Bad Acting and Flying Willies

I saw a lot of scary things whilst in Gisbos and I'm not just talking about skanky girls who think that wearing a singlet as a dress is the latest in high street fashion. Breezy on a hot fanny it might be but I think I speak for every heterosexual out there when I say baring ones undercarriage every time you breathe in, is definitely not cool.

One of the joys of sharing a house is that you inevitably have to share the TV rights and unfortunately that means having to watch bits of shows that you'd never, ever willingly subject yourself to, like Shortland Street. Now I accept Shorters for what it is; a soap that by nature appeals to a pretty low denominator, voyeurism. Which is what all soaps do, they allow the watcher to regular partake in a world that is fantastical and often not their own. We watched a bit of Coro too, as was the Aunties want. Great stuff. But where Shorters differs from the likes of Coro Street is in the standard of the acting.

I've seen better acting at my son’s school. And he's ten. The kids at his school aren't paid to act and they aren't directed by folk who've done course in directing people. So with that in mind you would be right in thinking that they should actually know what they're doing on the set of Shorters. But I don't think they do. You would think that with such a support network in place that 25 minutes of a passable production would be achievable, but it rarely is. I watched several bits of several episodes and I am genuinely convinced that someone somewhere is having a farken laugh, because if I was the person responsible for turning out such rubbish I'd seriously consider topping myself. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable in calling myself a 'director' or an 'actor'.

Now admittedly Shorters has been a very successful springboard for a notable few, but for every one actor who has gone on to make something of themselves there are hundreds that have delivered their lines with all the intensity one would find in a glass of water. And people watch this stuff? Every night? Fuck me. What really puckers my anus is that people like to talk about Shorters as being 'part of our culture'. The fuck it is. Let's compare Billy T James and Shitland Street and see which one cuts the mustard as far as being part of our culture. The same people also fart about saying things like that a 'whole generation has been raised on Shortland Street'. That bit is probably true, which goes a long way towards explaining a few things about the youth of today, aye?

I'm no stranger to soaps. Back when we were kids we only had one TV - didn't everyone back then - and that meant you watched whatever Mum watched and my mother watched a lot. Coro, Emmerdale, Eastenders; every bloody soap on the box. Hardly the kind of thing a coming of age boy hopes for in order to get him in the mood for a quick one when Mum leaves the room during the ads to make a cuppa. But somehow I got by and my ever increasing, swelling, blue pubescent balls thanked me for it.

Speaking of your cock up, my arse - I couldn't help but notice the world’s biggest phallus rolled into town (well Auckland) this week with the arrival of the first Airbus A380 to our shores. What a monster it is. We boys love planes, quite possibly because most of them look a lot like our willies and if looking at lots of other willies makes me a poof than go ahead and call me Gaylord. But I had to laugh when I saw the A380 because in these hard economic times it kind of reminds me of that episode of The Office where instead of laying off staff, David Brent hires himself a PA.

Of course when they thought up, designed and built the A380 the world wasn't looking down the barrel of a recession. But now we are and it's supposedly darker than Barack’s starfish, only how they'd know that I don't know. Unless his wife came up with that and then I'm pretty sure we can take her word for it. What's she doing poking around there anyway? Kinky bitch.

But it's a bit like Hitler building the equally massive King Tiger tank, the biggest, heaviest tank of the war. It was that great and I get hard just writing about it. But it was ultimately useless because once it finally got to see action, in the defrosting fields of Europe, it was so heavy that it sank into the mud and was immovable. I can only imagine what dear old Adolf would've said when he heard of it, probably something along the lines of 'Shitto'.

Anyhoo. What I don't get about the airline bizzo is the contradictions that come out of the place. On one hand one airline clearly feels it can pack out the biggest cock with wings every flight, whilst on the other hand it's competition are saying that there are too many half empty flights as it is and the A380 is not sustainable. Sounds like someone has airplane envy to me. But if there are so many empty flights then why is it all the ones I've ever boarded were jammed pack with crying babies who haven't had their nappies changed for several hours?

The only thing that would make it worse is if they showed Shorters during the flight.

High Def Porn? Love the Feeling!

The TVNZ boys and girls must have got their hands on some good stuff recently because just look at the promo line they came up with after their last big toke sesh:

“Shortland Street. Love the feeling”.

What the..? Love the feeling of what exactly? Now I love the feeling of several things, most of which occur whilst in or around the toilet so I’m struggling to make the connection – unless it’s their way of saying the show is shit? I did once have a good feeling towards Shorters but that was because it was ending. Loved that feeling!

But this is just the tip of the iceberg - which is also what the guy said to the doctor after revealing to him that he had lettuce leaves sticking out of his orse. Have you been sucked into the High Definition (HD) revolution yet? Have ya? Freeview and Sky are trumpeting the arrival of HD as if it were bigger than a cure for cancer, but it’s going to take more than a few digitally enhanced slow motion sport ads to get me to ‘suck it and see’.

Funny how slow mo’s in porn movies is something that never really caught on? Shame really because it works so well in sports and they are both contact activities. Anyhoo.

HD TV supposedly yields a better-quality image than standard television because it has a greater number of lines of resolution. Maybe it does, but I’m not really having problems seeing the old lines on our present TV and we are just talking about TV here, not exploratory surgery, so I reckon so long as I can read crappy tag lines like ‘Love the Feeling’ then I don’t think I really need further clarity, do I?

Here is what HD TV means in real terms to the good folk at Freeview and Sky TV; it means you will pay more for a picture that you might think looks better but you really won’t be able to tell the difference. Despite this, you will tell your mates it rocks anyway because you bought the new $100 box that decrypts the signal and now pay an extra $10 a week to help you love the feeling and you don’t want to let on that ‘the feeling’ is actually Sky TVs dirty hand down your pants twisting a fistful of your curlies.

And so your mates will sit in your lounge trying to pick the difference your awesome HD signal gives on your mega flat screen LCD TV (that supposedly gives an image as clear as ice anyway) but really won’t find any to that of their similar setup at home and will inevitably remember the last time you let them down like this; that one time back in your single days when you said your latest girlfriend was really hot and it turned out she wasn’t. She was a bogan, from Wanganui and that’s when you learnt the lesson that being ‘up for anything’ doesn’t always equate to being hot.

Another supposed plus of HD is that digital television requires less bandwidth if sufficient video compression is used. No doubt, but I bet your Sky box carks it once a week like it does now even after you’ve bought the new one. Love that feeling! Especially when it’s right in the middle of your favorite show! And lets be honest, we in New Zealand are hardily one to start waving our bandwidth capacity around because in that particular changing room we’re the boy who showers with his undies on and gets dressed behind a towel.

This all reminds me of the time CDs were coming out and all the excitable folk got carried away and started saying that all those cassette tapes had started the AIDs virus. Or was that monkeys? Then DVDs got you all moist at the very thought of no more crusty old video tapes, but still you were torn between keeping the old pornos you had on VHS or upgrading. Thankfully the bad tracking midway through the first root made your mind up for you. Now it’s HD’s turn to play the easy girlfriend from Wangas and tomorrow it’s BluRay. Don’t even get me started on BluRay. The guy who makes all the blue DVD cases must love the feeling of BluRay right about now aye?

Yep, if you’re a conspiracy theorist then HD should be right on your list. Right up their with those pricks at Sony who should be just about ready to push the big red button they have in their Tokyo head office that switches off all the remaining Play station Two’s in the world meaning that whether I like it or not, I will have to buy a PS3 which surprise surprise, is BluRay compatible. Geez, picked that one like a broken nose now didn’t I?!

Shafted by Sony. Love the feeling.

Retailers Are Stealing Christmas

Now that another Christmas has come and gone do you ever sit back and wonder “why the fuck do we bother?”. People seem to get more enthused about growing a pornstache or a retro minge for a month than they do about Christmas these days.

Geez even Santa gets it in the neck, what with the politically correct telling him he can’t call nobody a ho, or the skinny brigade telling him he’s overweight. I suspect the very same people also write into the TV Guide each week complaining about the actions of the characters in Shortland Street. Get a life folks, for fucks sake. These are all are fictional characters, that makes them automatically exempt from your neurosis. Why not focus your attention and efforts on your stoner kids, or your husband who spends hours online pretending he’s single?!

Personally, I blame the retailers. And the Dutch but I have no actual proof yet that they're behind it. Retailers desperate for your hard earned cash who are putting up the Christmas bling earlier and earlier in the hope that you’ll spend your lolly in their shop in November and not in the chemist getting your missus some cream for the pash rash your hoMovember efforts left her with. Some were even starting their Boxing Day sales before Boxing Day this year because they were literally gagging for your money. And people were buying into it for fucks sake!

Doesn't it seem to be sale season all the time these days? This is the retailers taking you and I up the pooper finger by finger until before you know, it they’re up to their elbows in our asses. To me, a sale should mean ‘cheaper than anywhere else’. It should mean that “it’s a deal; it’s a steal, its sale of the century. Fuck it, it’s so good we just might keep it.” What a sale shouldn’t mean is that four branded stores, all owned by the same company anyways, sell the same product – say an Xbox – at a reduced price every other week. That’s not a sale, that’s just bullshit.

Ever tried comparing mailers for the same sort of store over a three or four week period? Probably not because who would be sad enough to do that aye? But if you did, you might just be surprised to see just how often one great deal or sale is repeated by a similar store the following week. We used to do it in Hallensteins back in the day, we’d drop the price of our Levis by $10 one week and then the gay Samoan boys over at Hugh Wrights would do the same to theirs the next week. Different companies mind you, but both with the same goal; to bum the unsuspecting consumer.

Incidentally my hope that the summer sun would herald the return of the young blonde minx in hot pants that used to deliver my junk mail has not come to fruition. Which leads me to believe that either a) It was the Hanson look-alike boy all along or b) she got scared off by me appearing at the lounge window every time she made her way up and down the street. Me being naked on every occasion probably didn’t help either.

What these ever present sales do make clear to me though, is just how overpriced the shit that we buy is. Just because a store is having a sale it doesn’t mean they’re not making a profit. If Rebel Sport can sell the same Adidas top at half price in their sale and still make a profit then why do we buy it the original price? Let’s not forget that those Nazis at Adidas have marked up the garment before selling it to Rebel too.

Maybe my Christmas angst comes from my childhood. My Christmas as a kid were fucked up. All I ever wanted were G.I.Joes. My letters to Santa were the shortest in history because I only ever wanted one thing. When I sat on his knee in malls I only ever asked for one thing. I didn’t actually ever want to sit on his knee, as he always seemed to have a roll of winegums in his pocket or something, but I did it whilst my mother watched because I wanted to make it absolutely clear to her that I only wanted one thing.

Needless to say I got everything but G.I.Joes. This was how my mother worked. It was some fucked up Mum joke that we unsuspecting kids never got. She would buy me and my sister a lot of stuff and to be fair, we always got a lot of stuff, but it was never what we asked for and it pissed us off! So that inevitably put us in the unenviable position of being ungrateful – which we were – for the shit we didn’t want. Mum would then take immense pleasure in telling anyone who would listen just how ungrateful her two kids were. Reverse, rhetorical, you’re-fucked-either-way psychology at its best. That's how my Mum rolled.

So lets not forget next year that Christmas is for the kids and not the retailers. I say buy only what your kids really want and left the rest. It’s a sad fact of life that our kids grow up way to fast into a world that exploits them way too soon anyway, so lets not fuck up Christmas.

P.S. Up yours Mum. I’m still bitter about it.