouldn't believe you. Too many crazy people in the world have ruined the spoiler. How weird is that?

Actually, I've been coming up with alternate endings for the books. I quite like "Zombie Harry", "Ron screws up a spell and turns into a beautiful girl and marries Harry", and "Harry wakes up from seven books worth of nightmare to discover he's still inside the Matrix".

Please feel free to leave your own alt-ending in the comments.

A little HST in all of us

2007-07-20T13:21:00.000+12:00

It's Hunter S Thompson's birthday!

So go out today and celebrate the life of Hunter S. His journalism and social commentary are timeless. So open one of his books, take a stand, live by your own set of rules and most of all have fun, even if it's only for a day.

Blah post

2007-07-05T15:41:00.000+12:00

I love it when I'm able to coordinate how I look and how I feel.

Today I am sitting at my desk wearing old sneakers, my (favourite) gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans. Hence: cruddy lookin'. I feel exactly the same.

My eyes are burning, my throat is sore and the glands in my neck have swollen to the size of [insert humorous analogy, possibly testicle related].

So this is the perfect time for me to be busy at work. Ugh. I'm going to the flicks tonight (which will be good) but tomorrow, I don't know. This could be the end.

Nah, it'll just be a sick day. Which is kind of stink, I like to be healthy when I take a sickie (boom boom).

As a quick end note, we're going to see Transformers. Apparently there is a trailer playing before the film for something codenamed "Cloverfield" and apparently it's awesome. Though why it took this long (a whole week) to circulate the internet I have no idea. A week is like a a decade in internet-years. Go here for more info, or less info, it IS a teaser afterall. Oh and an "official" website.

New Tat: The photos

2007-06-27T09:13:00.000+12:00

Well you wanted them so here ya go:

FAQs

Why is it all shiny?
It's all shiny because I've just put on the Bepanthen to keep it all nice.
Are you gonna get it coloured in?
Yes it will be colored in (see below). I have to wait at least two weeks for the lines to be completely healed and then make another appointment when both me and my tattooist are free (possibly August)
Did it hurt?
Jesus on a stick did it what! The three most painful places in order (bad to worst): Inner elbow, collarbone, outer elbow. The outer elbow not only hurt the most but also took the longest because Liesje needed to make sure that the ink was not going to "drop out" as the skin there is tough.
I have to say though that lollies help a lot! I had a bag of fruit gummis and a handful of those gives you a sugar rush that (almost) cancels out the pain. I needed it too as my legs were shaking from the adrenaline after a while, which was bad because you really need to sit/lie still.
Who is Liesje?
Liesje is my brilliant tattooist. She also writes for an online magazine called The Tattooed Heart (here is the My Space version).
What is the image?
It's from a Moet and Chandon ad by Alfons Mucha. You can see it on the right here. The irises and tulips will be added to when I go in for the next part. So that will be even more pain.
How long did it take?
Well I went in at 12.30, Liesje started tattooing at about 1pm and we were finished at 6pm. We did take some breaks though, so 3-4 hours maybe?
Do you like it?
I fucking love it! I look so much prettier (which I'll admit is hard to tell in the photos above)

UPDATE
Can you elaborate on the personal significance of the artwork?
I have had a love of Art Nouveau for a looong time. I think it may have been the first artistic style that I recognised while growing up (with Art Deco). I also drink Champagne whenever I can. The berries in the basket will be raspberries. My grandfather used to grow raspberries and I have very strong memories of them. Tulips are my favourite flowers (followed by snapdragons) but irises look cool and are more nouveau
How much did it cost?
Liesje, like nearly every tattooist, charges by the hour. This piece set me back $450, which was under what I think it should've cost so I'm going to pay over when I get the colour done.

New tat, bro

2007-06-26T11:34:00.001+12:00

I believe that the best time to get a tattoo is in winter. This means that you don’t have to worry about sunburn (like I do), there’s less temptation to go swimming and it’s all healed and stuff by the time sleeveless summer rolls around.

The downside is that it’s annoying having to wear long-sleeves over your new artwork and goosebumps under a brand new tat hurt!

Nigerian email scams from Sudan

2007-06-21T08:34:00.000+12:00

So this wasn't the most inventive email scam I've recieved (that was about a girl whose parents died during the London bombings), but this little gem from Alexander Kelueljang is pretty good.

Alex fled Sudan to a rufugee camp in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and now needs my help to retrieve his father's safety deposit box. "This box contan (1.8 million dollars) was concealed in a metallic box".

Why I love this particular letter is this one sentence:
"We were advice to live Sudan immedantly as i am the next target of he rebbles that assassinated my father."

I wish that this wasn't a real scam. I wish that if I contacted Alex he would say "Please, I need you to assemble a crack team (of ex-CIA, ex-Navy SEAL etc etc) to pull off a Danny Ocean-esque heist on the National Bank of Ivory Coast. The best time will be during the FIFA African qualifying match due to happen next week. Mr Green, you are this family's last hope..."

48 hour finale

2007-06-07T15:13:00.000+12:00

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Burst Reviews:
Remember "burst theory"? Well this is the movie review version of that. So be warned the post is made almost entirely out of sour grapes.

This may also be one of "those" posts. The kind that mean I'll "never work in this town again", which is weird because technically I haven't worked in this particular town yet. The metaphorical town is Wellywood.

I'm gonna review the finalists in the 48 hour competition, and I'm not very nice about some of them. As such I'm not going to say which film I am reviewing, I'll let you guess which one it is. The list of finalists is here. (oh and I've scrambled my reviews so it's not in the same order as screened...or is it? nope...or is it? nope...but maybe...).

What was the genre? I asked. Crime? someone answered. Wasn't it Religious? someone else said. Fuck I don't know, I said, it could've been anything really. I thought the acting was pretty good and I lurved the camera work; but I was just pissed off at the kind of non-story and non-genre. Also what's with not sticking to the PG rating these days? I thought the M rating only applied to grindhouse films
I didn't laugh as hard as I did the first timeI saw it (or maybe i did, it's hard to recall) but I think this is a good pure 48hours film
it was...alright. I laughed pretty hard at the [famous] joke. This film was weird as most teams did "straight" grindhouse films (funny because they were bad) whereas these guys did sort of a spoof. Looked great though
I didn't laugh at all when I saw this film a second time and the first half with it's pieces to camera irked me something awful
It just didn't grab me, but I suppose it wasn't that bad.
I realised later that the film didn't make sense. They got a joke with the "missing reel" gag but it meant they were able to cut straight to the gory bits without having to worry about the story. It's a fallacy that Grindhouse films didn't have stories, they were just reeeally bad ones.
Sooooo cuuuute. The story wasn't too bad either
Yeah, I laughed at this. But then I realised what it was...Hot Fuzz. The really straight main guy running a tight ship with his goofy assistant, "fired" by his boss. Even the shots were the same.
I had this as my "lock to win" and was really surprised that it didn't even get runner up. Still this is what you get when the guys who sing and produce music for a living get musical as their genre. Loop's Mikee Tucker was in the credits as many things and the actors included Daniel Weetman from various Wellington bands and Raashi Malik from Rhombus (who also has a solo album I think). Oh and it looked freaking fantastic!
I hated this film. Hated it. The only time I laughed was at the "What do you call that" line. Improvised crap with absolutely NO story and that we've all seen before in this competition and in numerous mockumentaries.
Really really crap and was probably a fluke entry. Though how it beat out Destination Earth, Rope Burn, that film noir one called Crime, Rope Theory and dozens of others, I will never know.
At the time I didn't like it but after thinking about it later, I liked it. They also did the "missing reel" gag but didn't lose any part of the story (only some of the plot if we're being pedantic) I'm happy it got in.

Wow that emptied out the old spleen! So this is where I say "Actually, they were all pretty good and most of them really did deserve to be in the finals". And it's true most of them did. Some of them should never have even been considered. You know who you are.

Dum dum dummmmmmm!

Not Genetic

2007-06-07T15:09:00.000+12:00

I'm slowly, painfully going bald.

But this has nothing to do with the genetics. My hair is being pulled out one strand at a time (occaisonally in small clumps) by my head phones! Frickin heck it hurts too, which leads to the odd bout of public swearing.

Burstitis

2007-06-01T12:03:00.000+12:00

I read Kung Fu Monkey’s post about Burst Culture (and then Warren Ellis’ and then Che’s) and I thought that now would be the time to adopt it.

At the moment I’ve got a stupid freakin’ boatload of stuff on and writing in bursts just makes it easier. It’s pretty much what Martha’s been doing for a while.

So my new rule for web-writing is (be it on the blog or forums or whatever):

if I have to think longer than 5 seconds about the next part of my statement/argument/humorous anecdote then I must be done and will press “submit”.

That way I won’t be stressing about properly covering my ideas, instead I’ll be flooding the place with proto-ideas like a primordial web before the evolution of higher web-beings.

So with that in mind:

I really needed a post to go up that could follow the one about Rolly.
I went into the Sony Store on Willis St a few weeks ago looking for an extension cord for my Sony headphones (female to male headphone jack cable). Dick Smith had sold me one that was 2m long (the shortest available) and was heavy enough to pull the phones off my ears.

The guy in the Sony store said “hang on a sec…” then he grabbed a white thin iPod-esque cord out of a drawer and said “here ya go”. Wow, how much? I asked. He shrugged and said just take them.For that act the Sony Store on Willis St gets a big thumbs up and a wee song: Sony, I wanna thank you for the Son-shine, you gave!
I told the guy at the Sony Store I had lost the cord when in fact I had left them on the ground and one of my (very very naughty) cats pooed on it.As we left Amy said to me: “we should go back in and say: I lost part of my PS3, it was the bit that you put the disc into, and everything around that”
Our 48hours film went incredibly well. Incredibly well! We had two micro-dramas (about batteries and sound). We won Audience favourite in our heat.

A lot of people on the crew are thinking that we’ll get into the finals, but I’m managing my expectations. We got Educational or Religious film. I pushed hard and got my idea through: a very very very dry “documentary” about something called Rope Theory (the theory wasn’t my idea). No gags and no jokes, we made it just like a real documentary (albeit about a fake topic). The content was based around a BBC documentary about Fermat’s Last Theorem (but not stolen).

I felt that people didn’t really “get it” during the heat. I overheard one guy saying about our team: “they took themselves too seriously”. Well (fingers) to you buddy! Some of us actually came into this competition to make a decent film not just string together a bunch of gags with no story or script.
Saw the Flight of the Conchords pilot the other day and I liked it. A couple of the characters bugged me, but let’s see where it goes. Whenever it gets here.
The title of this blog is from the injury my players always seem to suffer in Madden: Elbow/Hip/Knee Burstitis

Rolly

2007-05-15T10:28:00.000+12:00

This my friend Rowan "Rolly" Carlyle.

He is, without a doubt the funniest person I have ever met. We used to go to a pub quiz in Brooklyn (Wellington) and there wasn't one instance where Rolly didn't have the whole team in tears. Here's an example: once we had a long team name and the girl running the quiz told me that we had to shorten it so she could fit it in the space on the board, I went back to the team and Rolly said "we should call ourselves 'Fit this in, Bitch'". You don't have to think that's funny by the way.

All of my friends who met him all say the same thing, Rolly fitted in anywhere and with pretty much anyone. I don't think I've ever mentioned him explicitly here before but he's been in a lot of stories, mainly about Singstar.

Today is Rolly's funeral.

Late last year, while on his first overseas trip, he developed germ cell cancer in his chest. Later on he got Leukaemia as well. That made him the only person in New Zealand to ever get that particular combo of cancer, which made it harder to treat. And on Friday last week his body finally gave up.

In his final weeks he seemed to be doing better. His sense of humour had returned. Chemotherapy doesn't make you feel like being funny.

During one of his better periods, Amy was staying with him and his partner Kelly. Rolly was sitting on their deck watching the waves of Lyall Bay while eating his breakfast. She said how nice they sounded, he agreed and said how they helped him. Rolly used to be a surf-lifesaver too. Even through the chemo and the cancer he was still able to help me and Amy with our problems too. We felt like heels.

This post has rambled a little and I'm not entirely sure how I want to end it.

Rolly is survived by his partner Kelly who knows our love is with her. See ya Rolly, though I'm fairly sure you're not reading the internet right now. Amy never actually minded you hugging her, even though she acted all awkward.

You are definitely being missed.

Bloggeratti

2007-05-15T10:21:00.000+12:00

This article is about the panel seminar I was a part of at the GOVIS conference.

(clicking the pic will eventually get you to a big readable version, or just click here)

I'm the one they refer to as "Haydon Green". Haydon!?! Where the hell did they get that spelling? (the correct spelling H.A.D.Y.N.)

A video of the talk is here (scroll down).

Disclaimer: I was not there to represent my Ministry and I did not actually talk to the reporter.

And then the cat came back…

2007-05-04T11:34:00.000+12:00

After a week of fretting and worry we had almost resigned ourselves to a missing cat. Then lo and behold he showed up scratching at the door and meowing to be let in.

It's just that the door he showed up at wasn’t ours anymore.

Somehow Hermes managed to get from Tasman St, Mt Cook to our old house in Houghton Bay! That’s some trek. And how the hell did he know where he was going?

And, he’s not even skinny or any worse for wear. In fact we think he might have put on a few pounds. Little bastard.

Anyway, he’s back now and we’re happy. It got quite sad in our house recently. I suppose its good practice for having kids (who turn into teenagers).

Stupid Raiders!

2007-04-30T11:30:00.000+12:00

Previously I have said that I wouldn’t talk about sport here but sweet baby Jesus what is going on with the Patriots!?!

In this offseason they have added former Ravens linebacker Adalius Thomas, former Bengals cornerback Tory James, former Dolphins running back Sammy Morris, former Dolphins wide receiver Wes Welker, former Eagles wide receiver Donte Stallworth and former Bengals wide receiver Kelley Washington.

AND now they’ve got Randy Moss. For a fourth round pick! This is nuts!

Last time the Pats got a great but temperamental player it was the Bengals’ running back Corey Dillon, and we all remember how that turned out. All trades with the Pats need to carry that weight with it.

And were the Pats the only team that wanted Randy Moss? What about the Buccaneers? What about the Giants? What about the Seahawks? What about the 49ers?

The 49ers actually traded their 4th round pick for the Seahawks Darrell Jackson. The 49ers pick was 124 and the Pats pick was 110. But trading to the 49ers (or someone like them) would be SO much smarter.

Typing quietly

2007-04-24T11:30:00.000+12:00

A hangover coupled with a 8.30am meeting and added to another late night tonight playing in a bowling league that requires drinking gives one an accute appreciation of ANZAC day.

Lest We Forget.

The Producers

2007-04-11T14:42:00.000+12:00

I must be crazy.

It's not like I'm writing my first feature-length film script and screen-printing tshirts and bowling in a bowling league and entertaining visiting friends and working a paying job. I have now taken on all the duties of producing a 48hours film.

This is quite frankly...nuts. Don't I remember how nuts it was last year?

This year our team is smaller so it should be easier to wrangle (Ha! now I'm sounding really crazy). Jenn, who was our fearless leader last year, sent me these tips, and I figured I'd put them up for any one else who is in the same boat as me.

first thing .. book a camera NOW. They are hard to come by when it gets closer to the time...
Just be organized, as much as you can ahead of time...
find locations that can double as many types of film ideas,
get a small idea of what equipment you may need and get it ready ... a couple lights maybe, sound equipment, etc.
Get your crew set ..
You'll need a few pa's to help you out .. we had 3 and I kept them all busy,
get your editor, sound/boom op, dp/director, writers, grip/gaffer (couple of them is best), actor and actress at least .. book a few, you can always find a way to get them in the movie,
maybe someone to do your still photos (optional) .. etc ..,
get your post organized ... how you are going to get your stuff from your camera to the computer,and back out to tape .. and then test the system so you don't scramble with the how to on the night it's due ;)
Get as much stuff ahead of time, tapes, paper, grip tape, possible smoke machine, etc ..
keep the crew happy, fed, watered, and rested when they really need it. Do all you can to keep them as stressfree as possible, and it will run smoothly :) (hopefully!)
Think of all scenarios, and what you may like to have, and book it.
You'll have to guess (with the help of the director and writers) .. what things you want to spend the money on, in case you need them.
Get your computers organized .. make sure you have them and someone to run them .. Oh, and a techie guy is great for things that can go wrong!
...and enjoy yourself too! It is all about fun!

These really are fantastic tips.

Terror-Filled Romp

2007-04-05T13:55:00.000+12:00

I can now say that I was the writer on an award-winning movie and actually mean it.

Night of the Hell Hamsters won Best Director at the film festival in Sydney a little while back. Apparently it was tough competition and Paul, the director, was very humble.

But here are a couple of shots taken from that Sydney screening. Seems like we got the reactions we wanted.

Total Serenity

2007-04-03T14:26:00.000+12:00

Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		85%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		85%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		65%
River (Stowaway)		65%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)		55%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		50%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		50%
Inara Serra (Companion)		45%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		40%
Alliance		35%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		10%

Honest and a defender of the innocent.
You sometimes make mistakes in judgment
but you are generally good and
would protect your crew from harm.

I really didn't know who I would be in "Which Serenity character am I?" quiz. I suppose anything that would help me woo Kaylee.

Malcolm's good though because Amy thinks he's hot mainly due to his high pants

One last thing...

2007-03-29T08:06:00.000+12:00

This from another report about the anti-anti-smaking protest (also known as the pro-child-punching protest):

Police made one arrest, charging a 23-year-old anti-smacking protester - who
wore a New Zealand flag towel over his head and introduced himself as Jesus, Son
of God - with disorderly behaviour, obstructing and assaulting police.

Given the large Christian contingent in the protest I'm surprised none of them recognised him.

Anger...rising...vision...blurring

2007-03-28T16:01:00.000+12:00

With all the protests and carry on, one might not see the furore for the trees.

Check out the (roughly) 12yo boy (photo in the NZ Herald article linked above) with the placard saying "Freedom's Ramparts On The Sea". I don't even know what that means, or how to apply it here.

Also from the article: "One observer estimated that the anti-smacking bill protesters numbered more than 500"

Yeah, well I heard that there were a million people there. Idiots (both Herald and protesters)

I began to wonder, if the bill did go through, whether there would be idiots like those who opened bars where people could smoke after that was outlawed. Idiots who would beat their kids half to death just to thumb their nose at the Government.

For more anger causing comments please see the Herald's comments page. James summed it up thusly:

...my favourite ...
"Why not lower the drinking age/the age of consent/the driverlicensing age/legalise pot and meth and whatever else we need to do to send us into the pits of hell."
The PITS of HELL people! (which, I read in the Dom today, that the Pope has confirmed *does* exist).

Anyone get the title reference by the way? Geeks.

Anger management

2007-03-28T13:33:00.000+12:00

For health reasons I'm supposed to be keeping away from things that make me angry. But sometimes it's just so hard: Kentucky's Biblical Creation Museum.

... the Rev. Bill Henard, senior pastor of Lexington's Porter Memorial Baptist Church, said that Sunday school classes and other groups from his church are likely to visit.
"I think people will enjoy ... being able to see a different side from what some scientific findings have shown," he said.
Henard said he believes in the literal story of creation, adding that "I think you would be surprised to know how many people hold to a young-Earth creation"

I wouldn't be surprised, I would be very, very pissed off. Unless it turned out to be two. "A different side from what some scientific findings have shown". Well I suppose that's why everyone likes fiction.

The Fall of Man

2007-03-26T14:49:00.000+12:00

Evidence: Mr Peter Talley, managing director of Talley's Fisheries.

In a speech to 200 high school students at a leadership forum organised by Motueka High School, Mr Talley made known his views on various issues.

Whaling : The Japanese should be allowed to hunt whales because they were doing it sustainably.

Seals : Seals should not be protected because they catch more fish than inshore fishermen, in particular hoki and cod. Humans should have more rights than seals which were a "very destructive animal". Talley also said money could be made from seals as each one was worth $600 for the omega-3 oils in them. He did not suggest they should be hunted commercially.

Animal rights : When a student asked why humans had more rights to fish than seals, Talley answered: "I don't believe in animal rights. I want to kill and eat them."

Environmentalists : "Fishing is New Zealand's fourth largest industry but greenies don't want it." Talley said the animal rights movement was urban-based and unfairly targeted farmers and meat producers.

Art : Graffiti artists were no longer tagging "Ban the bomb" but "Meat is murder", he said.

Organic food : The organic food movement was riddled with fraud. British supermarket Tesco had removed all its organic produce from its shelves for a period because so much of it was not actually organic.

Non-organic food : 70 percent of beef has growth hormones in it and every time people eat chicken they are getting an overdose of antibiotics.

Genetic engineering : Pro-genetic engineering for the reasons above and because it cuts the need to use pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics.

I’m not entirely sure where to start on this. I understand that Talley obviously has a biased stand point as head of a major fishing company so some of his statements are, in some way, understandable (“New Zealand [has] a fantastic and sustainable fisheries management system”). But…wow…some of this stuff is just…nuts.

Whaling : The Department of Conservation pointed out that we don’t know of Japan’s whaling is sustainable or not. But above that, just because something is sustainable should we do it? Also Mr Talley is implying that whaling is environmentally sustainable, however, recent reports would suggest that it is not economically sustainable. Moreover, once something is found to be unsustainable it is harder to stop (see current poor fishing practices worldwide).

Seals : Our seal population is still returning from nearly being wiped out. I’m not sure where he gets his numbers for seal fish kills but I’m guessing that the seals are much more sustainable and less environmentally destructive than inshore fishermen. So if seals are killing “too many fish” then Talley’s fisheries management system is missing a large variable in its calculation. i.e. “Our management system is perfectly sustainable in this environment, it’s just that the seals kill too many fish.”

Animal rights : I have never heard a less convincing argument about why animals shouldn’t have rights* than: “because I don’t believe in them”. “I want to kill and eat them” is even less so.

Environmentalists : I’m sure that this gross generalisation, “Fishing is New Zealand's fourth largest industry but greenies don't want it” is sure to create many comments. Like this one from Les Mathieson: “About time someone told the other side of all the green rubbish that gets taught these days.” Or this one from Dan Manson: “The greenies do a good job but at the end of the day their beliefs, are just that. Their beliefs only. In hotter years to come it will be the greenies fault that NZ will have animals running around like they own the places they are living in whilst humans will starve and die due to their inability to be able to hunt, kill, and feed themselves or their families”. Actually Dan’s reads like it might be sarcasm but…

The Greenpeace spokesperson said it best when she said “[Talley] forgot to mention that pigs can fly”

Art : I had no idea that Peter Talley was a follower of street art. Of course, no one has written "Ban the bomb" for a VERY long time (except in a retro fashion). And I’m happy to excuse the "Meat is murder" phrase if he keeps saying things like “I want to kill [animals] and eat them”.

Organic food : To say that the “organic food movement is riddled with fraud” because of a few dishonest companies is like saying that the film industry is full of cheap, poor quality DVDs because of a few pirates. Both industries are actually trying to stop the dishonest versions. Tescos would’ve been right to remove organic produce that they were suspect about until a proper certification. This protects their customers. However, to not reinstate real organic food after certification would just be stupid.

Non-organic food : It’s good to see that Talley doesn’t actually hate the idea of organic food. However, he mentions meat and chicken being full of antibiotics etc what about fish? As a wild catch it is by definition organic. But the “organic food movement is riddled with fraud”. Oh, what to believe?

Genetic engineering : Better the devil you know than…

I dunno maybe he was drunk. Still I hope the teachers at Motueka High School have been teaching their kids to think (I really like the fact that one kid asked Talley why seals had less rights to fish than humans). I hope the kids listened to his arguments and then proactively went and looked for information about the issues. I hope.

*This is a Wikipedia link so the views expressed may be biased one way or another and aren’t necessarily my views.

Testing times

2007-03-23T13:36:00.000+12:00

I’ve got a little plan in the works that I’ll lay out here soon, but for now a little angriness.

Here on the Sportsfreak forums some idiot called DArcy is talking about gay sportsmen and women. A fairly good post on the topic was written on the Sportsfreak website a while ago (Sportsfreak is also home to the excellent piece about “New Laddism”).

DArcy claims to have read a book called “'Why men don't listen and women can't read maps” and from that he gives the following:

although the percentage of homosexuals in the general population would suggest that our sports teams should be equally dosed with said folk, this is not the case due to one simple fact. does anyone want to know? it also covers why lesbians are more prevalent in sport.

He continues:

it's a gene thing biff. we all start life as women. after a few weeks in the womb the chromosomes get busy on it and we lean to chick or bloke. blokes hunt. chicks nurture. the more feminine a man becomes, the less likely he is inclined
to indulge in hunting related tasks, ie sport..not as much testosterone you see. reverse that for women....too much testosterone, more of a tendancy to indulge in hunting related tasks.....
make sense?

Nope, but carry on:

generalisation. take an average sized room filled with males and females, generally the males are taller and broader. i base my previous posts on this.
because in the cave days, men chased lunch, we've developed a spacial ability beyond that of women. distance, velocity, angles etc all assist us in hunting, a key to survival. women looked after the kids, and developed superior language skills, peripheral vision etc, more, but different keys to human survival. these tendencies are still reflected in the modern era. eg, men dominate darts and snooker, even though strength is not a key attribute in these pursuits, women can't compete, as they dont possess the primeval skills that we developed as hunters.....
am i still making sense?

I don’t know if he ever was making sense. Gay men don’t have much testosterone?

According to Wikipedia, testosterone’s effect on adults are:

Maintenance of muscle mass and strength.
Maintenance of bone density and strength.
Libido and erection frequency.
Mental and physical energy.

It also gives you hair and large organs (both internal and external). But no where does this say that it makes you dextrous and able to hunt animals. Sure men have more testosterone than women (in general) and so make better athletes due to bigger muscles, bones, hearts, lungs etc but this has nothing to do with someone’s sexual orientation.

Testosterone also effects libido (more testosterone, higher libido). Even the most conservative gay-hating Christians have never accused gay men of having a low libido (often it’s the opposite). Moreover has DArcy ever heard of “bears”?

Those with a background in biology are welcome to comment (as are those without but please no “un-experts”)

Edward Norton’s Nipple, Dangling Mics and Other Magic

2007-03-20T09:51:00.001+12:00

Last night, thanks to the fabulous Queen of the Bloggers, we went to a free preview screening of The Illusionist. I had missed the Prestige and had heard “good things” about this film so was quite excited. I came away slightly disappointed.

Unfortunately someone had the projector set for the wrong screen size and for the first 10mins there were guffaws as the actors looked like fat munchkins. Then to add insult to injury the establishing scenes for two main characters contained clear shots of a dangling boom mic. This meant that the film took some time to get its momentum back.

The beginning showed promise (that is the piece after the projector was fixed). It had the feel of The Princess Bride, which is always a good thing. However, the story felt clunky in parts.

Paul Giamatti stood out (again) from a pretty good cast, with a deep baritone and the most constant accent. And Edward Norton is always good value.

I just found the story to be too predictable and then found the direction to be heavy-handed in showing the audience what they had already figured out. However, the inevitable sex scene did reveal something: the audience are treated to ambiguous shots of flesh and Edward Norton’s four foot high blurry nipple, but no story development.

Also the director, Neil Burger (also the writer), wanted it to feel like a turn of the century film with those “iris in” wipes (I think that’s what they’re called), so he put in two of them, one somewhere near the beginning and another somewhere near the end, but not as bookmarks, just, y’know, when he remembered.

The story is very good but was just told in a clumsy fashion and the magic is kinda cool too. I don’t know maybe I was too critical, other people in the cinema seemed to like it.

iPod hurts my albums

2007-03-16T14:32:00.000+13:00

The Raconteurs have become a casualty of my iPod. They were put on there when their album (Broken Boy Toy soldier*) came out last year but I didn’t listen to it, being a randomise junkie, until just recently.

See the iPod has completely changed how I listen to music. I don’t mean that I’m able to wander around town more, but that I don’t really listen to albums as album anymore.

Artists and producers slave (I assume) to carefully craft a collection of songs so as to elicit moods and thought patterns in their listeners or to match it perfectly to a movie**. Yet here I am listening to my homemade playlists and usually on random.

So the Raconteurs managed to slip past my playlists and sat in the bowels of my iPod until one day I remembered them, and LO!, their sound brought great joy to me and my lady.

I have since remedied the situation with a “Good New Stuff” playlist (that I listen to on random). But to create the list I have to listen to the album three or four times. Another case of me outsmarting myself.

*See, it's so bad I got the name wrong: Broken Boy Soldiers
**Seems as a good a time as any to say that I hate Pink Floyd as much as I hate the Eagles

Up to my eyeballs in t-shirts

2007-03-15T11:50:00.000+13:00

When I'm not writing scripts or doing paid work (or trying to ignore both of those tasks), I'm screen printing t-shirts. I've got Craft 2.0 on the weekend and I need a decent batch to sell there.

The above photo is just part of my "catalogue". My kitchen is currently filled with screens and ink and squeegees. Drying tshirts are everywhere! I'm REALLY looking forward to Sunday when I'll only have 2 or 3 things to do.

Stupid bastard words!

2007-03-08T15:41:00.000+13:00

I hate that the word "fro" is in my spell checker.

And that sentences like "...and fro example..." aren't picked up by the grammar checker either.

Fucker.

Coming clean

2007-03-07T08:33:00.000+13:00

With all of the modifications aroud the blog I thought I may as well spill the beans about something. I've been incredibly busy of late and somethings have to fall by the wayside. One of these is a blog I was secretly writing for a very long time and only a few people knew about...

The Batblog

I had a loyal (and surprisingly large) readership and I tried to keep it going but I really didn't have time anymore. Please go over and have a read of the archives, I think they're pretty good (if a little geeky).

Interior design

2007-03-06T09:39:00.000+13:00

All "good" things must come to an end.

As such I am changing my template. Blogger has been nagging me about it for a while so I suppose I should (if only to shut them up). So if things look garish around here...make that, if things look MORE garish around here, please be forgiving.