The Birth Of Geek

I came across this picture today. Not literally although it's true to say I’ve rubbed one out to worse. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.



No it’s interesting because of what this group are doing.



They could be, I suppose, submitting a casting application for some freaks & geeks fantasy film, or perusing a David Bain knit sale online. They could even be creating a ‘group’ NZ Dating profile.



They’re not though. The date in the picture probably gives it away, if you’re a poindexter that is and let’s face it, these winners are. It’s the birth of the internet and it’s being shown at some show for the desperate and dateless where they get excited about things like binary code.



What this picture really reminds me of is those countless hours you spent at some wealthy mates house watching HIM play HIS computer game. We all knew some guy like that didn't we, who always got to one level off clocking the fucken thing and took ages doing it. Unlike you, who, having only ever played the game for forty seconds, promptly died in 41 when it was finally your turn again.



I wonder how much porn was on the Net back in those early days. Cause now I’m pretty sure if they took all of the porn off the damn thing there would only be two sites left; one called ‘Hey What Happened To All The Porn?’ and the other ‘Bring Back The Porn’.



Maybe this group got so excited at what they saw they went off and created the first upload?



Now there’s a scary thought.

Living The Dream (Again)

One of the many perks of working where I do is that I get to see the kind of things everyday that you wouldn't unless you a) decided to go all David Bain on your workmates or b) whacked yourself up a meth lab in the garage.

It is the stuff of a boys wet dream but sometimes I can get a little get carried away with living in it...

From: Brian
Sent: Wednesday, 13 July 2011 12:40
To: Everyone

Subject: Helicopter Exercise Thursday 14 July 2011

In the interest of 'safety' staff are asked to remain off the playing field south between the hours of 7.30am and 1pm due to a Police AOS exercise taking place, involving an Air Force helicopter,

There will be some noise associated with the hovering and landing/taking off of the helicopter, due to the exercise involved.

Thank you
Brian

From: ClubDes
Sent: Wednesday, 13 July 2011 12:47
To: Brian

Subject: FW: Helicopter Exercise Thursday 14 July 2011

Dear Brian,

Thanks for the heads up and releasing classified information, this was SUPPOSED to be a Black Op. Good one.

Please have them hover outside the windows of Level 3 of our building for my for extraction. They won’t need to look for me because I’ll find them, but a related image is attached for you to stick on the wall of the room that no one else is allowed to go into, ever.

Oh and they needn’t worry about me making the jump; It’s not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Yours, with all three eyes open and the safeties off,

Thanks,

Name classified.

Things To Do At Easter When You're Bored

Well my Easter weekend sucked, how about yours?

You see we’re renovating. I say ‘we’ but really it’s the missus who does all the work, I’m just on clean up duty and here’s one of the things they don’t tell you about redecorating; it’s fucken messy, amongst other things.

It’s actually a shit of a job and personally I can’t understand why anyone would even start but then they don’t tell you that in all the TV shows and ads that make it look so appealing. It’s all so easy when it’s someone else money, time and labour.

It’s not our first foray into the DIY. We’ve done a few rooms now and yep, every single one sucked just as much as the other and yes, it might very well be one of those things where you’re supposed to sit back once it’s all done and enjoy it but I don’t; I just recall how bloody back breaking it was and wonder just what the fuck we were thinking to start all this?

Because once you’ve done room you have to do them all. Because now they don’t match, or in the often seen worst case scenario, you’ve stuffed the first one up so bad you have to fuck ‘em all up to match.

This past weekend was the turn of the open plan lounge kitchen ensemble. Not the kitchen refit mind you, because that particular bonding experience is still to come, no this was just walls and ceilings. Which meant sanding. By the shitload.

Of course I know a thing or two about being caked in fine sand. The five weeks we spent in Khe Sanh back in the summer of ’69 (piss off Bryan Adams) left us with more sand in our crack than a fattie on the beach. Of course it was hot too so we literally sweated our tattoos off so it didn’t take long for the sand to harden and in some cases, seal the buttocks right up but that was a mixed blessing cause it meant you avoided having to take a dump (cause Charlie could smell a dump a mile away, especially if you had had the rat for dinner) and the accidental games of stand up sodomy that happened in the officers mess.

To her credit Mrs ClubDes did tell me to piss off for the weekend but I did what most fellas do whenever the other half offers any advice, I considered it, briefly and assumed I knew better and didn’t. Thus the long, wet weekend was spent with the family camped into two rooms, only one of which had a TV. It was like a hotel, only without the exotic locale outside.

Now I love the fam more than life itself but in that enclosed environment things started to get very David Bain I don’t mind telling you.

Of course it meant passing through the dust storm that was the main living area anytime we wanted to eat or drink but that’s okay, I like my tea like I like my cheeks; sandy. Speaking of which, have you seen there’s a new flavour of tea called ‘New Zealand Breakfast’? So now you can sit and have your breakfast, in New Zealand and drink a tea that supposedly tastes like you’re drinking...tea...in...New Zealand.

So feeling slightly emasculated but yet relieved that this type of thing is one of the only times I can honestly play the sick note and not have to do the graft, I was reduced to the clean up, which is not the smartest move for someone with respiratory issues. Who would’ve thunk it aye?

Thus Easter weekend finished with one almost completed living area (we still have to paint the fucker) and me on oxygen. The lesson to be learned here class is if you’re contemplating home improvement, don’t. Ever.

Besides, there has to be a better way of having a 48 hour running argument with a lot less effort.

Desperate & Jobless.

Sad news this week, with Stuff running a story on how poor old David Bain can’t seem to find work, now that he’s a free man.

The reason, according to Auckland defence lawyer Peter Williams QC, is simple; Bain would be suffering from the stigma experienced by ex-prisoners re-entering the workplace. "There's obviously a very strong prejudice against people who can say their recent CV was inside prison" he reckons.

Perhaps.

Or maybe it’s just that for every man who sees Bain as the BFG there’s one who worries that even if he did employ him he might just turn up early to work one morning wearing a green jersey, white gloves, socks and brandishing a .22 rifle with a silencer.

I for one sympathise because I more than most know how the stigma from your past can affect your job prospects. When I got back from ‘Nam nobody wanted to offer me a job, not until I stopped wearing the camo and even then, only after I relinquished my M16 and bush knife.

My first job back was in the Asian food market which lasted all of three minutes. It was just too soon for me, too damn soon.

But eventually I learnt to bottle my rage and gain meaningful employment. So all slaughtered family jokes aside we are quite the resourceful lot here at ClubDes and we reckon we can offer Bain the following options:

1. He could work at MurderBurger.
2. Or pick up a paper run.
3. Maybe turn to stand up and be the guy who put the ‘laughter’ into manslaughter?
4. How about the homespun section at Spotlight?
5. He could write a book about he didn’t do it, then one about how he thinks he knows who did and then finally, in association with Kelvin Quickwank, how the dead have connected with him and forgiven him (for not doing it).

The Joe Karam Show Begins...

Joe Karam is finally a free man, acquitted of the crimes he was imprisoned for some 13 years ago.

So too is a fella by the name of David Bain but the way the decision was captured you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the cheeky darky Karam who has spent most of those 15 years behind bars and not the palungi Bain. TV cameras were allowed in when the verdict was read on Friday and rather than focusing on David - at least on TV3 anyway - they were focused on Karam, who rather humorously spilt water all over himself in excitement.

An impromptu press conference held on the steps of the Christchurch High Court was just the start of The Joe Karam Show. Understandably the six foot Bain, he of the huge ears, was too distraught with relief to speak, so Joe did all the talking. You would think that after 13 years of wrongful imprisonment Big D might have something to say, but no. JK on the other hand had lots to say and man can that guy talk.

He continued the sermon with Harae Mai John Campbell. Now the top shelf had been flowing since 5pm so Joe waxed on about several things, mostly himself, none of which really made much sense. In his defence though he did say at one stage that "this is all about David really" but no one seemed to notice so on he waxed. Only when Harae Mai John interviewed the two QCs did we finally get a full understanding of just how hard the team had to work to get where they were that Friday night.

Karam meanwhile, just in camera, stumbled off into the background and almost fell through the hotel rooms closed ranch slider. He had already made his first 'Hurricane' reference whilst being interviewed by Marvelous JC but you can bet it wasn't his first that night. It's a reference he likes to make often - that the case of David Bain is the same as that of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, a black man who was falsely imprisoned for a triple murder he never committed 1966.

Bob Dylan wrote a song about the case and a movie was made starring Denzil Washington. Karam must have liked the movie because he once flew Carter over to meet Bain whilst he was still in jail. Carter is undoubtedly an inspiring individual but the case of a man imprisoned because of the colour of his skin is slightly different to the case of David Bain. No word yet if Washington will play Karam in the movie of David Bain.

Now I should officially go no record as confessing that I have always believed Bain knocked off his family. I've read both books - including Karams - and being someone who likes to know the facts of such things I was convinced by what I had read that the man in the naff homespuns was convicted fairly. It took 13 years for those facts to be challenged and revealed to be in some cases far from factual which unfortunately does throw the Crowns case into doubt. Fridays verdict doesn't necessarily prove that Bain was wrongly imprisoned because he was innocent, more that the case against him was not good enough to prove he was guilty. Funnily enough many people feel the same about Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter.

Still, despite the acquittals, Bain still can't seem to shake controversy. Two jurors not only embraced him after the verdicts on Friday, but later that evening appeared at the 'Camp David' after party. Incidentally the 'Camp' reference refers to the American Presidential retreat of the same name and not the fact that Bain and Karam appear to be close. Very close. Now that would be camp.

The actions of the jurors, however niave, captures in a nutshell what most of us suspected regarding the retrial; that Bain had a huge amount of sympathy amongst a generation that didn't really know much more about the fella than Joe Karam's Hurricane references and the images of him in those homespuns. That was going to count for more in a retrail than any debate over the size of a bloody footprint.

But you can put your money on one thing; the Joe Karam showing is just cranking up. I suspect the first book on the acquittal will be either be by him or about him. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a combination of the two. Bain meanwhile is a free man and good luck to him.

Shit is going to get really interesting though if one day he knocks off Joe and his family...