Mt Maunganui - Land of the Weird

Welcome, then, to Tauranga, the city where laws like having to wear a helmet whilst cycling and not using your cellphone whilst driving were made to be broken.

And you and I both know that these perps would’ve gotten to that state via gateway misdemeanours like jay walking and not actually fully coming to stop at a stop sign..

Not that there’s anything new in that state of lawlessness, my history with this part of the world includes being the place where I learnt - and first got caught - shoplifting. It was the classic rookie error too, I reached above the ice cream fridge / counter thing to steal a chocolate bar, because I didn’t think the shopkeeper could see me doing so….through the glass.

It’s also the place where I had my first interracial sexual experience. I kissed the Maori girl from next door that I fancied on the cheek. I think we were 10.

See my father lived in Greerton and in the years before his eternal paternal abandonment I would holiday here with him for months on end, or whenever it suited Mother to have me back which as far as I was concerned, was always way too soon. Them were good times.

My father’s then soon to be wife was a hottie who had a thing about leaving bowls of lollies on the table as a snack. Naturally being under the age of pubes and starved of such a thing back in the real world, I gulfed them down like a kid with diabetes.

In fact everyone was forever giving me lollies. The stoners next door would buy me bags of the things just for cutting down a bush with the wooden sword Dad made me, whilst said sexy Step Mum let me pick what I wanted as a $10 mixture for one of my birthdays. And that was back in the day when things cost a cent!

We’re not staying in Greerton though, the extended ClubDes family and I. No we’re in Mt Maunganui, one of the countries hotspot's at this time of the year. Fuck knows why because this place is distinctly average. Oh sure, it has a beach but the Gold Coast it ain’t.

The holiday house we’re staying in is quaint, in an ‘everything is bloody backwards’ way, like the light switches which are in the last places you expect them to be and gates open outwards, not inwards. That kind of thing.

The owners must be grandparents too because there are kiddie locks on everything, the ones that require a degree in dexterial engineering to open them. Those things are going to be a shitter when the arthritis kicks in. Maybe just teach your kids not to go into cupboards aye?

Crimes against fashion runs into their thousands up this way and far be it from me and my Scott Disick GQ style to criticise but some people round here are dressing themselves in the dark, surely. All of which just adds to the ‘weird’ factor of the place really.

Like the Upper Hutt Posse across the road who had a skateboard and bongo drums party the first night we were here. I kid you not. There were more black metal tee shirts on show than one of those Asian run knock off shops and yes they did get the Led out around midnight, but yet somebody bought the drums…

Still, it’s a holiday which means you don’t really give a shit about those things. Besides, I pulled up alongside a mint, cherry red Dodge Charger in the main street the second day and the sight and sound of it will keep the mecaphilliac wank bank stocked nicely thanks very much.

Roll on New Year’s, maybe then I'll discover what all the fuss about this place is really about...

The missus and I are making this place look good, real good.

Merry Christmas, Bitches

At this time of year, please take time out from all the present opening, face feeding, binge drinking and shameless coveting of the 16 year old first cousin to remember the man who sacrificed himself to save us, so that we may all live free of fear...

I'm Batman.

Genius In The Workplace

Sometimes even I am in awe of the genius that surrounds me at work:


And sadly I can almost imagine that the train of thought that preceded this was something along the lines of "Hey, it's in the bin, my work here is done".

I kid you not.

Christmas Queues Since Ages Ago

Christmas is a busy and stressful time, especially if you work in retail (and I have) but shit in my mouth, some shops could do a lot towards making life easier on themselves.

Take for example NZ Post Shops which haven’t changed the way they do things for so long I’m beginning to think that they actually enjoy the misery the cause and why not aye, if you’re not enjoying your job why should anyone else?

If you take a history tour through the website you can read about how pioneering post shops were back in the early 1900s. In fact there’s so much historical goodness on the site that it will feel like you started reading it all back in the 1900s and just to complete the picture, if you go into a post shop today and experience their complete lack of technology, you’ll feel like it is the 1900s.

Oh sure, they’ve got ‘puters and stuff. But they’ve also got queues almost long enough to almost make it back to that period...

Let me just say at this point I am in no way having a go at Posties because they do a fine job and around this time of year, a damn good one. If Posties were to be removed as a means of making way for technology then the world would be a little sadder for the experience. Our Charlie (the dog, not the old adversary from ‘67 – ’69) would also have no one to bark hysterically at other than the secretive Asians across the road. Oh the irony.

I loathe going into the Post Shop because in a world where everything can be scanned, weighed and stickered in some impersonal, cold, self service kiosk parcels and alike can’t at the Post Shop. Why the fuck not I ask myself whilst waiting 20 minutes in a queue of people wanting to do just that.

Even if you have had the sense to pre package, sticker and attach postage to your parcel, you still have to wait in line to hand it over to the grumpy bitch behind the counter to put in a bag. A bag that could hang somewhere secure but accessible I imagine but hey, why make life easy for your customers aye?

Now my reluctant sojourn into Camp Customer Service was to register the Passion Wagon for another six months of smooth rides and delivering every time. I didn’t have the actual rego form with me but I did have all the relevant account / reminder numbers because I know how these things work, you have to have some sort of unique identifier and I was sweet, I had three.

But yet still, after waiting in the queue till about roughly 1963, I was told by Mrs Clause at the counter that I needed to fill out a form, despite her being able to bring my deets instantly up on screen using the plate details. Why then, did I need to fill out a form I inquired? I just had to. For no other reason I could fathom then her needing to stamp it at the end of the transaction, because what else is she going to do with the modern marvel that is the manual hand stamp, just another relic in a store full of them.

Now it's not often I lose my rag but I came very close to that morning, almost as much as the afternoon I rock'n'rolled on full auto whilst pulling away from the two Parkies who had just told me to move on from a loading bay whilst waiting to pick up Mrs ClubDes. I fucken hate Parkies.

Still, it is the season for giving so this life changing feedback will not disappear needlessly into the wasteland that is the internets. I shall point out these opportunities for improvement to the good folk at NZ Post not via their website – I know how they are with technology after all – but by post.

That’ll learn them.

The queue at our local NZ Post Shop dates back to the 1900's...

The Lost Art Of The Secret Santa

I’ve said this once but I’ll say it again: the art of the Secret Santa gift giving in the office is not what it was.

Once upon a time colleagues took the time to find out two things about the co-worker they were buying for; either what they were interested in or what would embarrass them the most. Thus the point of Secret Santa philosophy was fulfilled, it bought work mates closer together.

Now shit has just got silly. No one gives anything as thoughtful as a book of hand drawn sketches of rifles to a gun enthusiast or as amusing as a tube of KY to the 40 year old virgin anymore. Even the mandatory pack of nudie playing cards (guys for the guys, girls for buyer) has dried up quicker than Grandma.

It started when people started giving stress balls and those ridiculous plastic reindeer that shat chocolate covered raisins if you pushed down on their hind legs. A gift that serves no purpose whatsoever because even when you know what they are, who on earth is going to eat reindeer shit?

Personally I blame the advent of The Two Dollar shop and other such emporiums of tat that act as a Mecca for those that just can’t be arsed. A minute, plastic pool table for the desk is neither practical nor functional so why even contemplate buying the fucken thing? Besides if I’m that bored at work a second hand stick mag in the mens will do the trick and it’s well under the $5 limit.

For the completely unimaginative Secret Santa means buying a box of crappy wafer sticks from the Warehouse, or a bag of lollies. For the completely disorganised it’s something pinched from the stationary cupboard or the stapler from Stu’s desk.

What is amazingly to me though is that despite the frugality of the economy these days, no one has yet started giving blocks of cheese, two litre bottles of milk or preserving jars full of petrol. Secret Santa is just not that practical I guess.

Thank fully I am blessed with thoughtful team mates, or at least two of them, for my last two gifts have been AWESOME and have been clearly purchased by someone who has done their homework, realising that I am both a ninja and proficient in handling the AK47:

Not that I would ever use a firearm whilst slicing and dicing my way through a garrison of very bad men because as we all know, swords don’t run out of bullets.

Mind you my last two efforts have been pretty good even if I do say so; a six pack of dirty Rheineck and a good night in for Ron Jeremy last year and this year? A mega can of horse piss aka Red Bull for Candylane because she loves the stuff. Actually I could’ve taken a warm steamy one in a bottle and saved the $5 really for all the taste or nutritional content that rubbish has in it. Next year maybe.

So it might be too late to not give that crappy chocolate cacking reindeer now but give it some thought next year aye?

Christmas

Who wants to sit on Santa's lap?

Fudge Packer Vacancy, Apply Within

Mirror Earth, The Final Frontier.

Another edition to the wank bank this week for the space geeks amongst us, with the news that some big -fuck-off-shiny telescope has discovered a ‘mirror earth’ 600 light years away from us.

Firstly - what a waste of a telescope. Our gaff is located in a position where I can see into many windows of many houses and I could use just such a thing to indulge my voyeuristic tendencies that at this point in time, extend only to noticing that the teenage girl next door was taking pictures of herself in the bathroom the other night.

True story too, I could see the flash going off from our kitchen. Thankfully, even though the glass was frosted, I could tell she was clothed so I was not forced to trawl the internet to find the images which might have been upsetting to her parents. It would’ve been a tough job but hey, look after your neighbours and all that…

Secondly - naturally I’m skeptical because if it really is a mirror earth then there’s every chance there’s a mirror me on it living a life equally as unexciting as mine (as detailed above) and surely that can’t happen in the one reality, can it?

Apparently this mega scope has also spotted some 2000 new candidate planets which really does put our inconsequential existence into perspective doesn’t it? The sci-fi industry love this shit though because equally as many scripts of TVs / movies about life revolving around those planets are now being written as I type.

Oh and this mirror earth is closer to the sun than we are, so it’s warmer, for longer. Thus even its mirror Wellington is a better one because it does not blow like 50 Bastards, all of the time, nor is it constantly like Pearl Harbour outside (nasty nip in the air).

Ironically this week marks the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbour attacks which all sadness aside, are a reminder that modern armies just don’t do surprise attacks any more, not on that scale.

Today’s war zones are just one big game of who can hit who the hardest and no bugger surprises no bugger, just like Nam; Charlie and we spent all damn day and night looking for each other and the only real surprise was that occasionally, we bumped into one another.

Maybe we should’ve had a telescope.

Life Lessons, From The Bouncy Seats

Conversation turned to trampolines in The Club the other day, partly because Lancey has just gotten his clan one.

Not a trampoline the likes of which we had back in the day mind, no this is one of those can’t hurt you ever, can’t have fun jobs. Which got to us discussing just how those death traps on legs from days gone by, provided us kids with a rite of passage into later life, something Lancey’s spawn will now miss out on thanks to the Big Limp Dick Safety Brigade.

Who didn’t learn a valuable lesson from getting their nuts crunched and pinched when falling through the springs on a trampoline? Not to mention failed flips, mistimed landings from nearby structures or launches into pools that came up short.

Every kid had at least one incident of being catapulted off the damn thing by an older kid bouncing twice as high as every other bugger. That usually ended in a mistimed attempted landing on the frame from a great height, thus crunching the gnads and grazing the ankle / shin / thigh when landing half in the springs and half off the frame.

If you were really lucky you finished that particular artistic move with a face plant on the grass below. I can still hear the laughter now…

Who didn’t find out the hard way that laying underneath it whilst your older brother depth charged the hell out of the thing in a stress test that was never tried in the factory because it was presumed that such a load would ever be heaped upon it and even if so, who would be silly enough to sit under it if it was?

Well we were of course and a couple of those in the head and back learned us didn’t it.

What about the valuable lesson we were all given on the importance of maintaining balance whilst sitting in the corner awaiting your turn only to fall forward or worse, backwards, off the thing when some bugger got a little eager and upset the structural balance by jumping in early, making the ‘no more than two’ rule Mum always dropped on us a very valid point.

I lost count how many times I got ejected by clothesline, flying drop kick or throw to the imaginary ropes that failed to stop me from the copious Royal Rumbles we ran on ours. Dodgeball was another big favourite at our house, until some hard out fired the thing at point blank range whilst you were mid flight and took your legs clean out from under you. Many an emerging facial pube was removed in the resulting face to spring action that inevitably led to.

Ours had a particular design flaw too that meant if you bounced hard enough, on just the right angle, the leg would pop out from the frames which lead to a monumental collapse of epic proportions. I can still see my sister hurtling off it at an acute angle after just such a structural fuck up.

Not that some of us have stopped learning from the humble trampoline. Bruiser has lost two in as many years in a perfect example on how impossible it is to anchor the bastards when you live high above the common folk in the valley below.

One of them very nearly made it down there too only to be swallowed the bush on the hillside directly below his place mid flight. It will be found one day like a forgotten plane wreck leading those who located it to question “How the fuck did this get here?”

The other came to rest through the rear window of the Audi owned by some Asians down the road. Their response to that was to chain the bent and broken frame in their front yard till someone claimed it. Of course that didn’t really pan out because we all know how Asians are with answering their door when knocked on; they don’t. How the hell did they think that was going to work?!

So Lancey’s lot will experience none of this and miss out on some of life’s cruellest, but essential lessons. They will instead be bored with it after about five minutes and move back indoors to the gaming consoles.

No one ever got a gaming console to the balls.

Don't Tase Me Sister

This is a promotional picture. Not from underwear website, but Taser, the people who make, well, Tasers.


I think what it's trying to say is: "Yes, ladies can wear what they want without fear of harassment but if you're going to walk around with your nungas hanging out of an open neck shirt then you're going to need a Taser to ward off the fellas who think you're right up for a bit of motorboat action".

And they would be right.

Still, you can Tase the physical but your two pronged 10,000 volts can't touch the wankbank girls.

Electing the Phallus

Well another Election has come and gone and what a shambles it turned out to be.

Not the actual running of the thing because that’s always well run, Iraq this ain’t. But the result was as predictable as the pool comp we sometimes run here at work which Almo will always win, unless he monumentally fucks it up. Which he did last time actually, so go figure.

Turn out on Saturday was its lowest ever and say what you will about the disenfranchised youth of today it doesn’t take four years of completing a political major to work out some folk just couldn’t be arsed voting in a one horse race.

You should see what it’s like round here trying to get a lady godiver out of the masses when they know full well that A-Fed is going to win it all anyway…

They had a couple of the young Mensa members on the news the other night actually, explaining just why it was they didn’t vote. They came up with some truly inspiring gems of spiritual enlightenment too, like “I don’t really care eh” and ‘I had better things to do” which some might argue that it’s the kind of answer only the gifted could come up with. Maybe. I would argue that from the Occupational Overuse Syndrome that had set in on both their right hands, that they were complete wankers.

Now I skipped my Seventh Form Formal because ‘I had better things to do”. But then that was several hours of trying to suppress an erection in a hired suit at a tacky-but-wishes-it-was-swanky location, the ticket to which cost far too much to not include any alcohol whatsoever.

I didn’t actually have better things to do. My mother wouldn’t let me go. But that’s irrelevant.

Mrs ClubDes and I called into the local polling booth – not to be confused with the local pulling booth because that’s a whole separate blog – on our way to my sisters wedding. Thus we were right glammed up in our number ones which solicited the very humorous, but not entirely unpredictable “Glad to see you got dressed up to vote” joke from the guy who had probably sat there checking out women's chests all day.

“Please put a tit - I mean tick - on each form…”

Attending weddings are great. Except that bit before hand where you have to think about what you’re going to buy the happy couple because even if they have a gift registrar here and there, who really knows what they want. We went with towels because you can never have enough towels. Or pillows.

I briefly contemplated gifting my blister something that would spark a memory of our childhood which inevitably got me thinking about a salt and pepper shaker that her mother used to have. It can best be described as a monster porcelain penis with a separate ball sack, because that’s what it was.

It was a white gloss finish with green cartoon love hearts on both twig and berries. It stood about eight inches tall with a girth wide enough to bring a tear the eye of anyone who looked at it which was everyone, because it sat on our MANTLEPIECE for all to see, all of the time.

Needless to say I didn’t subject her new husband and future nephews to the emasculation that is a foot long cock with bovine testes in the living room.

Speaking of giant phallus, how chuffed are you that the million or so who didn’t vote on Saturday helped get these cocks back in power:

Speaking Of Which...

Best One Day purchase by Mrs ClubDes ever. Unleash the ninjabread!

Secrets of The Inner Sanctum

One of the occasional tasks that I have to fulfill as a Grand Master of the ClubDes Mojo Dojo is that I need to explain to new grasshoppers just how the Inner Sanctum works.

One recent disciple and converted day walker – let’s call him Blood Fang because it’s only marginally less silly than his real name – questioned the hierarchy. I wouldn’t usually detail this to outsiders but I think I’m amongst friends here so just this once, I will.

Those not familiar with the martial arts should note that a Gi (pronounced Gee) is the garment worn by the ninja who you will never ever see, even though that there are four in the room watching you read this, right now. It should not be confused with a ‘g’ which is a female undergarment sometimes worn by the ninja, but only ever backwards, as a form of self flagellation for straying from the path of pure thought.

Let us then begin, young Fang.

The Inner Sanctum protects me; ClubDes the White from outsiders who would seek to take the short path to the spiritual enlightenment that I have reached. This can best be illustrated thus:

Despite the ‘shoulder to shoulder’ nature of this ancient drawing, do not be fooled Blood Fang; for my spiritual plane is light years above yours and so long as you continue to self pleasure yourself it shall remain a plateau you will forever stare up at it.

The allure of the White Gi and the all round bad ass-ness that it carries appeals to many but few have the plums to even begin to even understand what town to visit to find the street with the house that has the winding path that leads to the door that opens into the hallway that is the path to whiteness.

You have done well young Blood Fang to even reach the level of the Red Gi. Cannon fodder you and your brothers may be, yet you have reached the beginning of a period in your life that spiritually is that so inconsequential that it is consequential.

Naturally you will ask yourself if this is to be your destiny. Instead ask yourself this: Does the naked man fear pick pockets? Does one light a torch to see the sun? Does the weary traveler still find the energy for a wristy at the end of the long day?

Keep walking this path and you may yet find yourself amongst the pantheon of the Black Ninja. Then we shall stand back to back as brothers but only in promotional material. Heed my warning though; many have tried but too few have succeeded. Much anal retention is required before one can truly be black.

Or white.

Anyone For Tennis?

There are some lovely looking ladies in world tennis…..but these are not them:


Oh well. I only watch women's tennis for the articles anyway…

Back On Tour

I must apologise for my lack of whinging. I have been partaking in some pretty heavy time travel and only just got back next week.

In that time I had one of those momentous weekends that live long in the memory. Like this time last year I took 24 of my favourite female footballers to a tournament in Taupo and it was, in a word, emotional.

As anyone who coaches will know, tournaments are a special time anyway but our group is a pretty special one and there is nothing more rewarding than seeing those you take rise and overcome the challenges they face (on and off the field) with the confidence and skill you’ve helped to install in them.

This is particularly the case when those you coach are girls, because if there’s one thing that is really tough to do these days it’s growing up as a teen girl in the world we live in. In our group the girls are able to put those pressures aside and really grow and express themselves as equals. That’s the bit I love about coaching, I really do.

Mrs ClubDes and Junior were there with me this time round too and that made for an extra special time of it because they usually don’t get to share in that with me, so I really did have the family on tour with me, in more ways than one.

The weekend wasn't a complete success though.

No group of girls mentioned how cool my boots were this year so perhaps it's time for an upgrade. You know it is actually when he-who-lays-out-the-cones-at-training aka Bruiser has three flash pairs to your one...jammy bugger.

Grab One.

This week on Grab One:

Seriously?! And is 'Snip Vase Clinic' the singular most un-original name of anything ever?

Besides, if you were to 'grab one' and squeeze real hard you'd probably save yourself 275 nicker anyway. Now ain't that a kick in the balls?

That would do the job too, I suspect...

Class on Parade

The All Blacks victory parade culminated in town this week and once again proved that there ain’t no party like a Welly street party. The day’s events also bought out the finest in our future leaders and the new cast of ‘16 and Pregnant’:

Outstanding stuff. There were similar gems of wisdom from a contingent of Queen Margaret girls too which lead to a hilarious letter in the DomPost, the likes of which I love to read:

"I trust the parents of the QM girls featured on the front page are proud of the result of their daughters expensive schooling.."

Mind you, the only thing more slightly disturbing than the literary promiscuity of the girls was that the person holding this sign was a FELLA:

Piri rubs on the lotion or he gets the water.

All this parade needed to make it totally complete was for the ABs to throw sweeties to the masses, but alas that kind of thing has been outlawed because it’s all fun and games until someone get s a Mintie in the eye.

Wet streets jam packed with horny teenagers, some of them girls with crude banners, yes; lolly scramble, no.

Speaking of which, The Chef has been AWOL all week with an ailment that can be best described as ‘jizz eye’. Quite what predicament or Twister position he got himself into to suffer such a fate we couldn’t really say, although the mind boggles at the thought of it.

It was good to have him back on deck eventually and how did we herald his return? We turned the office lights on real bright. That’s just how we roll in Harden Up Land.

As you were.

Now Is The Hour

Thank god that’s over. I suspect we’ve still got a good couple of weeks off rugby news leading all news, but the end is at last in sight.

Now if you’ve clicked on this hoping that you’ll be reading a witty rugby World Cup review with more in-your-end-o then a group of very camp gay men, then sadly you’ll be disappointed. Personally I’d rather catch a case of snake pubes, or even demon penis.

I did enjoy the Hayley Westenra bit though, hasn't she blossomed into a lovely singer? Although I noticed the cameras panned up from the blossoms pretty damn quick, which is probably a good thing because the missus came in at that point and I had my baguette out and everything.

Anyhoo, I will ask this final question of the RWC: Which is the most disturbing aspect of this photo?*

1. That John Key is in the pic like he somehow helped win the trophy; smiling like the smarmy prick who knows (that thanks to the ABs) he just gained himself three more years as PM?

2. And just why is his drink so frothy whilst a very satisfied Andrew Hore is almost asleep next to him?

3. It looks like Hore brought his own slab of Ranfurly Draft too. Which is not a question really, just awesome.

4. Or is it that Dan ‘Ladies Man’ Carter drinks his beer from a glass?

Oh and not to mention this, the strangest handshake you’ll ever see between three fellas; John, Ritchie, Bernard and a three way reach around.

*Full credit to Bruiser and Stu who contributed to these questions. I would’ve though of them eventually but probably not because it's only rugby...

Stop, Collaborate and Listen.

If, like me, you are of a certain age, then the name Vanilla Ice is something that usually leads to much sniggering and smirking. Add to the fact that his real name is actually Rob Van Winkle and shit gets a whole lot funnier.

Having said that, I don’t know of any Caucasian male that didn’t break some moves in front of the mirror whilst lip synching to ‘Ice Ice Baby’ in the hope that it somehow made us as brown as a brown mans cape, just like our mates who loved rap. Hell I even know a few of the brothers who did the very same thing.

He may have cut like a razor blade and sliced like a ninja but cool he wasn’t; at least not when you saw him. There’s that old joke that everyone was into Vanilla Ice until they found out he was white and then no one, least of all the black dudes, admitted to having ever been into him in the first place.

Because a middle class white boy singing about a drive by didn’t really cut it in terms of street cred back then, but those crackers doing so today – with some considerable success – really do owe Vanilla Ice a huge vote of thanks for breaking the ground for them. Ridiculed he might be, but you would be hard pressed to disprove that he started a movement.

Of course with great success came great temptation and Ice used and abused with the best of them. Eventually he turned his back on pursuing just a musical career and returned to his original love and area of promise; extreme motor sports like motocross and jet skiing, something he had considerable success with by all accounts. For real!

Along the way Ice took to getting involved in home improvement and real estate, which leads me to the point of this blog. That interest got turned into a reality show ‘The Vanilla Ice Project’ where he and his crew flip a destitute Palm Beach house into a million dollar resale, something that he’s been doing regularly for the last ten years.

He’s even written a book on how to invest in real estate and you just know it’s got to be good because ff there was a problem yo he'll solve it, check out the hook while his DJ revolves it.

The Project is in essence, a home improvement show and god knows there’s enough of them fuckers, but its Vanilla Ice y’all and he brings to it all the hollahs and jive talk one would expect from a white man who’s spent most of his adult life in the world of rappers and...shit.

It makes for some great TV when the guys doing the reno turn up in a Rolls Royce and a hot rod truck, amongst other bangin’ rides. In one episode Rob takes matters into his own hands and blasts out the dilapidated pool, puts down a sweet patio and installs some unexpected, but killer features like Tiki torches and a fire bowl. He makes it rock’n’roll when others just make it.

Yep, Ice and his crew put the "sweet" back into the master suite alright. It’s funny yet imminently watchable at the same time. Ice comes across as very articulate and with a real sense of energy and cost conservation in his work.

Trust me, as the man himself would say with gangsta hand gestures, it’s worth a late night watch even if you didn’t listen to Ice Ice Baby like a million times and I know you did. We all fucken did.

So check it; The Vanilla Ice Project, my new favorite show and my latest man love moment.

Hollah!

How Not To Mow Lawns 101 - Epilogue

Oh it's one of those electric fly mower thingees. Well that explains it. Might as well try cutting up cardboard with those plastic scissors they give toddlers for all the fucken use that's going to be....

What a rookie.

How Not To Mow Lawns 101

Now I’m not usually prone to taking discreet photos of the neighbour’s property but in this instance I just had to.

Oh sure, there were those images of her next door and the time she was sunbathing topless out the back and yes, the pics did look like they had been taking through a freshly drilled glory hole in the fence. But I stand by my statement that I just happened to have my camera in my pocket whilst hanging out the washing that day and it did indeed drop to the ground and took several very focused, high resolution shots of her as it bounced on the pavement. True story.

Thankfully she moved out after jacking up (or possibly off) with one of her many gentleman callers. I wasn’t too disappointed with that because as regular readers will no doubt recall she had a teenage son who had a penchant for low riding pants, cars with big bore exhausts and females with Hepatitis.

And those who have seen said accidentally acquired images will also know what I mean when I use the expression “two cricket balls in tights”.

Our new neighbours moved in a few weeks ago and are quite lovely, British, fresh of the boat and are settling in nicely. They’re renting the gaff but are the types of tenants a landlord loves to have; tidy, conscientious and keen to do a spot of gardening on a nice day.

Not that the upkeep of the grounds has ever been a priority of the owner. Previously he sent Mr Green around only when the lawns reached knee height. Which has always lead me to believe that either he has no idea about how hard it is to cut that length of grass or he’s tighter than a straight mans anus with his money.

Thus the lawns there hadn’t been mowed for sometime and being the lover of a well mowed lawn that I am this quite understandably got on my tits and so, for the last few weeks, I have been trying to talk my way into mowing theirs for them at the same time I did ours.

Frustratingly they’ve been out or indulging in a spot of afternoon delight (because they do look the type) every time I’ve knocked on the door and I haven’t had the chance. Mrs ClubDes reckoned I should just mow it but they have a toddler and the last thing I want to be known as is ‘the crazy guy next door who mowed our lawns without asking whilst we were rutting like wildebeest as baby slept’.

It was rather fortunate then that our paths should cross the other day as I was departing for football with the girls. I offered to run the mower over the front line the next time I had it out but the bastard both broke my heart and turned me on a little by revealing that he had just bought a mower himself.

He had tried a bit of trimming too, only he showed his complete lack of inexperience by trying when the grass was as moist as the Sonny Bill Williams fan club. We both shared a man laugh at that point but alarm bells should were well and truly ringing; No one would be that clueless to try and cut a lawn at that state, would they?!

He fucken was, did and has left it in a state that can be best described as a shambles. He hasn't even followed the basic of basics which is that the tyre should always be inside the line of the last pass. They teach that stuff on Blues Clues for fucks sake. I shouldn't really be surprised after all he's probably lived in some attached townhouse all his life that had a concreted over garden, but it annoys me now every time I look at it.

So much so I'm tempted to run my mower over his lawn at any moment, afternoon delight or not.

Just look at the state of it.

Bring In The Boat Pirates

Amongst all the shit and giggles that has been the rugby world cup there is the small matter of an environmental disaster happening off the coast of Tauranga.

You’ve probably heard about it. It has been the lead news story everywhere except that is for this weekend when the semi finals of said ‘world’ cup took precedence. Perhaps nothing washed ashore those days.

In a remarkable segue that somehow made the fact that no one was giving a shit about the oil spill today almost okay, both 6pm news programs had touching stories about how the cleanup workers from both NZ and Australia would down tools that evening and watch the rugby together, putting aside their common goal for just a bit. Good times.

I guess when you’re doing a job like that there has to be some escape from the drudgery of it all. I wouldn’t do a job like that because I am inherently lazy so I admire all those people who’ve put on the white overalls and mucked in. Especially seeing as we’re supposed to be holidaying there in the New Year...

Now I’m no seaman, my service was all on land, if you could call the giant rice paddy that was Vietnam ‘land’, so I don’t know a lot about boats and steering the fuckers but it does seem odd to me that amongst that entire ocean the Philippine Captain managed to find the one sandbar for miles.

And then I read that it was his birthday that particular day. What do sailors do on their birthdays if at sea, other than try and drop anchor in each others poo bay? Drink. Like the fish they’re surrounded by.

But being the ideas man that I am I have a solution to stop these things from happening again and it can be best encapsulated in word: Somali boat pirates.

We could get a bunch of them to run the gauntlet between sand bars and the like so that even the most pished of Captains stays away from the bloody things. What’s more, I know where to find some; in my old hood, Naenae.

I happened to visit them mean streets the other day whilst picking up something and with all the flags on vans proliferating the place I thought I was in downtown Mogadishu and hey I would know, I’ve seen Black Hawk Down like three times.

All jokes aside it was a bit sad to see the old haunt in such bad disarray. I can’t pretend that it was Beverly Hills back in the day but it was a neighborhood that by in large was filled with people who took pride in their properties and cars etc. As kids we never really understood just how much of a difference that made to the place.

Not that keeping up with The Joneses is what life is about, not by a long shot, but it says a lot about the community when people are motivated and comfortable with their environment to spend their weekends in the garden or washing the car.

It’s that same sense of community that gets those same people out on the beach cleaning up the oil spill that could have been prevented if we had Somali boat pirates patrolling the coastline.

I rest my case.

The Naenae Massive, ready to represent.