Appearances May Deceive

Nothing is safe from disturbing trend that is making shit cheap and nasty these days. Not even the king of such things; plastic utensils.

A plastic spoon broke on me today as I tried to extract the teabags from my cup. Yes that’s right, plural. I like my tea so strong it sometimes stirs itself. Anyhoo, it just snapped in half, midway up the shaft which as we all know, is the worst kind of break.

I managed to teabag myself, even with a broken shaft, but my god, it was messy.

How can we expect to maintain the fabric of society when even the simplest of things no longer function, for fucks sake? It used to be you could cut through an over cooked steak with a plastic spoon, or tunnel under the barbed wire perimeter fence. Then along came China and stuffed up everything through their mass production of everything.

I wonder if they use plastic utensils in Whitby. Or drink beer from cans. Did you know that beer in cans is sensationally cheaper than in any other vessel, but no bugger buys them because drinking from stubbies is far harder. And easier to throw at the neighbours / parked cars / cops, probably.

There’s nothing quite like a drive round a gated community to remind you just how inconsequential your little three bedroom number in the suburbs is, is there?

I had to pick something up from there this week and for a while there I wondered if I had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Beverly Hills. It is a place that suffers from split personalities; take the first turn in and you’ll find yourself in Shitby, take the second or third and you’re very much in Richby.

It’s suburban snobbery at its finest and something I am well familiar with. Growing up in the Hutt Valley Hills (see what I did there?) we had our fair share of it. The frightened Caucasians who found themselves living in ethnic suburbs like Taita, started calling their area ‘North Avalon’. Try and find that on a map why doncha.

I sometimes try it on myself. Where we live is on the border of a very well to do suburb on the one hand and a complete anus on the other. Even the council can’t work out where we are so why shouldn’t we play on that confusion, especially when we decide to sell?

Because even the most directionally challenged, blind guy is going to take one look and know we’re trying it on, that’s why. It’s a bit like internet dating and the blatant misrepresentation that happens in the biggest sausagefest of them all. Not that I’m into that but I know some who have been. Successfully too, I might add.

It’s a real meeting of some of this country’s finest minds, is internet dating, especially from the fellas point of view, who like to lie about the little things like, oh, overall physical appearance. How’s that going to work when you meet that special lady, do you think?

It’s not weird to find a partner on the net these days but it fucken was when Mrs ClubDes and I found each other. Quite what she was doing on there I don’t know but I was towards the end of my Meg Ryan obsession and had watched ‘You’ve Got Mail’ for the umpteenth time and figured hey, if it happened like that in the movies then it must be true.

I can’t remember what I wrote on my profile exactly but it certainly wasn’t the de rigueur of the modern day dating site douche. I wasn’t vague about my name, age, marital status or work situation and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a picture of my chopper alongside a stubbie as a profile pic. I just wasn’t that classy back then.

And the ladies then wonder just why it is that when they make that particularly choice they find themselves in Shitby, not Richby...

"Yeah I'm six foot two, dark, work in marketing and my hobbies include windsurfing, rugby and masturbating.."

China vs The Geek

Now I might have only been the fifth smartest non Asian at my school but if there’s one thing I know its how to rark somebody up and waving a flag at them isn’t it. Unless it’s a swastika - that usually gets a reaction every time.

Case in point, Green Party co-leader and complete poindexter Russell Norman, who tried to take on the Chinese delegation at Parliament the other day armed with his curly red hair, ladies disposition and Tibetan flag.

It was a mismatch of epic proportions. The Chinese may come from a long way overseas and in some cases, only come up to our knees, but beating down flag waving skinny guys is their shit.

Norman used his parliamentary position and privilege to get up close and personal with the ping pong boys but that particular victory was short lived. As soon as he was within reach he, in his own pathetic words, "had his flag ripped out of his hands and somebody smacked him in his elbow".

He was lucky to walk away; clearly it was a death match.

What a peen-arse and another outstanding example of New Zealand politicians being completely useless when amongst the grown ups of world politics. It reminded me a little of a teenage girl who catches a glimpse of their idol after having waited outside their hotel all morning.

I used to wait outside a girls house back in the day too but I never got so much as a glimpse of her. Admittedly it might have had something to do with the note I had left her that one time which read “Dear Lisa, I was in your room whilst you were out and left you something in the toilet”, but I doubt it. Rude bitch.

The whole Tibet thing gets a bit tired anyway. Sure as far as human rights violations go, it’s grim. But it’s a sexy cause to get behind, not that you could ever use the ‘sexy’ in any sentence containing ‘Russell Norman’. How many celebs claim to be into freeing Tibet? And how many of the same do-gooders have a houseful of tat made in China? Not Tibet.

China has a long list of shit that it should be held accountable for. Like the small matter of it being the country that executes more people each year than the rest of the world combined does. Or the one child policy it maintains, or the accusations of organ harvesting and the general crack down on any belief that isn’t sanctioned by The State.

Conveniently none of these things come as a flag.

Some of which, admittedly, probably helps keep the numbers down over there so maybe we shouldn’t make a fuss. But if you do don’t be all limp wristed about it like Russell Norman, there are a number of things you can do to protest against China.

None of which I can think of right now. I’ve just remembered how good Lisa looked in her school uniform and suddenly have the urge to play with myself...

Recession? What Recession?

My wife and I dipped our collective family jewels – figuratively speaking – in the running river that is the housing market again this week. We figured with all this talk of a recession it might be a good time to buy. Fuck were we wrong.

NZ might now officially be in a recession but I don’t think anyone has told homeowners trying to flog off their properties at the same over inflated price they bought it for. This was always going to happen of course. Prices got so crazy a few years ago that we all knew as soon as the arse dropped out of the housing market that there would be tears before bedtime. One house we made an offer on has been on the market for months. The vendor declined our offer – which was very reasonable given the current climate - because he’s holding out for 40k more. Good luck with that mate, hope you’re happy to wait a few months more.

One thing that hasn’t changed is absolute amateur behaviour of the people posing as real estate agents. Once upon a time, people like my mother, the stay at home mums of my generation, ended up selling Tupperware and Avon as a means to an end. These days the very same type of people sell houses - the product might have changed but the ‘gagging for your dollar’ way of going about it hasn’t. The tendering process of buying a house is supposed to be a confidential one, where only the real estate agent and the vendor gets to see all the offers on the table. Well our stay at home mum pretty much told us what our competitors were offering as a means to get us to offer more, which of course would be in her best interest too because she gets a bigger cut of the wedge.

It’s like when you go to a recruitment agency and the consultant makes like you’re her new best friend and talks you up as being perfect for a vacancy she has. It’s easy to get sucked in by the show of false sentiment and think that she’s on your side and that any day now the two of you will be sharing long, warm showers together. It’s a great feeling but guess what? She isn’t. A fact that dawns on you a few days into the job from hell that sat open on the same consultant’s books for months. To her you’re just a four figure payout and a set of test results.

I remember going to this new agency this one time and after going through all the standard typing, Word and Excel tests had to sit through another two hours worth of psychometric testing. After about half an hour I’d had enough and simply ticked ‘A’ on every multi choice question from that point on. My consultant was somewhat confused when reviewing my ‘interesting’ results until I pointed out – rather smugly I might add – that I had merely answered ‘A’ 327 times in a row. She made some disparaging comment about how my results couldn’t possibly accurately reflect my potential to a prospective employer given that I had chosen the first option on every question. To which I replied something along the lines of ‘well if the job was as boring and as useless as your testing I wouldn’t want to work there anyway’.

I never did hear back from that agency now I come to think of it.

It didn’t take China long to get back onto everyone’s shit list did it? Just when they had hoped we’d forgotten about all the civil rights violations, the whole Tibet thing, Engrish and badly made McDonalds Happy Meal toys that only last two or three goes, comes the whole milk powder scandal. Turns out the guys who make the most milk powder in China knew about the problem but did not disclose it publicly for at least a month throughout August, whilst Beijing hosted the Olympics. Fair enough, no one likes a kill joy after all but this was hardly a ‘we’ve run out of paper plates’ or ‘someone’s double dipped the tomato sauce’ type of party faux pas. No this was more a ‘someone’s pissed in the punch’ type of cock-up.

Still, it could be worse. Like the couple having a quickie on the train tracks who got run over by a freight train in South Africa last week. Apparently its quite a frequent event in the part of town that it happened – for people to rut on the tracks – because the working girls often take their clients their for a romantic root amongst the passing 3000 tons of metal. Gets me moist just thinking about it actually. The funny thing was that the driver saw the two and sounded his horn several times but yet they didn’t move? Now that’s what I call getting your moneys worth. Put’s a whole new spin on the term ‘horny’ doesn’t it?

Apparently the condom the guy was wearing was found still on his chopper, despite the fact that he was found in pieces. Now there’s an advertising slogan in that somewhere….

Helicopters and Wheelchairs

My god, aren’t helicopters magnificent? Now that’s usually only a call I’d make when describing two horses mating or voluptuous young breasts, but helicopters are right up there in terms of choiceness.

Choppers - as we ex-army types refer to them - could quite possibly be the best invention ever. Tanks would be a close second and fighter planes third, but choppers are the business. They’ve been using them every day at my place of work all this week which has pretty much meant an eight hour woody for me and Dougs each and every day.

Of course we had a lot of choppers in Nam, the place was full of them. There was so many that Lancey once woke up in the morning - after a night out looking for five dollar boom boom - in bed with one. Only our side had them, the Vietcong never did which was a good thing because it’s a little known fact that Asians don’t like heights or flying and that’s the reason why most of them are shorter than your average Caucasian. We loved riding in the choppers and there’s nothing quite exhilarating as taking a whizz from a chopper as it rips across the tree tops I can tell you. That's what really caused the deforestation in Nam, not that Agent Orange shit.

Have you been watching the Paralympics in China? Probably not, because most of the Western media packed up when the able bodied athletes did and got the hell out of Dodge. Admittedly I haven’t watched much but only because I can’t help but see the funny side of the Paralympics – which is terrible I know - but hey, at least I’m watching!

Take for instance the Woman’s 200 metres final. The leader arsed it about 20 metres from the end and given that she had a prosthetic leg fell in such a way that she spread herself across two lanes and scuttled the second place getter too. Third and fourth – a NZ girl – who thought they were long gone 20 metres from the end eventually finished in the medals! If that wasn’t mildly amusing (and it was) then the 5000 metres wheelchair race featured a 6 chair pile up on the home straight. Only five athletes finished the race and the medals were given out before the tournament committee decided to scrap the race and do it again later in the week.

Now a couple of questions remain unanswered regarding that balls up; Firstly those wheelchairs are like those all-terrain-take-up-the-whole-damn-footpath baby buggies that posh pricks buy and are almost virtually impossible to roll. So how did the first chick to crash get it oh so horribly wrong? Secondly if this happened in an able bodied cycle race would they have scratched the result and raced it again? No. It would have been oh dear, how sad, stiff shit.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than being the cause of the biggest wheelchair pile up since Auschwitz, the girl who eventually got disqualified (even from the rerun) because she fell in the path of everybody else gets penalised twice – once for falling and twice for having no legs and thus being unable to roll anywhere but in the way of the chasing peloton!

I’ll tell you who should be disabled, at least financially, are those rich pricks who run finance companies into the ground and walk away with their assets untouched. Man that’s just not right in my book. I was reading about the guy who was in charge of Lombard Finance, a failed company that owes its investors $127 million. This guy pulled down a salary of $400,000 a year. How the hell do you spend that much money let alone earn it? This guy didn’t spend his on luxury cars, he didn’t need to, they were part of his remuneration package – he got a new one every year!

I think the law needs to be changed so guys like this – who live blatant extravagant lifestyles before and after their companies collapse – should be accountable right up till the day every investor gets every cent back and if that takes years then so be it. He can start by cashing in on everything he bought with their money in the first place.

After all, if I went and took the prize money we’ve gathered for the winner of the Help Desk Massive Pool Comp and put it on some horse down at the TAB with long odds and lost, who should get indiscriminately pushed down four flights of stairs by assailant unknown; me or the nag?

China; Land of the Fugazi

Those sneaky sneaky Chinese. They might be cute, cuddly and ready to please but it only took about five minutes for old habits to kick in didn't it?

The little girl who sang at the opening ceremony was fake. The fireworks at the opening ceremony were fake. I think the whole freakin Olympics are fake. I don't think they're being held in China at all. I reckon it'll turn out to be like an episode of Lost and all the world's athletes have been kept on some island with giant panda bears whilst the fake Olympics took place. But then there’s no real surprise in that, China is fugazi central, they even make fake components to be used in fake appliances. When that blows up in your face you can buy fake medication to treat your not so fake injuries. No stone is left un-turned when it comes to faking it in China.

It can have its advantages though. I'm reminded of this one time, back in 'Nam, that DG Macca, Lancelot, Big Al and I were on covert sneak peak insertion near the Cambodian border and we stumbled across a platoon of Chinese crack troops all locked and loaded. They hadn't expected to see any G.I that close to the border and were actually all tucking into some flied lice and Cream of Sum Yung Gui when we came across them. Needless to say shit got real serious real fast, but luckily for us their AK-47s were fake.

Not everything that comes out of China is fake. Many of the world’s biggest labels, such as the adidas hoodie I'm wearing as I write this, are made in China. The irony is that a lot of the fake copies of the worlds biggest labels come from China too. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be that the guys who produced the real stuff also had a hand in making the fugazi's too because there's a lot of money to be made in both that's for sure. Although quite what the Chinese will spend it all on is open for interpretation. Better haircuts? I don't think so.

Still, if any of our athletes at the fake Olympic Games need an emergency replacement pair of sneakers they can pop next door to the factory of ten year olds making them and help themselves.

Communist bum chums Russia seemed determined not to let their rent boy China have all the attention this month though. They decided to up and invade Georgia which is one of those little break away countries that you'd never know about unless they were invaded or were home to the world's most prolific serial killer. Unfortunately for the poor Georgians it appears as though the Russian AK47s are very real and they're getting a right fisting.

Team America has taken notice though and put the Russians in their rightful place by telling them they've all been naughty little boys. In fact, as soon as Michael Phelps has won his eight gold medals they're sending him over to sort it all out in a classic Yanks vs The Reds confrontation, the likes of which the world hasn't seen since we taught that Chinese platoon how we like to party like it's 1969.

So that leaves only one unanswered question. If Michael Phelps has size 14 feet and his arm span is bigger than he is tall, how big do you reckon his chopper is?

Neither Russian nor fake, apparently, is brunette model Dasha Astafieva, rumoured to be the latest bit of totty for one Mr Hugh Hefner. He likes what he sees so much that he’s reportedly invited her to come be his fourth concubine, much to the shock of his three resident blonde hand maidens. They don’t want another girl in the house quite possibly any more than Astafieva wants to play with a couple of walnuts in a stocking every fourth night but hey, you do what you have to do to get by these days.

Just like these poor kids, who have to stand together for the entire month of August otherwise shit just won’t make sense…

Organised Athletic Meets (Of Any Sort) Blow.

Man I’m sick of the Olympics already and the games haven’t actually started yet!

It seems like every night this year the news bulletins have had some story on some athlete who is set to journey to the games this month. They’ve all been remarkably upbeat given that almost three quarters of them don’t stand a shit show of winning a medal of any colour and that’s not me being a negative bastard, that’s fact.

I’ve never ever gotten excited about either a Commonwealth or Olympic games, even when I was a kid and you spent months leading up to each Games by doing a whole syllabus on the damn thing because it meant that the teacher could spend less time on planning educational lessons and more time trying to root other members of the faculty. Needless to say teachers love it when the Olympics and Commonwealth games roll round.

I was never good at athletics, hence my disinterest in all things Olympic. Despite my football prowess I could never quite muster the inclination to just run for any length of time. Chase a little white ball all over the place, yes, chase brown boys round a 400 metre track, no. The only ‘jumping’ I ever excelled in was ‘to conclusions’, an event which I still hold a gold medal in to this very day actually. As for the throwing events, lets just say that even after I discovered the art of masturbation my right arm was nothing to write home about. I do recall blowing away the field one year in a tennis ball throwing contest but I have a vague recollection of being grouped that time with kids in wheelchairs, so the less said about that the better.

I’ve had some bad experiences with organised athletic meets too. None more so than in third form where at the themed athletics day our class came as ‘Twins’. The girls had spent all week painting a magnificent banner that had been mounted on poles, which Coops and I were to hold high above our heads as we ran out onto the field. All fired up, our class started whooping it up as we made our entrance so that the whole school would turn to see us as we rocked out with our cocks out, figuratively speaking. Unfortunately Coops and I had not discussed previously which direction our juggernaut would head out in and about 4 seconds into the charge we went our separate ways - as did the banner. Now we were pretty loud that day, but the laughter from about 300 kids as the banner tore was louder.

To cap off a great day, somebody downtroued me as I stood around waiting for an event to start. Coops and I had dressed as football players and in 1990 they still wore short shorts so I was gagging for a downtrou really. Luckily I was still of the age that mummy dressed me so the tighty whitey y fronts (which were probably blue because my mother never wanted to tempt fate by putting white fabric next to my arse) held firm and I, or rather the school, was spared the sight of my undercarriage.

Incidentally a few years later I would partially re-enact that scene by wittingly mooning Bruiser across the very same field as we went our separate ways after school one time. He still claims to this very day that his retina bear the scars of the blinding light that emanated off my lily white buttocks at that very moment.

We had this chick in our class who fancied herself as a sprinter too. Well she fancied herself as many thinks really but the expression ‘good from afar but far from good’ springs to mind when thinking back on those. She never one a race in all the years I had the pleasure of sharing a class with her despite all her hype. To make matters worse she was the poorest loser out and always took a dive near the end of the race when it became abundantly clear she was not going to win. I’m pretty sure she was never really injured before she took the dive, but when you’re doing the hundred metres at breakneck speed and you decide to fall over, chances are you’re going to end up second best to the ground and need to be carried off. Stupid bitch.

So chances are I will watch a bit of the Games despite being over it, if only to see women in ‘tards, but I won’t pretend to get all excited when a Kiwi athlete finishes tenth and breaks their personal best. Fuck it’s a sad day when after travelling half way round the world to compete in the anus of Asia you come back happy with tenth. I’ve always been of the mind that if you’re not there to win then why is it that you are there at all?

Someone has to make up the numbers sure, but does it really have to us?

Good Music and Asian Children Are So Hard To Find

I'm just going to chuck something out there; I think there should be a Caucasian only music channel on TV. One that plays predominantly rock and maybe but other white folk music too, like alternative rock and hard rock or maybe even easy listening rock.

Now I don't doubt that Chris Brown and Usher aren't talented artists in their own right, when they're not ripping of each others songs, look and videos that is because they seem to do a lot of that, but I'm sick of seeing their faces - along with Rhianna and Nesian Mystic - every time I turn on a music channel. Thankfully there’s YouTube and alike to keep us, the majority that don’t dig Chris FitzUsher or Usher FitzChris, sane but it’s a sad day when a man has to interrupt his streaming online porn just to watch the latest Weezer vid.

If I really wanted to get rational about it all, I might argue with myself that the reason that the stations keep playing this shit is because the viewing demographic demands it. The fuck it does. I’m in the viewing demographic and I don’t. The top download on iTunes NZ at the moment is the Phil Collins classic ‘In the Air Tonight’ thanks to a bizarre – to say the least - TV ad. Last time I checked, Phil Collins was as white as my skinny arse so it just goes to show that there is an audience still out there gagging for a bit of classic rock and we all know there aint no party like a Phil Collins party.

While we’re at it - the Elemenop song that Telescum have raped for their latest round of bullshit has been erased from my play list too on account that I’d rather not have the mental images I now associate with that song. Shame, because it was a keeper and I really like them as a band. They let KFC kiddyfiddle one of their earlier hits too, the sell outs and they call themselves musicians? Jingle writers I think would be a better term. See The Beatles had the right idea in not letting anyone get their poo stained advertising hands on their back catalogue.

There was once a channel that catered for the majority of music fans, it was called MTV UK and it played its fair share of rock and whatever other types of music there are. This was real MTV too, not the dumbed down, browned out just-play-the-same-crap from the States version we have on our screens now. It was good in that it had specific periods where it played the different genres and you then knew when and where to watch if you wanted to see your favourite.

It also had the very rootable Cat Deeley as a VJ. She could have been playing Wiggles music videos and it wouldn't have mattered quite frankly because we were all just staring at her tits and luscious lady lips that we all imagined were wrapped around our remote.

Speaking of gorillas, Xin Xin the Panda was found safe and well this week, locked in a cupboard in an empty house 20 metres from her own. Does it seem weird to you that no one thought to look there five days earlier? It did to me but then I saw several of the residents of that extremely affluent street interviewed on the news and there wasn’t a Kiwi amongst them. I’m genuinely surprised they even stepped out of their houses to be interviewed let alone look for a missing panda. Why does every missing or abandoned Asian child have to have a nickname that sounds like an empty coke can rolling down the street? Why not try Lisa, Kate or Emma?

How unlikely is it that anyone having a boy in the next six months is going to call it Tony? Wife beater Veitch fell on his sword this week and possibly promptly packed himself when he heard that his ex has now filed a complaint with Police even after he paid her some serious hush money. Smart girl that, she got the money and the bag! But there’s still a chance for small man Veitch I reckon, he could co host with the Lion Man and they could share anecdotes on just how they like to smack their bitches up.

It’s a great country isn’t it?

Why China Doesn't Play Rugby

It hasn’t taken long for the bullshit merchants to crank it up at the World Cup. Not surprisingly it’s taken us Kiwis to set the bar for the coming weeks.

Clothing manufacturer Canterbury of NZ claim to have invented a top that increases performance by up to 3%. Tell ‘em they’re dreamin. It may be as tight as a mans anus but the only thing a tight top reveals is how fat your fans are – and you can take that from someone who’s football team found that out the hard way a few seasons back. These days, when a coach talks about how someone’s ‘shown a lot of guts out there’, it’s more likely to be thanks to the tight jumper than his testicular fortitude.

Canterbury’s ‘idea’ is called ionisation and its technology derived from the Luftwaffe. That’s right, the bastards who bombed my mate Keith’s local fish and chip shop during the war. Ironic isn’t it that they couldn’t conquer Ol’ Blighty but years on their technology is helping to fleece thousands of Scotsmen out of NZ $160 for their national rugby jersey.

I’ll tell you what keeps a joker cool on the field and it ain’t his jersey. It’s the constant fear of stuffing it up in front of the thousands in the stands and the millions (if you’re one of the four big rugby playing countries) watching on the box. Fear sweat keeps you cool, not a painted on titty top. As for tight tops making it harder to tackle an opponent, well that gem of marketing bullshit lasted about as long as it took you to read it.

Incidentally the All Blacks ditched Canterbury a few years back for Adidas, a German firm that can trace its beginnings back to Nazi Germany and apparently, does alright for themselves these days. My mate Rosie won’t buy Adidas because he’s a man of principal. His Grandfather (and mine) fought the mighty Hun so that we wouldn’t have to forcibly wear their clothes – now our national team is sponsored by them and we pay to wear their lightweight leisure garments! If only dear old Adolf were around today to see that all his efforts weren’t in vain. Unfortunately he died in Argentina a few years back.

The same old corporate crap is rolled out at every football World Cup too – where it’s always marketed as Adidas vs Nike. Regardless of who wins on the pitch, both will sell shit loads of overpriced two ply sporting garments all of which were made in Cheapsville, China. They don’t play rugby in China and I’m not surprised. If you and your children spent all day making the stuff for 20c in the hand, you’re hardly likely to want to pull it on afterwards and crash tackle each other. Besides, you have to be up half an hour before you go to bed for work the next day anyway. So who has the time for rugby in China?

China really is the sphincter of the world isn’t it?! I mean okay fair play, the World was well on its way to an Al Gore documentary before China started cracking a turtle head above the full bowl that is the environment, but they’re a bit like a fella who doesn’t get his first pube till well into his teens, a late bloomer. Now they’re making up for lost time and hammering in the final nail on the Worlds coffin in their quest to westernise themselves.

All of this sportswear propaganda really works though because we buy house loads of the stuff. We actually believe that by wearing the stuff it will make us faster and stronger and of course most importantly, better looking why we do it. The reality is that it doesn’t now and it definitely didn’t back in the day when the world’s athletes had nothing more than a pair of stubbies and a wife beater to wear. It’s all a bit like an airline trying to tell you their planes are faster because of the extra smooth paint they use on them.

Take my word for it, the only thing that is going to make a Scotsman run a personal best at the rugby World Cup is a giant Polynesian chasing him down the sideline and not a $160 top!